Background

Mia Farrow, original name Maria de Lourdes Villiers Farrow, was born on February 9, 1945 in Los Angeles, California, United States. Farrow was one of seven children of director and writer John Villiers Farrow and actress Maureen O'Sullivan. Her godparents were director George Cukor and columnist Louella Parsons. Her sister Prudence inspired John Lennon to write the song "Dear Prudence". At age nine she contracted polio and was kept in isolation while she recovered. Farrow was raised in Beverly Hills, California in a strict Roman Catholic household. She was described by her family as an eccentric and imaginative child, and would occasionally put on performances with "toy daggers and fake blood" for passing celebrity tour buses. Four years later her 19-year-old brother died in a plane crash.

Education

Both of Farrow's parents were from Catholic families. She was raised as a Roman Catholic. Moving towards her education, she obtained her primary level education and high school education at a Catholic convent by nuns.

Career

Farrow had a minor role in her father’s film John Paul Jones (1959). When her father died of a heart attack in 1963, her mother promptly moved the family to New York City, where Mia landed the role of Cecily in an Off-Broadway production of The Importance of Being Earnest. From 1964 to 1966 she starred as Allison MacKenzie in the popular prime time television drama Peyton Place. She was married briefly to singer Frank Sinatra from 1966 to 1968, who divorced her while she was in the process of making her breakout film, the Roman Polanski thriller Rosemary’s Baby (1968). In that film she played Rosemary Woodhouse, a young newlywed living in New York City who becomes increasingly paranoid that her husband and peculiar neighbours are harbouring Satanic plans for her unborn child.

In 1971 Farrow married composer and pianist André Previn, with whom she adopted three Vietnamese girls and had three biological children (all boys). During that time, Farrow acted in a few movies, including as Daisy Buchanan opposite Robert Redford (as Jay Gatsby) in the 1974 film The Great Gatsby. Farrow and Previn divorced in 1979.

Farrow began dating director Woody Allen in 1980. Though they never married, Farrow and Allen adopted two more children (Dylan and Moses) and had a biological child (Satchel, later called Ronan) in 1987. All told, Farrow acted in 13 of Allen’s productions, about one film a year while they were together. They include A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy (1982), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Radio Days (1987), and Husbands and Wives (1992). In 1992, however, Farrow discovered that Allen had been having an affair with her then 19-year-old adopted daughter Soon-Yi (whom he married in 1997). The couple’s relationship imploded, and a nasty custody battle ensued as well as an investigation into sexual abuse allegations brought by their young daughter Dylan against Allen. The allegations were found to be inconclusive, but Farrow won custody of their children and went on to adopt six more on her own between 1992 and 1995. She published a memoir, What Falls Away, in 1997.

Farrow continued to act on occasion, mostly in made-for-television movies, but turned her focus to raising her large family (14 children in all) and to humanitarian efforts. She became a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF in 2000. She traveled (often with her son Ronan) on numerous missions to Africa and was particularly outspoken regarding the crisis in Darfur, even going on a highly publicized 12-day hunger strike in 2009. Despite her shift in focus toward social justice and activism, Farrow continued to publicly comment on her relationship with Allen, their children, and the sexual abuse allegations.

Achievements

• 

  Farrow has appeared in more than 50 films and won numerous awards, including a Golden Globe Award and three BAFTA Award nominations. Farrow is also known for her extensive work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, which includes humanitarian activities in Darfur, Chad, and the Central African Republic. In 2008, Time magazine named her one of the most influential people in the world.

Works

More photos

• book

  • What Falls Away

    (In an exquisitely written memoir, Mia Farrow introduces u...)

    1997

• movie

  • The Great Gatsby 1974
  • Guns At Batasi 1964
  • Rosemary's Baby 1968
  • Secret Ceremony 1968
  • A Dandy In Aspic 1968
  • Alice 1990
  • Zelig 1983
  • Watch Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy 1982

Religion

Though she has been critical of the Roman Catholic Church (such as for the Pope's failure to intervene in the genocide in Rwanda, a predominantly Catholic country), Farrow is a devout Catholic and maintained in a 2013 interview with Piers Morgan that she had not "lost her faith in God".

Politics

Farrow has stated that she has long been a registered Independent, though she has consistently voted for Democratic candidates. In the 2016 Democratic presidential election, Farrow publicly endorsed Democratic Party candidate Bernie Sanders, though she subsequently stated that "as a pragmatist" she planned to vote for Hillary Clinton.

Views

Mia Farrow presents a great deal of altruism and concern on world humanitarian issues especially those connected with well being of children.

Quotations: "I knew since polio that I had to make a contribution to others in order to feel any measure of real happiness. I was very fortunate early in my life, in television and in movies. I had every kind of success by the time I was 21. And I was miserable. I knew I wanted to do something beyond myself."

Membership

Working closely with Darfurian and Sudanese refugees, Farrow co-founded the Olympic Dream for Darfur campaign which drew attention to China's support for the government of Sudan. She also helped bring the tragedies of Darfur to worldwide attention with her documentary Darfur: On Our Watch and by protesting in many forms in unity with the Sudanese and Darfurian people. She continues to work to stop the atrocities in Darfur and Sudan, today.

