the lobotomy happened in the real story?
I just want to know, because some people say that the lobotomy part was made-up to the movie.
shareNo answers are necessary now. I just came from Frances Farmer board and there was a post that explained everything.
The lobotomy part is really a fake.
I don't think so! Why would a woman who had so couragesly spoken her mind and stuck up for what she believed in suddenly shut up? It doesn't make sense. Nevertheless the part about the cruelty in the mental institutions is true. And I believe the lobotomy part is too. Who knows?
shareStormey - She didn't shut up! They gave her a TV spot introducing old movies on a Indianopolis TV station and the people there said she would be rip-roaring drunk and cuss out everyone in sight every day they worked for her. This was long after her last hospital stay.
In her Bio she said the most peculiar thing about her mother's people. Her grandfather hated God and he taught his children to hate God. Frances' mother was one of his children. Frances said her grandfather would stand out in the middle of the road drunk and cursing God and daring God to strike him dead for his blasphemy, Then when God didn't strike him dead he'd walk around like a proud rooster declaring himself to be God. He would take his children to church and start cussing and walking round the church blaspheming till everyone, including the peacher, would leave! That mother of Frances' had been warped. I think that old woman was insane!
shel
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That's right and make sense. That means, if she was lobotomized, she wouldn't had capacity to manage a TV show and write a an autobiography.
shareZim - (hey are you a dylan fan) I think she could have still written the bio. Afterall she had the mental capacity to handle a job. A lobotomy dulls the senses and makes you kind of limp inside. You lose your memory to a point, In her book she said her mother had kept every one of the news clipping ever put in the paper about Frances in a photo album. Frances found this photo album and stuff started coming back to her, I suppose. There about a five year span of her incarceration that he could not recall and she said so.
shel
That's a good point, but what can be explained about the TV show? That means, lobotomized people wouldn't have capacity to manage a TV show... or can I wrong?
shareHi Zim!
Frances had a show they called "Frances Farmer Presents" All she had to do in this show was come to work .. sober, get in the make-up chair and talk a little about the film they were playing that day, like between commercials. I think she must have conducted a few interviews because the guy she married when she was young, this Leif Erickson guy, was a guest that she interviewed. Frances never actually "managed" the show as producer or anything. All she had to do was manage herself. (as in getting out of bed in the morning and not showing up for work completely plastered.) Needless to say, she probably didn't write her own scrips. Actually, her only job was to show up on time, stay sober, look pretty and try not to flub her lines .
shel
Zim - I never believed that Frances ever had a lobotomy. If she had, she wouldn't have been acting like a maniac most of the time. Lobotomy slows the senses to the point of half-dead. She probably would have just sat in a chair staring at a TV for the rest of her life ...
The movie was a travesty. Hollywood sweetens up the bitter seeds of it's sub-human underbelly so that real biographies of people who were royally screwed by the studios become more palatable. And as we know, Hollywood will go to any length possible to hide its own ass!
HOLLYWOODLAND
Zim - I never believed that Frances ever had a lobotomy. If she had, she wouldn't have been acting like a maniac most of the time. Lobotomy slows the senses to the point of half-dead. She probably would have just sat in a chair staring at a TV for the rest of her life ...
The movie was a travesty. Hollywood sweetens up the bitter seeds of it's sub-human underbelly so that real biographies of people who were royally screwed by the studios become more palatable. And as we know, Hollywood will go to any length possible to hide its own ass!
HOLLYWOODLAND
Thanks. I think I will not watch this movie since that I read some summaries... and all them said how the movie was disturbing and depressive.
shareZim - The movie's good! Just don't look at it from a historically accurate point of view. It's only about an hour and fifty minutes long. Jessica Lange gives us a wonderful performance and also Kim Stanley as her mother is fabulous! Ironially, it was Kim Stanley who was the actual "rich actress" who took over Frances Farmer's place in Odet's play "Golden Boy" when they deicided to take the show to England. Apparently this created a definate downward spiral in Frances' life and helped to ultimately landed her in the clink. I guess Miss Stanley still harbored a little guilt over her small role in Frances' troubles and wanted to somehow be part of the film.. maybe
shel
Mr. Chinaman (if I may be so bold, LOL), I don't know where you're getting your information, but you need to check your facts more carefully. Kim Stanley had nothing to do with the original production of "Golden Boy." Kim Stanley was born in 1925 (which you can look up right here on the good ol' IMDb!) and would have been all of 13 when the London production of "Golden Boy" opened in 1938. It *is* true that Kim worked with a great many of former Group Theatre members, most notably Harold Clurman (who was Frances' post-Odets lover and lived with her in Santa Monica circa 1940-41), who directed Kim in her acclaimed Broadway performance in "Bus Stop."
