John Farrow

He claimed to have run away to sea in an American barquentine, sailed "all over the Pacific," and fought in revolts in Nicaragua and Mexico. Reaching California, he enrolled at St. Ignatius College (later known as the University of San Francisco) in 1923, but left after one month.

Farrow was a notorious playboy in his youth, being linked to Dolores del Río and Diana Churchill among others. He married Felice Lewin on 18 August 1924. They had one daughter, Felice Patricia Farrow (1925–1997). The marriage ended in divorce in September 1927. Farrow began a relationship with Lila Lee in 1928, and they became engaged. However, they never married and their relationship ended in 1933 after Lee discovered Farrow was being unfaithful to her.

In 1927 he was described as an Australian member of Hollywood, along with May Robson, the New Zealander Rupert Julian, Josephine Norman and E.O. Gurney.

In 1930, it was announced that Farrow would direct his own story First Love but this did not materialize. He signed to Warner Bros. in 1936 looking to direct and was linked with a number of projects, including a Foreign Legion story and an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's 1842 short story "The Pit and the Pendulum". Farrow finally made his directorial debut in 1937 with Men in Exile, a remake of Safe in Hell (1931).

He compiled an English-French-Tahitian dictionary and wrote a novel, Laughter Ends (1933). In 1932 he went to England where he wrote The Impassive Footman (1932) for Basil Dean. He worked as a writer and assistant director on G. W. Pabst's film Don Quixote (1933), and briefly visited Tahiti again.

Farrow returned to Hollywood and re-established himself as a screenwriter. On 27 January 1933, while dancing at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, he was arrested for breach of his visa, as part of a general crackdown against illegal immigrants in the film industry. Farrow was charged with making a false statement while entering the US, having claimed he was Romanian. Although threatened with deportation, eventually he was given five years' probation, before being acquitted of the charges the following year.

In 1934, he became engaged to actress Maureen O'Sullivan and they married on 12 September 1936. Farrow and O'Sullivan had seven children: four daughters, who became actresses, Mia (born 1945), Prudence (born 1948), Stephanie (born 1949), Tisa (born 1951); and three sons, Michael Damien (1939–1958), Patrick Villiers (1942–2009), and John Charles (born 1946). Maureen O'Sullivan was his second wife, after he converted to Catholicism and received an annulment of his first marriage. Farrow often wrote about Catholic themes.

Despite his flourishing career and recently having become a father for the first time, Farrow was keen to be involved in World War II. He went to Vancouver in November 1939 and enlisted in the Canadian Navy. He went back to RKO to finish Bill of Divorcement then joined the navy. RKO promised to hold his job when he returned.

Farrow was appointed lieutenant in March 1940 and assigned to Naval History and the Controller of Information Unit. He worked on anti-submarine patrols and in April 1941 was loaned to the Royal Navy and appointed to HMS Goshawk naval base in Trinidad, and served as assistant to the Senior British Naval Officer, Curaçao. He contracted typhus fever and returned to Naval Headquarters, Ottawa, in late 1941.

Farrow was invalided out of the Canadian Navy with typhus in January 1942 at the rank of Commander but remained in the naval reserve. He was gravely ill when he returned but was nursed back to health by his wife. His illness meant he was unable to return to active service.

In February 1943, Farrow signed a long-term contract with Paramount. In July 1943 he served as technical consultant for the proposed Royal Canadian Navy show. He directed The Hitler Gang (1944); Two Years Before the Mast (filmed 1944, not released until 1946), with Ladd; and You Came Along (1945), from a script co-written by Ayn Rand.

In May 1945, Farrow was briefly recalled to active duty, travelling to Britain for work in connection with the Director of Special Services. Shortly after he made Calcutta (1947) with Ladd, though it was not released until two years later, to strong box office.

Two Years Before the Mast was released in 1946 and became the tenth most popular movie of the year. In 1946 Farrow was reportedly writing a biography of Junípero Serra but it appears to have never been made.

In 1947, Farrow made one of his most highly regarded films, the noir The Big Clock (1948) with Ray Milland and O'Sullivan. He was reunited with Ladd for a military drama, Beyond Glory (1948), then returned to noir with Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948), starring Edward G. Robinson from a Cornell Woolrich novel, and Alias Nick Beal (1949), with Milland.

As one of the few high-profile Australians in Hollywood during the 1930s, Farrow's activities were well covered by the Australian media. He accepted the Oscar won by the Australian documentary Kokoda Front Line! (1943), met Australian Senator Richard Keane, the Minister for Trade and Customs, when he visited Hollywood during the war and offered to assist in the establishment of an Australian information service in the US. He also often expressed a desire to make a film back in Australia and later made two films with Australian connections, Botany Bay (1953) and The Sea Chase (1955), despite having ceased to be a British subject in 1947 and thus never acquired Australian citizenship when it was created in 1949.

Farrow was the original director of Around the World in 80 Days (1956) but was fired by producer Michael Todd shortly after filming commenced. However Farrow remained credited for his contribution to the screenplay, which won an Oscar in 1956.

Farrow died of a heart attack in Beverly Hills, California on 27 January 1963 at the age of 58 and was buried in the Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City.