We drive by Kurt and Courtney‘s old house a lot on our way home, we drive by the park where there are always people taking pictures of the bench and leaving flowers and candles. For some reason, I like the idea that people are still drawn to his tiny little park. His enormous hedge of rhododendrons is threatening to bloom and will do just that any day, I will share a photo when it does.Kurt Cobain hand-wrote the following to-do list mid-1991, as Nirvana prepared to film the now-iconic music video for Smells Like Teen Spirit. It was eventually filmed on a sound stage and directed by Samuel Bayer.
Transcript follows. Image from the book, Kurt Cobain: Journals.
Transcript
Smells Like Teen Spirt
needed
1. Mercedes benz and a few old cars
2. Access to a abandoned mall, main floor and one Jewelry shop.
3. lots of fake Jewelry
4. School Auditorium (Gym)
5. A cast of hundreds. 1 custodian, students.
6. 6 black Cheerleader outfits with Anarchy A’s Ⓐ on chest
NAME: Frances Farmer OCCUPATION: Film Actress BIRTH DATE: September 19, 1913 DEATH DATE: August 01, 1970 EDUCATION: University of Washington PLACE OF BIRTH: Seattle, Washington PLACE OF DEATH: Indianapolis, Indiana
BEST KNOWN FOR: Actress Frances Farmer starred in films in the late ‘30s and early ‘40s, but was best known for her rebellious reputation and the time she spent in a mental institution.
Born September 19, 1913, in Seattle, Washington. The daughter of a lawyer, Farmer enjoyed a comfortable childhood, during which she developed a penchant for stage acting. In 1931, she enrolled at the University of Washington, where she majored in journalism and drama. After a failed attempt to join the Group Theatre in New York, Farmer concentrated on a film career, signing with Paramount Studios in 1936. Later that year, she was cast in a bit part in the drama Too Many Parents, followed by Border Flight and the musical Rhythm on the Range, starring Bing Crosby. Playing the dual role of a saloon singer and her daughter, Farmer’s work in the 1936 film Come and Get It, was heralded as the best screen performance of her career.
Despite Farmer’s initial success, she quickly earned a reputation as a demanding and rebellious actress on the set. Displeased with her attitude, Paramount cast her in bland parts in a handful of films, including Exclusive and Ebb Tide (both 1937). By the early 1940s, Farmer was forced to appear in a succession of inferior productions, including South of Pago Pago (1940), World Premiere, and Among the Living (both 1941).
In 1942, Farmer’s career enjoyed a brief resurgence when she was cast opposite Tyrone Power and Roddy McDowall in the swashbuckler Son of Fury. However, Farmer’s efforts to improve her image backfired when she was arrested and convicted of drunk driving at the time of the film’s release. Inundated with negative publicity, Farmer traveled to Mexico. However, by leaving the United States, she was found in violation of her probation. She was put on trial and deemed mentally ill. Farmer was committed to a mental institution where she underwent shock treatments, hydrotherapy baths, and reportedly received a trans-orbital lobotomy. Over the next few years, her physical and mental health deteriorated; she developed a debilitating dependency on alcohol and suffered from a series of nervous breakdowns.
Upon her release from the institution, in 1949, Farmer worked as a hotel receptionist before making a comeback appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1957. The following year, she starred in her last feature film, The Party Crashers, and began a six-year run on the Indianapolis-based TV show Frances Farmer Presents.
On August 1, 1970, Farmer died after a long battle with cancer; she was 56 years old. Her intimate autobiography, Will There Really Be a Morning?, was published posthumously in 1972. In the early 1980s, her story was captured on film in the biopic Frances (1982), starring Jessica Lange, and in the black and white documentary Committed (1983).
More than two decades after Farmer’s death, the alternative rock group Nirvana recorded the single “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle.” Written by lead singer Kurt Cobain, the tribute appeared on the band’s In Utero (1993) album. Cobain also named his daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, after Farmer.
Farmer was married three times: to actor Leif Erickson (from 1936-42); to Alfred Lobley (from 1953-58); and to Leland Mikesell (from 1958 until her death).
Jessica Lange played Farmer in the 1982 film Frances, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Kim Stanley was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for portraying Farmer’s mother. The film contained a fictional scene which depicted Farmer undergoing a transorbital lobotomy. In Hollywood style, the film also omitted numerous facts and added a fictional life-long, love-interest character named “Harry”.
