Frances Farmer, Western State Hospital's Famed Actress

Frances Farmer was Western State Hospital’s most famous patient, an up-and-coming actress born in Seattle Wash. But the story surrounding her mental stability issues remains mysterious and full of contradictions.

Farmer was called the screen's outstanding find of 1936 by film icon Cecil B. deMille and Howard Hawks said she was the greatest actress he'd ever worked with. Farmer was a contracted actress during Hollywood's golden age.

Her career, however, was cut short by sporadic bouts of odd behaviors that landed her in mental health hospitals. Her experiences there spurred books like "Shadowland," her quasi-autobiography “Will There Really Be A Morning?” and the movie “Frances,” starring Jessica Lange.

The Seattle grunge band Nirvana had a song about her, "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle.”

The well-believed notion is that Farmer was committed to Western State in 1944 during one of her episodes that involved attacking her mother. Farmer moved back in with her parents in West Seattle, but she and her mother fought bitterly. She spent three months there and underwent electro-convulsive shock treatment and was deemed "completely cured.” She was recommitted a year later and remained there for five years.

There is much debate to this day about her treatment at Western State. Jeffrey Kauffman researched the records and medical files following her death in 1970. His exhaustive work, ”Shedding Light on Shadowland,” takes apart the “Shadowland” book and other accounts point. The must-read bok sheds new light on what is widely known as Farmer facts.

The Western State museum, which is mostly reserved for nursing students and targeted groups involved in mental health issues, has a room dedicated to Farmer and the debates surrounding her. And as the hospital’s efforts continue to pull the curtain back on mental health treatments as a way to dispel rumors and taboo discussions, more information about Farmer’s life there will bubble to the surface and her history will become more clear.