John Farrow
John Villiers Farrow, KGCHS was an Australian film director, producer, and screenwriter. Spending a considerable amount of his career in the United States, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director in 1942 for Wake Island, and in 1957, he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Around the World in Eighty Days. He had seven children by his wife, actress Maureen O'Sullivan, including actress Mia Farrow.
Early life
Farrow was born in Marrickville, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, the son of Lucy Villiers, a dressmaker, and Joseph Farrow, a tailor's trimmer. His parents were both of English descent. Farrow was educated at Newtown Public School and Fort Street Boys' High School, and then started a career in accountancy.He claimed to have run away to sea in an American barquentine, sailed "all over the Pacific", and fought in revolts in Nicaragua and Mexico. Reaching California, he enrolled at St. Ignatius College in 1923, but left after one month.
He travelled throughout the Pacific, including Fiji, Hawaii, and Guam. On arrival in Hollywood, Farrow fabricated his education, saying he had attended Newington College in Sydney, Australia, Winchester College in England, and the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Many publications and websites still contain this misinformation.
Writer
Farrow started writing while working as a sailor, and became interested in screenwriting after a chance voyage in the South Seas with the filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty. Re-entering the United States, allegedly by jumping ship at San Francisco, he found his way to Hollywood, where from 1927, his nautical expertise brought him work as a script consultant and technical adviser. He had already earned minor recognition as a poet and writer of short stories. Some of his stories were sold to Hollywood.He soon established himself as a notable screenwriter. He worked for DeMille Productions, doing titles for White Gold and The Wreck of the Hesperus.
He adapted Richard Connell's 1923 short story "A Friend of Napoleon", but it does not appear to have been made. He also wrote the original story for The Blue Danube and the script for The Bride of the Colorado, both of which were released in 1928. At Warner Bros., he wrote A Sailor's Sweetheart for director Lloyd Bacon.
Farrow wrote the screenplays for Three Weekends, The Woman from Moscow, The First Kiss, Ladies of the Mob, The Showdown, The Four Feathers, The Wheel of Life, A Dangerous Woman, Wolf Song, The Bad One, Shadow of the Law and Seven Days' Leave.
Britain
Farrow wrote an English-French-Tahitian dictionary, as well as a novel, Laughter Ends. In 1932, he went to England, where he wrote The Impassive Footman for Basil Dean. He worked as a writer and assistant director on G. W. Pabst's film Don Quixote, and briefly visited Tahiti again.Return to Hollywood and arrest
Farrow returned to Hollywood and re-established himself as a screenwriter. On 27 January 1933, while dancing at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, he was arrested for breach of his visa, as part of a general crackdown against illegal immigrants in the film industry. Farrow was charged with making a false statement while entering the US, having claimed he was Romanian. Although threatened with deportation, eventually he was given five years' probation, before being acquitted of the charges the following year.At MGM, Farrow wrote Last of the Pagans, partly set in Tahiti, and directed a short, "The Spectacle Maker". He received a plum appointment to work on Tarzan Escapes, but the film was subsequently rewritten and reshot.
Film director
Warner Bros.
In 1930, Farrow was announced as directing his own story, First Love, but this did not materialise. He signed to Warner Bros. in 1936, looking to direct, and was linked with a number of projects, including a Foreign Legion story and an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's 1842 short story "The Pit and the Pendulum". Farrow finally made his directorial debut in 1937 with Men in Exile, a remake of Safe in Hell.Following this, he accompanied his wife, Maureen O'Sullivan, to Europe, where she was making A Yank at Oxford, lectured on Father Damien, about whom Farrow had written a book, and received a papal knighthood.
On his return to Hollywood, Farrow resumed working as a B-picture director for Warner Bros., with West of Shanghai with Boris Karloff and She Loved a Fireman with Dick Foran and Ann Sheridan. He was reunited with Karloff in The Invisible Menace, then made Little Miss Thoroughbred with John Litel and Sheridan, the first film for Peggy Ann Garner.
