Love & Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story

Nothing says December vacation like overdosing on all movies you can possibly consume. The story between Mia Farrow and Woody Allen is fascinating, and today Fox Movie Channel (aka FMC) showed this 1995 movie based on the book written by their nanny... and it's horrible, but most things that try to stay loyal to the real story and is true-to-life usually are. I know Match Point was really good, but did we forget that Woody is pretty much an episode of Law & Order SVU? Though Mia Farrow has had a strangely interesting life - interesting in the tradition of the telenovella - this part of it is completely shocking, and totally gross.

If you're unfamiliar with the story... basically: [From Wikipedia]
Mia Farrow marries Frank Sinatra for two years starting in 1968, when she was 21 and he was 50. While she was filming Rosemary's Baby with director Roman Polanski, Sinatra served her divorce papers in front of the cast and crew. The move came as a shock to Farrow, who did not think that Sinatra would divorce her because she had refused his prior demand that she quit filming in order to work on his movie The Detective.

Farrow married German-American Jewish pianist André Previn in 1970. His former wife, songwriter Dory Previn, blamed Farrow for his leaving her and wrote a scathing attack in a song entitled "Beware of Young Girls". Farrow and Previn had three biological children together and adopted three children. They divorced in 1979, but remained on good terms.

In the '80s & early '90s, Farrow spent many years with Woody Allen, but did not marry/live with him. They had 1 biological son & 2 adopted children.

Ouch! The kicker: They separated after Allen began a sexual relationship with Farrow's adopted daughter (with Previn) Soon-Yi Previn, whom he later married. (As of Xmas eve this year, Soon-Yi & Woody have been married 10 years.) Their marriage reportedly left Farrow devastated. During the custody battle, Farrow filed child abuse charges against Allen, involving her other daughter, Dylan. Those charges were dropped, because the Connecticut state's attorney found that although probable cause existed for prosecuting Allen, it was not worth subjecting the child to the possible trauma of a court trial.

Angelina, you weren't the first - watch out for Zahara: Farrow has been a high profile advocate of adoption since the 1970s, adopting children from poverty stricken regions, many of whom were deemed "difficult to place" due to biological handicaps. She adopted 3 children and has 3 biological children with Andre Previn. She also adopted 2 children and has 1 biological child with Woody Allen. Farrow went on to adopt 5 additional children as a sole parent thereafter. Her last adoption was in 1995. [List of Mia's kids, if you're interested.] Farrow has fifteen children, eleven of them adopted.

She is active in agencies that encourage adoption, as evidenced by her involvement with UNICEF. Farrow is estranged from Soon-Yi Previn since Soon-Yi's marriage to Woody Allen. She called the loss a "tragedy" in The Observer (a U.K. Sunday newspaper) and remarked that "she's not coming back". Farrow said of Soon-Yi: "She was on the streets in Korea when she was captured and brought to the state orphanage. And in a way I can see from her perspective — a very limited perspective — that she's improved her situation. For a little orphan kid from Korea ... Perhaps she's not to be blamed." In a widely circulated quote, Soon-Yi dismissed Mia as "no Mother Teresa."

Love & Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story on IMDB