Frances Farmer, The Famous Dead Celebrity Who Wound Up In A Mental Institution
Wikimedia CommonsFamous dead celebrity Frances Farmer spent years in a mental institution before dying in 1970.
Frances Farmer was a rising star with an impressive roster of film credits when she was committed to a mental institution in 1942. But before the actress died there tragically, she starred alongside big acts like Bing Crosby and Cary Grant.
Her love of the theater didn’t make up for the insatiable pull of Hollywood, which enticed her to drink heavily, to do heavy drugs, and to finally be arrested and forcibly admitted to a mental institution.
The Seattle-born actress first ventured into the entertainment industry when she moved to New York at 22 years old. She wished to pursue stage acting but signed a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures to star in their films. Soon, however, the pressures of Hollywood took hold of her.
On Oct. 19, 1942, having just gone through a painful divorce with her first husband, police arrested Farmer for driving drunk with her car’s headlights on during a wartime blackout. She skipped paying her $500 penalty and evaded future warrants, which led to her dramatic arrest a year later.
Wikimedia CommonsFamous dead celebrity Frances Farmer (second from right) on the cover of Stage magazine.
According to Evening Independent, Farmer “floored a matron, bruised an officer, and suffered some rufflement on her own part” when police refused to let her use a telephone after her sentencing. Asylum matrons then removed Farmer’s shoes as they carried her off to her cell in order to prevent injury as she kicked them.
Instead of prison time, the actress was sent to California’s Kimball Sanitarium, where she spent nine months. Farmer’s behavior seemed so destructive there that the judge granted her mother, Lillian, guardianship.
Farmer spent most of her time in and out of mental institutions in the following decade. These specialized hospitals referred to then as “mental asylums,” were notorious for their mistreatment of patients, which was largely driven by the stigmatization and misunderstanding of mental illnesses at the time.
Wikimedia CommonsOne of multiple highly-publicized photos of Farmer’s dramatic 1943 arrest.
In her posthumously published autobiography Will There Really Be A Morning?, the famous dead celebrity wrote that she was “raped by orderlies, gnawed on by rats and poisoned by tainted food… chained in padded cells, strapped into straitjackets and half-drowned in ice baths.” Another unauthorized book claimed that she also endured a lobotomy.
People challenged the book’s authenticity, however, even though the abuses described in the book mirror the violent mistreatment commonly described by former patients of these hospitals.
Following her release from Western State Hospital in 1950, the actress successfully removed her mother’s guardianship over her. Seven years later, she moved to San Francisco in the hopes of reigniting her career in theater.
Farmer, in her own words, had finally “come out of all this a stronger person. I won the fight to control myself.” Sadly, the actress still struggled with alcohol abuse. Her employers fired her after a couple of DUI citations and a drunk on-camera appearance during one of her work engagements.
Frances Farmer’s last performances were in a series of small theater productions at Purdue University, where she served as an actress-in-residence. She died of esophageal cancer in August 1970 at the age of 57.
While she lived a little longer than other famous dead people on this list, Farmer’s years of struggle shortened the happier moments in her life. Indeed, her tumultuous life and untimely passing are but one tragedy that has marred Hollywood, which is a dazzling utopia buoyed on the bodies of famous dead celebrities.
Now that you’ve learned the true stories behind Hollywood’s most famous dead people, read about the shocking life and death of rock ‘n’ roller Bobby Fuller. Then, read all about the 10 icons of the 27 Club, whose deaths are still haunting today.
