RetroIndy: Frances Farmer made Indy her home

Indianapolis seems like an unlikely place for a Hollywood movie star to spend her remaining years, but by all accounts, Frances Farmer was just trying to put the remnants of her shaky and tumultuous life back together.

Seattle-born Farmer moved to New York with hopes of a stage career. On her 22nd birthday in 1935, she signed a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures and had a successful screen and stage career through the early 1940s.

Farmer was unstable. Her alcoholism and tempestuous behavior began to damage her reputation. She walked away from Hollywood in 1942 due to legal problems stemming from a traffic stop, an assault charge and erratic behavior during an arrest that landed her in a psychiatric ward in Los Angeles.

Farmer pulled herself together and returned to the stage. She was performing in a 1957 summer stock production of "Yes, My Darling Daughter" at the Avondale Playhouse when she was offered the job as hostess of a movie showcase to be called "Frances Farmer Presents" on WFBM-TV (now WRTV-6). Ironically at the same time, her final feature film, "The Party Crashers," opened at the Westlake drive-in theater. The show was a success. Farmer did research on the movies she presented, and she served as a gracious host to the stars that visited the studio when they came to Indianapolis.

Things were going well; she made public appearances and modeled jewelry at store openings. But it seemed her erratic behavior had returned. She was dismissed by the station's general manager in April 1964, hired back two months later, then fired again in late August 1964.

After her dismissal as movie hostess, Farmer found herself on the Purdue stage. Following a performance of Friedrich Durrenmatt's "The Visit" in 1965, Farmer was involved in an alcohol-related car accident. When confronted by the police, the actress opted to channel her character in the play. The officer was neither amused nor impressed, and Farmer was taken to jail. Upon her return to the stage the following evening, she was greeted with thunderous applause. Farmer was humbled and gratified and never took to the stage again.

Farmer and friend Jean Ratcliffe tried and failed at their business ventures, Greenbrier Interiors, Frances Farmer Studio and a line of beauty care products, the latter of which involved a man who embezzled their investment.

Frances Farmer died at the age of 56 on Aug. 1, 1970, after a battle with esophageal cancer and is entombed at Oak Lawn Memorial Gardens in Fishers, Our Lady of Miraculous Medal Chapel mausoleum, first level.

Call Star producer Dawn Mitchell at (317) 444-6497. Follow her on Twitter: @dawn_mitchell61.