shareYou are misinformed about "Frances Farmer Presents." Frances did indeed write all of her own scripts (I have several of them with her handwritten notes off to the side of her typed scripts). And she did far more than a "few" interviews--she did in-depth interviews with literally every visiting celebrity who came to Indianapolis between 1958 and 1964, people as diverse as Mitch Miller and the President of Purdue University, and her interviews are very incisive and personable. She was also a frequent celebrity interviewer for the evening news at WFBM, and was WFBM's major celebrity at such events as the Indianapolis 500.
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I certainly don't think I've treated anyone like fools--I've received numerous private messages from people here at IMDb thanking me for my posts setting the record straight about Frances. When I point out errors of fact you've made, if it makes you feel foolish, I'm sorry, but that's not my intent: my intent has always been to get the truth out about this very misunderstood and brilliant person. I do get tired of people (not necessarily you) posting "facts" about Frances that are completely false.
To answer your questions, however: Lillian Emerson (a Bromo-Seltzer heir, and if that doesn't make you laugh, nothing will) played Lorna in the London run.
And Clifford Odets' wife was Luise Rainer, the two-time Academy Award Winner ("Great Zeigfeld" and "The Good Earth").
Fanny was indeed lobotomized.
http://www.lobotomy.info/adventures.html
scroll down about 2/3 or do a xtrl+f to find her...
The site you reference simply reprints misinformation from the Scientology site and David Shutte's book which has been thoroughly discredited (at least insofar as it pertains to Frances). If you take the time to read "Shedding Light on Shadowland," you'll find all of the allegations disproven, I think conclusively. As I've stated manifold times, Washington Post writer Jack El-Hai, who has written the first authoritative biography of Freeman, had access to all of Freeman's private patient records, and Frances is NOT among them. I personally have in my possession records of ALL lobotomies done at Western State when Frances was hospitalized there, and, again, Frances is NOT among them. I also have fairly complete records of all treatments Frances was subjected to, and a complete list of all surgeries of any kind performed at Western State from 1944-1950 (actually more than that, but those are the years involving Frances). Frances never had surgery of any kind, let alone a lobotomy.
shareInteresting. How did you come into possession of "ALL lobotomies done at Western State when Frances was hospitalized there..."
Are you a reporter or did you work there?
/not being crass
//genuinely curious
I am not a professional reporter (nor do I play one on tv, LOL), but I gained access to Western State's lobotomy archives, which are quite complete and equally chilling. Every single person lobotomized is listed. Someone actually went through in the 1970s and prepared matrices on all the patients, describing what had happened to them. And Freeman himself did major write-ups on the first 13 he did when he was training the Western State physicians to perform the operation.
sharecinemajay, if you are not an idiot, you'll do until one comes along. That "site" which alledges to be factual is about as based in reality as a Grimm Brothers fairy tales collection is. There is no evidence, nor is their any reason to believe, that FF ever had a lobotomy. There was no lobotomy, no Harry York, no gang rapes in real life. There was however a hack job book that became a hack job movie about a woman who could not defend herself, as she was dead! I think I speak for many when we say that their should be a new movie about Frances, but accurate this time! "Frances was indeed lobotomized" I take it back cinemajay, you are an idiot!
shareMichael, I applaud your efforts to stand up for the truth, but I for one wish those of us who know the truth would switch our tactics from defending a negative (i.e., "There is no evidence that FF ever had a lobotomy") to the positive that my web article supports in abundance {IMHO, of course :} ], i.e., "There is evidence proving Frances never had a lobotomy," e.g., the records I cite repeatedly in "Shedding Light on Shadowland." As I describe, complete records of all lobotomies at Western State show conclusively that Frances never had one, and indeed surgical records show she never had so much as a hangnail removed, let alone such an invasive procedure. The most salient part of my research, which seems to fly by so many peoples' heads (which truly astounds me) is the court records of Arnold v. Brooksfilms, which I also cite in my article, where Arnold himself admits quite freely that he "fictionalized" the lobotomy (as well as a host of other "details" in his book).
