Frances Farmer — She Came and Got It (1937) 🇺🇸
Frances*Farmer admits the importance of fate in her career.
by William H. McKegg
“I think only one thing had to do with my entry into pictures — fate.”
Frances Farmer did not attempt to look mysterious as she said this in a casual way. Indeed, she is not exotic. As she spoke to me she remained indifferent to reportorial presence. Dressed in a blue serge tailored suit — which gave her very blond hair and hazel eyes a brighter glow — she appeared to be a very matter-of-fact young business woman.
Of course no business girl could have the glowing flame possessed by Miss Farmer beneath her icelike exterior. Occasionally, tones in her voice betray the fact that this newcomer is no vapid inconsequential.
Her excellent work in Come and Get It easily proved this. Negotiating a loan for her services from Paramount, Samuel Goldwyn evidently knew what he was doing. It was, however, Howard Hawks, the director, who was mainly responsible in suggesting her for the rôle of “Lotta.”
“Mr. Hawks had seen a test of mine,” Miss Farmer said. “At first, it was decided that I play the rôle of the millionaire’s daughter. However, I took a test for the other part and got it, too.”
Perhaps this was fate again. But I am dubious. Having been an admirer of the Farmer talent since her first appearance on the screen, I can only trace her lucky break to her own acting ability.
Miss Farmer is not unaware of her talent. She does not refer to it as something far beyond the average. She does not praise herself at all. Yet, all the same, you feel aware of her consciousness of her acting power.
The strangest fact is that she, a newcomer, has placed many a professional in a back seat. Her ability makes it seem that in her we find a personification of the girl of the new age into which we are entering.
Born in Seattle, Washington, Miss Farmer lived an ordinary existence. Her father, an attorney, evidently did not object to his daughter’s self-expression.
“I have been many things,” she told me. “An usher in a movie house; a waitress in a café; a teacher of backward students. Everything has helped me. Maybe not directly, but indirectly.”
A couple of years ago, Miss Farmer got a chance to go to Russia. A radical newspaper ran a contest. The one to get the greatest number of votes earned a trip to Europe and back.
“No, I’m not a radical insofar as I belong to any definite association,” my subject stated, when I asked if she had radical tendencies. “I feel that all the recent and present upheavals mean something for us all. Nothing new could occur without the pulling down of previous wrong beliefs. Our own country has undergone a revolution within the past four years, though few people seem to realize it. Of course it has been a bloodless revolution, bringing with it many new forms. People now have a keener idea of their own responsibility as citizens. They feel closer to their country’s ideals and progress.”
From this you can see that Miss Farmer is no soap-box orator. She is merely a girl of the new age, ready for the new existence that seems imminent.
To hear this calm newcomer talk of things not of Hollywood makes her one alone in all cinematic annals.
Frankly, she gives you the idea of being alone in most things. I thought more of this when she said, during her conversation, that few people knew one another.
“After all,” she remarked, “we are always alone — regardless of those who know us best.”
I quite agree that very few people, even intimates, could ever get to know this girl well. There is a masculine reticence in her manner that keeps her apart from the crowd, also apart from acquaintances.
Naturally, I suppose this does not go for her husband, Leif Erikson, that young blond giant in Paramount’s histrionic class. They were married a year ago last November. And once again, fate seemed to be the instigator.
The two of them met casually at the studio. Love seized them, for it has no regard for modern Russia or reticence.
“Naturally, I never expected to marry,” my reticent radical confessed. “I came to Hollywood for a career.”
Back in America, after her trip, Miss Farmer took a letter of introduction to a theatrical producer, Shepard Traube. Producer Traube took Miss Farmer to Paramount executives in New York, and a test was arranged.
Sent to Hollywood, she was placed in several inconsequential pictures, playing inconsequential parts. Yet to see her even in such light fare as Too Many Parents, Border Flight, and Rhythm on the Range, was to see obvious talent.
“I object to being called by my first name by people I’ve never met before,” Miss Farmer bluntly stated. “I don’t know what it does. It makes you feel rather as one without any individuality. Hollywood strikes me as peopled by a crowd individually undifferentiated.
“That is why, I believe, that so many blame Hollywood for their mistakes. Marriages are said to be spoiled by Hollywood. I fail to see why this should be so. If two people really and truly love one another, nothing should separate them — least of all the demands of the town they live in.
“I trust my marriage will be successful. We both act for a living, and because we love the work. It gives us many interests in common. I don’t see why such a profession should break up our home.”
This, of course, relies solely on the two blond lovers. Right at the present, the young wife is the celebrity. Her work in Come and Get It causes Paramount to regard her as star material. Hollywood has turned its eyes on her. So far, the young husband is virtually unknown. His work with little Virginia Weidler, in Girl of the Ozarks, proved that he has a likable personality, and the necessary ability to forge ahead in acting. His crooning in College Holiday was ingratiating.
His wife thinks so, anyway.
As to what the movie world thinks of Miss Farmer — well, ecstatic remarks seem tame. She admits that her rôle in the Edna Ferber story was the first good part to come her way. “And what an excellent part it was!” she adds.
It remains to be seen whether Hollywood will offer further prizes of this kind. The movie Mecca frequently sees young newcomers arrive, shouting high and mighty what they have to give. Frances Farmer let Hollywood do the shouting, for the cinema capital incessantly yells about its gifts to talented youth. Come and get it, says Hollywood to the striving aspirant.
Miss Farmer is here to get it — all that Hollywood has to offer. And she must see by reading this article that Hollywood has exceptions. Not once have I called her by her first name!
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Frances Farmer was first intended for only one rôle in Come and Get It, but her test was so successful that she played both mother and daughter. Her next is The Toast of New York, with Edward Arnold.
Leif Erikson is Miss Farmer’s handsome blond husband.
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After making a splendid come-back, Elissa Landi relaxes on the tennis courts.
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Ann Dvorak goes into a little off-stage dance during the filming of Midnight Court.
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, April 1937