Editing Frances Farmer (section)

==Posthumous controversies==
===Allegations of psychiatric mistreatment===
{{anchor|Western State}}[[File:Western State Hospital, Washington.png|thumb|upright=1.5|right|The details of Farmer's confinement at [[Western State Hospital (Washington)|Western State Hospital]] ''(pictured)'' were subject to significant controversy and discussion after her death.]]
In the years after Farmer's death, her treatment at Western State was the subject of serious discussion and speculation. [[Kenneth Anger]] included a chapter relating her breakdown in his 1965 work ''[[Hollywood Babylon]]''. Farmer's posthumously published autobiography ''Will There Really Be a Morning?'' described a brutal incarceration. In the book, Farmer claimed she had been brutalized and mistreated in numerous ways. Some of the claims included being forced to eat her own [[feces]]{{sfn|Friedrich|1976|p=30}} and act as a sex slave for male doctors and orderlies. Farmer recounted her stay in the state asylum as "unbearable terror": "I was raped by orderlies, gnawed on by rats, and poisoned by tainted food. I was chained in padded cells, strapped into strait-jackets and half-drowned in ice baths."{{sfn|Harris|Landis|1997|p=146}}

Jean Ratcliffe, a close friend and companion of Farmer, arranged the publication of ''Will There Really Be a Morning?''. Controversy exists over what portions of the book she edited or ghostwrote. Ratcliffe claimed she wrote only the final chapter about Farmer's death.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19830330&id=Ot4qAAAAIBAJ&pg=6874,6044552|title=Frances Farmer's life surfaces in films, plays|last=Rose|first=Rita|date=March 30, 1983|work=The Deseret News|page=9|access-date=August 26, 2014}}</ref>

===Lobotomy claims===
In 1978, Seattle film reviewer William Arnold published ''Shadowland'', which for the first time alleged that Farmer had been the subject of a transorbital [[lobotomy]].{{sfn|Arnold|1978|pages=155–159}} Scenes of Farmer being subjected to this lobotomy procedure were featured in the 1982 film ''[[Frances (film)|Frances]]'',{{sfn|Shelley|2010|p=5}} which had initially been planned as an adaptation of ''Shadowland'', though its producers ultimately reneged on their agreement with Arnold.<ref name="shedding"/> During a court case against the film's producers, [[Brooksfilms]], Arnold revealed that the lobotomy episode and much of his biography was "fictionalized".<ref name="shedding"/> Years later, on a DVD commentary track of the movie, director [[Graeme Clifford]] said, "We didn't want to nickel-and-dime people to death with facts."<ref>{{cite AV media|title=Frances|year=2002|publisher=Anchor Bay Entertainment|medium=DVD|asin= B00005OCK1}}</ref>

Farmer's family, former lovers, and three ex-husbands all denied, or did not confirm, that the procedure took place.<ref name="Tmn">{{cite web|title=Burn All the Liars|url=http://www.themorningnews.org/article/burn-all-the-liars|work=The Morning News|publisher=The Morning News LLC|access-date=January 4, 2013|last=Evans|first=Matt|date= February 22, 2012}}</ref> Farmer's sister, Edith, said the hospital asked her parents' permission to perform the lobotomy, but her father was "horrified" by the notion and threatened legal action "if they tried any of their guinea-pig operations on her."{{Sfn|Bragg|2015|p=80}} Western State recorded all of the 300 lobotomies performed during Farmer's time there; no evidence has been found that Farmer received one.<ref name="shedding"/> In 1983, Seattle newspapers interviewed former hospital staff members, including all the lobotomy ward nurses who were on duty during Farmer's years at Western State, and they all said she was never a patient on that ward. Dr. [[Walter Freeman (neurologist)|Walter Freeman]]'s private records contained no mention of Farmer. Charles Jones, a psychiatric resident at Western State during Farmer's stays, also said that Farmer never had a lobotomy.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.skagitriverjournal.com/NearbyS-W/NSH/NSH1-Intro.html|title=History of Northern State Hospital, of Sedro-Woolley, Washington Part 1: Introduction and overview|last=Bourasaw|first=Noel V.|date=September 24, 2001|work=Skagit River Journal|access-date=August 26, 2014}}</ref>

Writer Jeffrey Kauffmann published an extensive online essay, "Shedding Light on ''Shadowland''", that debunks much of Arnold's book, including the account of the lobotomy.{{sfn|Shelley|2010|p=5}}