MIA FARROW Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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MIA FARROW

Name: Maria de Lourdes Villiers-Farrow                                                 
Born: 9 February 1945 Los Angeles, California, U.S.                                     
                                                                                       
                                                                                       
Maria "Mia" de Lourdes Villiers-Farrow (born February 9, 1945) is an American           
actress. Farrow has appeared in more than forty films and won numerous awards,         
including a Golden Globe award (and seven additional Golden Globe nominations),         
three BAFTA Film Award nominations, and a win for best actress at the San               
Sebastian International Film Festival. Farrow is also notable for her                   
extensive humanitarian work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. Her latest effort         
is www.miafarrow.org containing a guide on how to get involved with Darfur             
activism, along with her photos and blog entries from Darfur, Chad, and the             
Central African Republic.                                                               
                                                                                       
Farrow was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Australian film             
director John Farrow and Irish actress Maureen O'Sullivan. Both parents were           
practicing Catholics and Farrow had a Catholic upbringing. For the most                 
part she grew up in Beverly Hills in Southern California, and often traveled           
with her parents for films that were produced on location. She made her film           
debut in a 1947 short subject with her mother; the short was about famous               
mothers and their children modeling the latest fashions for families. In the           
1950s, she appeared in the Cold War educational film, Duck and Cover.                   
                                                                                       
Farrow screen-tested for the role of Liesl Von Trapp in The Sound of Music. That       
footage has been preserved, and appears on the fortieth Anniversary Edition DVD         
of The Sound of Music. Farrow began her acting career by appearing in supporting       
roles in several 1960s films. However, she achieved stardom on the popular             
primetime soap opera Peyton Place as naive, waif-like Allison Mackenzie, a role         
she later abandoned at the urging of husband Frank Sinatra. Her first leading           
film role was in 1968's Rosemary's Baby, which was a major critical and                 
commercial success at the time and continues to be widely regarded as a classic         
of the horror genre.                                                                   
                                                                                       
Farrow's performance in Rosemary's Baby garnered numerous awards, including the         
Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actress, and established her as a         
leading actress. Film critic and author Stephen Farber described her performance       
as having an "electrifying impact… one of the rare instances of actor and             
character achieving a miraculous, almost mythical match. If Ira Levin's story           
shrewdly taps into every pregnant woman's fears about the stranger growing             
inside her, Mia Farrow gives those fears an achingly real and human force".             
Film critic Roger Ebert noted that "the brilliance of the film comes more from         
Polanski's direction, and from a series of genuinely inspired performances… The       
characters emerge as human beings actually doing these things. A great deal of         
the credit for this achievement must go to Mia Farrow, as Rosemary".                   
Following Rosemary's Baby, Farrow starred in Secret Ceremony, opposite Elizabeth       
Taylor. The film divided critics, but has gone on to develop a devoted following.       
Farrow's other late '60s films include John and Mary, opposite Dustin Hoffman.         
                                                                                       
In the 1970s, Farrow appeared in a number of notable films, including the 1971         
thriller See No Evil, legendary French director Claude Chabrol's 1972 film             
Docteur Popaul, and the 1974 version of The Great Gatsby, in which Farrow played       
"Daisy Buchanan". She also appeared in director Robert Altman's cult classic A         
Wedding in 1978. Farrow also appeared in a number of made for television films         
in the 1970s, most notably portraying the title role in a 1976 musical version         
of Peter Pan. In 1979, Farrow appeared on Broadway opposite Anthony Perkins in         
the play Romantic Comedy by Bernard Slade.                                             
                                                                                       
In the 1980s and early '90s, Farrow's relationship with director Woody Allen           
resulted in numerous film collaborations. She appeared in nearly all of Allen's         
critically acclaimed films during this period, including leading roles in Hannah       
and Her Sisters (playing the title role of "Hannah"), The Purple Rose of Cairo,         
Broadway Danny Rose, and 1990s Alice, again as the title character. Farrow also         
played Alura, mother of "Kara" (Helen Slater), in the 1984 movie Supergirl and         
voiced the title role in 1982's animated film The Last Unicorn.                         
                                                                                       
Citing the need to devote herself to raising her young children, Farrow worked         
less frequently during the '90s. Nonetheless, she appeared in leading roles in         
several notable films, included 1994's Widows' Peak (an Irish film) and the 1995       
films, Miami Rhapsody and Reckless. She also appeared in several independent           
features and made for television films throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s.       
She also wrote an autobiography, What Falls Away (New York: Doubleday, 1997).           
                                                                                       
Farrow most recently appeared as "Mrs. Baylock", the Satanic nanny, in the 2006         
remake of The Omen. Though the film itself received a lukewarm critical                 
reception, Farrow's performance was widely praised, with the Associated Press           
declaring "thank heaven for Mia Farrow" and calling her performance "a rare             
instance of the new Omen improving on the old one." Filmcritic.com added "it           
is Farrow who steals the show", and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer described           
her performance as "a truly delicious comeback role for Rosemary herself, Mia           
Farrow, who is chillingly believable as a sweet-talking nanny from hell".               
                                                                                       
Farrow has completed work on several films released in 2007, including the             
romantic comedy The Ex and the first part of director Luc Besson's planned             
trilogy of fantasy films, Arthur and the Invisibles. In February 2008, she             
appeared in director Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, opposite Jack Black and           
Danny Glover.