The website alluded to above by cinemajay simply repeats verbiage from the Scientology website, as I have pointed out previously.
I would like to alert anyone interested in the history of lobotomy to tune into NPR's All Things Considered next Wednesday, November 16, for a riveting documentary for which I provided source material. Entitled "My Lobotomy," the documentary is the heart-wrenching first hand account of a man, now in his 50s, who was only 12 when Walter Freeman lobotomized him in 1960. There is also a feature article on this brave gentleman in this week's People Magazine (Ellen DeGeneres cover). I am proud to have provided a lot of data to the producers on the Western State lobotomies, and I believe it is due in some small measure to my efforts that neither the broadcast nor the People magazine re-propagate the falsehood about Frances having been subjected to this hideous procedure.
"Shedding Light on Shadowland" has had some recent updates, including the addition of several rare photos. The URL is:
http://hometown.aol.com/jmkauffman/sheddinglight.html
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Yes, sadly I've met several people who had them--all pre-frontal, though, not transorbital. There was the son of a woman who played Bridge with my mom when I was growing up who had been given one in the early 50s and it left him mostly a drooling vegetable. He would not initiate conversation or indeed any activity, and would answer in monosyllables if asked anything. He also had some motor impairment from the operation--I remember one of his feet dragged behind the other when he walked. My sister actually worked at Western State's "sister" hospital outside of Spokane, Medicine Lake, and there were several people there who had been given them. They were all pretty bad cases, one extremely large (like 300 lbs. plus) woman I still remember my sister warning me to stay away from because she tended to punch people. I was about 10 or so at the time--my sister took me to work with her for a day, don't ask me why, I can't remember the circumstances--but I'll never forget the experience. That's why I have *never* contended that Frances' time in a state institution was a "picnic"--it must have been a spirit-deadening, horrible experience. But that of course does not mean she was raped, gnawed on by rats, or given a lobotomy. :)
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Prefrontal lobotomies were developed first. They would literally drill through the skull, expose the brain and cut the frontal lobes. The transorbital "refined" that technique to have the icepick like device inserted through the eye socket up into the brain. Standard prefrontal patients had very bad scars on the sides of their heads--like Randall in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."
shareHey if it didn't happen then fine, whatever. As far as being an idiot Mike I'd say I make my share of mistakes but I don't go around posting personal insults to people for no reason. THAT my friend is idiotic and abusive. You're begging to get banned.
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In both the pre-frontal and transorbital lobotomies, the lobes are severed, not removed. There actually is *another* operation (believe it or not), called the lobectomy, which does remove the lobes, but that is for neurological disorders, not mental illness (things like Parkinson's, in other words). I don't know the history of the 300 lb. woman, I just remember my sister warning me to steer clear of her. I was only 10 or so at the time, not really in a position to "think" about things--I just new the institution was not a place I liked, to say the least. And, yes, head injuries can induce radical behavioral changes. Do a Google on "Phineas Gage," a 19th century man who, in a horrifying accident, got a spike through his head. It was the behavior changes in Phineas that first got doctors thinking about brain surgery as a "remedy" for certain kinds of behavior. Phineas' story has been told in many documentaries, as well.
shareI was a patient in the old Hudson River State Hospital in Poughkeepsie NY during all of 1964. This hospital had just stopped performing lobotomies when I arrived there. I was transferred to there after refusing ECT (shock) treatments at a private hospital upstate. Many years later, I received the ECT therapy for severe depression and I truly believe that they helped lift it.
I'd like to tell you that these institutions really were not as cruel as they're portrayed. Most of the staff were dedicated to helping the patients as best they could, and it's important to remember that at that point in time they had very primitive drugs and methods to work with. There were, at times a few staff members who treated the patients badly, but it was my opinion that these people were frightened of us patients. I believe that they saw something in us that they also saw in themselves.
It's wonderful that mental health treatment has come such a long way since those days. I've been in my recovery for quite a while now, and I've been trained by our State and have been hired to assist in the treatment of patients who suffer from mental illnesses. They nowadays very highly value "learned experience " as another factor in the path to recovery. We are called Peer Specialists! It's been a very successful program. The patients are now "running the asylum "...lol.