Farrow left his contract for a number of months, ostensibly to finish a book he was writing on the history of the papacy, and also due to disputes over the script for his next film, another starring Kay Francis, Women in the Wind.
RKO
Farrow re-emerged as a contract director for RKO, directing the highly profitable The Saint Strikes Back, the second in the "Saint" series and the first to star George Sanders in the lead. He followed it with Sorority House, from a script by Dalton Trumbo and produced by Robert Sisk. RKO then announced Farrow would direct a film version of the director's book Damien the Leper produced by Sisk and starring Joseph Calleia, but it was never made."I deliberately set out to become the damnedest commercial director in the business", he said later. "The only way to get anywhere in Hollywood is to make money pictures. Then, you can get some measure of respect and authority from the studio bosses, and little by little you get to do more of the things you want to do."
War service
Despite his flourishing career and recently having become a father for the first time, Farrow was keen to be involved in World War II. He went to Vancouver in November 1939 and enlisted in the Royal Canadian Navy. He went back to RKO to finish Bill of Divorcement, then joined the navy. RKO promised to hold his job when he returned.Farrow was appointed lieutenant in March 1940, and was assigned to Naval History and the Controller of Information unit. He worked on antisubmarine patrols, and in April 1941, was lrnt to the Royal Navy and appointed to HMS Goshawk naval base in Trinidad, and served as assistant to the Senior British Naval Officer, Curaçao. He contracted typhus fever and returned to Naval Headquarters, Ottawa, in late 1941.
He was to direct a Canadian war film starring his wife, Maureen O'Sullivan, while on leave, but this did not happen.
Farrow was invalided out of the Royal Canadian Navy with typhus in January 1942 at the rank of commander, but remained in the naval reserve. He was gravely ill when he returned, but was nursed back to health by his wife. His illness meant he was unable to return to active service.
Paramount
Farrow resumed his directing career at Paramount, whose head of production, Buddy de Sylva, had been impressed by Five Came Back and offered Farrow a contract. For the first time, Farrow was directing nothing but A movies. The association began brilliantly with Wake Island, which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Director, and was one of the year's biggest hits.Farrow followed it with another war film shot in Canada for Columbia, Commandos Strike at Dawn, which also proved popular. China, with Alan Ladd and Loretta Young, was another big hit.
In February 1943, Farrow signed a long-term contract with Paramount. In July 1943, he served as technical consultant for the proposed Royal Canadian Navy show. He directed The Hitler Gang, Two Years Before the Mast with Ladd, and You Came Along, from a script co-written by Ayn Rand.
In May 1945, Farrow was briefly recalled to active duty, travelling to Britain for work in connection with the director of special services. Shortly after, he made Calcutta with Ladd, though it was not released until two years later, to strong box-office receipts.
Two Years Before the Mast, released in 1946, became the tenth-most popular movie of the year. In 1946, Farrow was reportedly writing a biography of Junípero Serra, but it appears to have never been made.
Farrow became an American citizen in July 1947.
Film noir and westerns
In 1947, Farrow made one of his most highly regarded films, the noir The Big Clock with Ray Milland and O'Sullivan. He was reunited with Ladd for a military drama, Beyond Glory, then returned to noir with Night Has a Thousand Eyes, starring Edward G. Robinson from a Cornell Woolrich novel, and Alias Nick Beal, with Milland.Back at Paramount, he made Submarine Command with William Holden. He wound up his contract with a final movie with Ladd, Botany Bay, a half-successful attempt to repeat Two Years Before the Mast. It was one of his few movies to have a connection to his native Australia.
Freelancer
Farrow directed Robert Taylor and Ava Gardner in the MGM Western, Ride, Vaquero!, which was a hit. He made two produced by John Wayne for Wayne's company, Batjac: Plunder of the Sun, an adventure story with Glenn Ford, and Hondo with Wayne, from a story by Louis L'Amour; the latter especially was popular at the box office.Farrow was the original director of Around the World in 80 Days, but was fired by producer Michael Todd shortly after filming commenced, but Farrow remained credited for his contribution to the screenplay, which won an Oscar in 1956.