Mia Farrow born Maria de Lourdes Villiers-Farrow 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 is the daughter of John Farrow, an Australian film director, and Irish actress Maureen O'Sullivan. Both parents were practicing Catholics and Mia, born Maria de Lourdes Villiers-Farrow (in Los Angeles, California), had a Catholic upbringing. Her sister, Prudence Farrow, inspired The Beatles' song "Dear Prudence". Farrow was stricken with polio as a child and spent a year in an iron lung. 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 nighttime 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 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.
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 September 2006, she began shooting director Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, opposite Jack Black and Danny Glover.
Farrow has been a high profile advocate for children's rights, working to raise funds and awareness for children in conflict affected regions, predominantly in Africa. She is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and has worked extensively to draw attention to the fight to eradicate polio, which she survived as a child. She has traveled to Darfur twice, in November 2004 and June 2006, joining her son Ronan Farrow, who has also worked for UNICEF in Sudan, in advocating for Darfuri refugees. Farrow's photographs of Darfur appeared in People magazine in July 2006 and she authored an article on the crisis, published in the Chicago Tribune on July 25, 2006. On February 5, 2007, Farrow authored an editorial for the Los Angeles Times. On August 7, 2007, Farrow offered to "trade her freedom" for the freedom of a rebel leader, being treated in a UN hospital but afraid to leave. She wants to be taken captive in exchange for him being allowed to leave the country.
