Brilliance 2022 - Articles Page 21

Frances Farmer was a movie star in the 1930s and 40s who was involuntarily committed to an Insane Asylum by her own mother. She adored her mother and the theatre, but was, unfortunately, profoundly betrayed by both. Her struggle to regain her "mental competency" as she cared for her aging parents was nothing less than heroic. A young nurse who visited her in the incurable ward while she was incarcerated in Western State Hospital (Steilacoom) was quoted as saying, "she had an air of brilliance about her in person that the cameras couldn't capture.”