Forgotten mother to a "legend"
It's film awards season and this week's blog has
links to the Oscars...
The person we highlight today was, until the last
few years, lying in an unmarked grave but now has some recognition.
LUCY FARROW
Lucy Villiers Savage was born in 1884 in
Brunswick Victoria, the daughter of George Savage, a tailor's trimmer, and
Emily (nee Piggott) a dressmaker. They lived in Brunswick, a suburb north of
Melbourne, which was a fast-growing area populated by a mixture of working
class and “new rich”.
We next hear of Lucy when she marries Joseph
Farrow in Granville, western Sydney, in 1903. A place of tanneries and woollen
mills, it was very much a working-class suburb.
Their son, John Villiers Farrow was born in
February 1904. When he was three years old his mother died whilst an inmate of
Callan Park Asylum. Lucy was only 23 years of age. A victim of post-natal depression?
In 1873, the government of NSW purchased the
Callan Park site, then known as “Callan Estates,” with the purpose of building a
large asylum to assist with the severe overcrowding at the Gladesville Hospital
near Tarban Creek, Gladesville. Charles Moore, the Director of the Botanic
Gardens, was entrusted with designing the grounds to make them ascetically
pleasing and Colonial Architect James Barnet (incidentally both men call Rookwood
“home”) worked with the Dr Manning to produce a group of twenty buildings to
house the inmates in the best conditions for the times. Existing buildings were
used as hospitals etc. and Lucy was afforded the best accommodation Sydney
could provide for her condition until her death.
Callan Park Asylum - showing the manicured gardens and larger buildings - State Archives collection.
Joseph married Ethel McEnerney in 1908 who died
soon after in 1912. Joseph then joined up in the AIF leaving young John (known
as "Jack") with relatives. John went to Newtown Public School and
Fort Street Boys High school and studied accountancy.
John appears to have been a bit of a lad as he
claimed to have run away to sea and sailed all over the world, fighting in
revolts in Nicaragua and Mexico. He arrived in California in 1923 and further
fabricated his education, claiming to have attended the prestigious Newington
College (well he did live within sight of it!), Winchester College in England
and the US Naval College in Maryland.
He found his way to Hollywood where from 1927 his
nautical expertise brought him work as a script consultant and technical
adviser. From DeMille Productions he moved to Paramount Pictures Inc. where he created
easily delivered dialogue for foreign stars of silent films. For two years he
wrote screen plays for RKO Radio Pictures.
John had the reputation of being a ladies’ man
but converted to Catholicism in order to marry Irish actress Maureen
O'Sullivan, in 1936 at Santa Monica. The marriage produced a tribe of children
and a habit of regular church attendance for John.
1937 saw John becoming a respected Director. His
output was astonishing with over 40 films being directed by him in the next 3
years. John even managed to find time to join the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer
Reserve in 1940 but was invalided out in 1942.
Once back in Hollywood, John wasted no time in
churning out a number of war related dramas and he won the New York Film
Critics' Circle award and an American academy award nomination for "Wake
Island", a box-office 'smash' in 1942. He then turned his eye toward Film
Noir and Westerns. Many of the top names of the time were his stars, such as
his wife Maureen, Allan Ladd, Betty Hutton, Glen Ford, Ava Gardner and John
Wayne who starred in the popular hit "The Sea Chase" in 1955.
As co-writer of "Around the World in Eighty Days" he shared the Oscar for best screenplay in 1956.
All in all, John Farrow directed over 40 films in
22 years, making him a prominent Australian in Hollywood little known in his
own country.
John died suddenly of a heart attack in January
1963 in his Californian home. Maureen and his six children survived him. His
daughter, Mia, had just begun her film career, much to his disdain.
But where did John get his sense of
"Larrikinism"?
Perhaps it was from his father's side of the
family. It seems that his grandfather, James Farrow, who was born in Norfolk
England, married in Capetown South Africa in 1862. He came to Australia the
following year and was the father of 11 children. Did John learn of his high
seas adventures and claim them for his own?
John’s father, Joseph enlisted in the AIF in May
1915 and served at Gallipoli. He contracted typhoid fever and malaria and was
discharged in 1916 and returned to Sydney. He was weakened by his experiences
and lived on a war pension until his death in 1925. He rests permanently in the
family grave in Woronora Cemetery Sutherland, south of Sydney.
But back to Lucy, who lies in a single grave at
Rookwood in Section 5 of the Anglican area of the Cemetery. She is not
completely alone as her parents, George and Emily, lie side by side in the same
section of Rookwood, just a short stroll away.
I wonder what she would think, a working-class seamstress,
to have a son so lauded as Hollywood "Royalty". When her
grand-daughter Mia Farrow found out, when a recent documentary was being made about
her father, that his mother lay in an unmarked grave she immediately arranged
for a memorial plaque to be placed there.
Lucy Farrow, no longer forgotten.
I have made use of many references for this blog
such as Google; Trove newspaper entries, the Dictionary of Sydney and
Ancestry.com – in the public domain.
If you have any comments, please add them below or
at the group facebook page at
rookwoodcemeterydiscoveries
or send me a message at
Hooray for Hollywood!!!
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