Susan Blakely portrayed Farmer in a 1983 television production Will There Really Be a Morning?, which was named after Farmer’s autobiography. Academy Award winner Lee Grant portrayed her mother in the same production.
In 1984, Culture Club had a #32 hit in the UK Single Charts “The Medal Song”, which was about the actress.
Tracey Thorn’s song “Ugly Little Dreams” on Everything But The Girl’s 1985 LP “Love Not Money” was also inspired by Frances Farmer.
The Nirvana song “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle”, which was written by fellow Washington native Kurt Cobain, was named after Farmer. It appears on their 1993 “In Utero” LP.
Patterson Hood, singer, guitarist and songwriter with the rock band Drive-By Truckers, included a song about Farmer (titled “Frances Farmer”) on his 2004 solo album, Killers and Stars. The album’s cover features a drawing of Farmer by Toby Cole.
Carol Decker of the band T’Pau wrote a song “Monkey House” about Frances Farmer’s mental illness which was featured on the 1987 album “Bridge Of Spies”.
French singer Mylène Jeanne Gautier, changed her name into Mylène Farmer as a tribute to Frances.
He was the reluctant crown-prince of my generation. Had he lived, he would be 45 today and an Indie Rock God Legend or a bloated cliche or a recluse. There is no way to predict something that will never be. We will always remember him as beautiful, and sad. My family and I were in Aberdeen over the weekend and probably went over the Wishkah a half dozen times. The rain was heavy and constant, like it always is this time of year, and we hid out in an old mausoleum in the cemetery where my great-grandparents are buried. If I were a kid growing up in Aberdeen, I would have made it one of my haunts, it is very quiet and empty and full of the forgotten founders of a town whose prime has passed. Ladies and gentlemen, Kurt Cobain. Style Icon.
Kurt Cobain, born in Aberdeen, Washington (1967). He was the son of an auto mechanic and a cocktail waitress. His parents divorced when he was seven, and the split was traumatic, which influenced a lot of the pain in his lyrics. “I remember feeling ashamed, for some reason,” he told an interviewer in 1993. “I was ashamed of my parents. I couldn’t face some of my friends at school anymore, because I desperately wanted to have the classic, you know, typical family. Mother, father. I wanted that security, so I resented my parents for quite a few years because of that.”
He dropped out of high school three weeks before graduation, took a job as a janitor, and started playing in a band. They called themselves Nirvana, pooled their money — $606 — and recorded their first album, Bleach, in 1989. Bleach did well enough to get them a contract with a major label. In 1991, the group came out with its second album, Nevermind, which received rave reviews and propelled the band to stardom. The album featured the singles “Come as You Are” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Nevermind sold more than 24 million copies and Cobain became the reluctant poster child of Generation X.
In 2005, a sign was put up in Aberdeen, Washington, that read “Welcome to Aberdeen – Come As You Are” as a tribute to Cobain. The sign was paid for and created by the Kurt Cobain Memorial Committee, a non-profit organization created in May 2004 to honour Cobain. The Committee planned to create a Kurt Cobain Memorial Park and a youth center in Aberdeen. Because Cobain was cremated and his remains scattered into the Wishkah River in Washington, many Nirvana fans visit Viretta Park, near Cobain’s former Lake Washington home, to pay tribute. On the anniversary of his death, fans gather in the park to celebrate his life and memory.
Anyone who lived in Seattle in the early 90′s has various Grunge Celebrity stories. We all have stories of house parties where this or that band performed or running into someone at the grocery store. I used to take a yoga class with several grunge starter-wives and later, with one-third of Nirvana. They were our neighbors, friends and coworkers.
The only story that I ever think about every once in a while is seeing Frances Bean Cobain at the playground at Volunteer Park with her nannies. She must have been two or three, running, jumping, swinging, and laughing. Her mother was there and probably should have grabbed more of my focus, but it was the little girl with the crystal blue eyes, Kurt’s eyes, that fascinated me.
That little girl is now the amazingly beautiful young woman in the photograph above. More photos are found here by photographer Hedi Silmane.
Kurt Cobain hand-wrote the following to-do list mid-1991, as Nirvana prepared to film the now-iconic music video for Smells Like Teen Spirit. It was eventually filmed on a sound stage and directed by Samuel Bayer.