• 

  Darfur Women Action Group , United States

Personality

Farrow is friendly to her neighbours, and spends her time reading in her cavernous library, playing with her grandchildren and developing photographs in her darkroom. Around her neck she wears an opaque amulet, given to her by a villager from Darfur for protection against evil spirits and bad luck.

Physical Characteristics: Farrow's height is 162.6 centimeters and weight is 49.5. In a New York Times 1971 interview, it was mentioned: "She stands now, 5 feet 4 inches tall". In 2009 she mentioned her weight, saying "Normally I weigh 109 [pounds]". At nine years old, she contracted polio during an outbreak in Los Angeles County, but she managed to recover.

Quotes from others about the person

• Gaby Wood, the head of books at The Telegraph: "I spoke to Polanski about her and he said that he imagined casting someone less frail as Rosemary, but that she turned out to be very tough personally - except when served divorce papers by Sinatra, then she crumbled."

Interests

• photography, Transcendental Meditation, reading, mind wandering, listening to music and certain people

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

• Politicians

  Bernie Sanders

• Artists

  Salvador Dali

Connections

Farrow was only 19 when, shortly after, she wooed Frank Sinatra, then 48, when the pair crossed paths on a television set. Sinatra flew Farrow on his private jet to Palm Springs for the weekend and a year later they were married. The unlikely pairing didn’t go down well: the couple became the butt of jokes by the comedian Jackie Mason (who stopped after three bullets were fired through his hotel room door), while others mocked Sinatra’s latest choice of wife. “I remember his ex-wife Ava Gardner snorting with laughter because of Mia’s masculine haircut and saying: 'I always knew he would end up with a boy,’” recalls Thornton. In 1968, Farrow’s career took off when she was asked to play the lead in the Roman Polanski horror film Rosemary’s Baby. It marked the end of her marriage to Sinatra - he served her divorce papers on the set.

On her return from an ashram in India, where she meditated with The Beatles, she met André Previn, the German-Austrian pianist, whom she married in 1970. It was with Previn that Farrow started her large family: in 1973 and 1976, they adopted three orphans from Vietnam - Lark Song, Summer Daisy Song and Soon-Yi - and had three children of their own - twins Matthew and Sascha, and Fletcher. The couple divorced in 1979 and a year later, Farrow started dating Woody Allen, with whom she adopted two more children, Moses and Dylan. Ronan (christened Satchel) was born in 1987.

Commitment was not a word that could be applied to Farrow’s 12-year relationship with Allen, which was so dysfunctional that the pair lived on opposite sides of New York’s Central Park. On the surface, their life together seemed impossibly glamorous; but privately, Farrow claimed he insulted her, refused to sleep with her and sent her into “genuine meltdown”.

The balance was tipped in 1992, when Farrow discovered explicit photographs of her adopted daughter Soon-Yi on the mantelpiece and Allen admitted they had been having an affair (they are now married).

Farrow, who adopted six more children between 1992 and 1995, remained in touch with Sinatra until his death in 1998 - during the Allen saga, he offered to send Mafia associates to break Allen’s legs. In a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, Farrow stated Ronan could "possibly" be the biological child of Frank Sinatra, with whom she claimed to have "never really split up".

Father:

John Villiers Farrow

Mother:

Maureen O'Sullivan

Daughter:

Lark Previn

Daughter:

Summer "Daisy" Previn

Son:

Sascha Previn

Daughter:

Tam Farrow

Son:

Thaddeus Farrow

Daughter:

Frankie-Minh Farrow

Son:

Isaiah Farrow

Son:

Matthew Previn

Daughter:

Kaeli-Shea "Quincy" Farrow

Daughter:

Soon-Yi Previn

Son:

Fletcher Previn

Son:

Moses Farrow

Daughter:

Dylan Farrow

Son:

Ronan Farrow

Sister:

Prudence Anne Villiers Farrow Bruns

Prudence Anne Villiers Farrow Bruns is the subject of the Beatles song "Dear Prudence".

husband:

Frank Sinatra

husband:

André Previn

colleague:

Roman Polanski

Partner:

Woody Allen

References

• Contemporary Authors, Vol. 166 This volume of Contemporary Authors contains biographical information on approximately 300 modern writers.
  1998
• The Woody Allen Encyclopedia For more than five decades, Woody Allen has been one of the most critically acclaimed talents in American cinema. Allen has been nominated for best director seven times by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - winning for his 1977 film Annie Hall - and he has received more Oscar nominations for best screenplay than any other individual.
  2018
• Focus On: 100 Most Popular American Human Rights Activists The Focus On books are made out of collections of Wikipedia articles regrouping the most informative and popular articles about a specific subject. The Focus On books are a result of a substantial editorial work of selecting and grouping relevant articles together in order to create a valuable source of information about specific subjects
  2018
• People Weekly Magazine First issue of the magazine Vol. 1, No. 1. March 4, 1974 (Mia Farrow "Gatsby" cover).
  1974
• Mia & Woody: Love and Betrayal An insider's look at the lives and relationship of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow discusses the unraveling of the famed couple.
  1994