LOS ANGELES — Sharon Farrell, a Sioux City-born television and film actress known for her roles in the soap opera "The Young and the Restless" and in major films of the 1960s and 1970s, died this spring in Los Angeles. She was 82.
Her death, on May 15 at the Los Angeles Downtown Medical Center, went unreported until last week. In a Facebook post announcing Farrell's death, her sister, Dale Candice Forsmoe, said she did not know the cause of death.
Farrell was born Sharon Lee Forsmoe on Christmas Eve, 1940, in Sioux City to Hazel Ruth (Huffman) Forsmoe and Darrel LaValle Forsmoe. In about 1968 or 1969, Farrell later said, she doctored her birth certificate to indicate she was born in 1946, after producers for the film “The Reivers,” told her she was too old for a part. She got the role.
After graduating from Central High School in 1958, Farrell left her parents' home on Douglas Street almost immediately for New York City and was soon making a name for herself as an actress and model.
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In early 1959, Farrell was crowned Miss Brooklyn. That spring, she went to Cuba (at the time a Caribbean destination for Americans, but on the brink of revolution) to star in the film "Kiss Her Goodbye." She claimed later to have spent time with Che Guevara and Fidel Castro during her stay in Cuba; Guevara, she said, reminded her of her father.
By then she had signed a five-year option with Eldorado Productions. In 1960, she was landing television roles, was named Miss Greenwich Village Summer Queen and was under consideration for an MGM contract. That same year, she was an understudy to Jane Fonda in the play "There Was a Little Girl."
In 2012, Sharon Farrell returned to Sioux City to visit family and friends. Farrell died May 15.
She was going by the stage name Sharon Farrell from at least as early as 1960. The stage name was reportedly a sort of combination of the first letter of Forsmoe and her father's first name, Darrel, with the addition of an extra "L" at the end.
Bob Hope brought Farrell to Los Angeles to film a TV pilot, but it didn’t sell. But she managed to land plenty of episodic work in everything from “Gunsmoke” to "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." to “Naked City.” A string of parts in other shows and films led to “The Reivers,” a high-profile production starring Steve McQueen. In 1969, she was considered a frontrunner for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination.
"This role is the most important that I have done because I co-star with Steve McQueen. The role wasn't challenging because I have played this type of character before" Farrell told The Journal in 1969 of her role in "The Reivers."
"The most challenging role I've played was a Janis Joplin character in a segment of 'The Name of the Game' television series. I did a lot of research on Janis Joplin before doing the role. It was challenging because I sing in the show and I'm not a singer," she added.
Farrell made the rounds of talk shows and landed on “The Tonight Show,” where an off-hand remark about Sioux City attracted negative attention. Near the end of December, 1969, while promoting "The Reivers," Farrell told "Tonight Show" host Johnny Carson that "in Sioux City dirty movies are the only ones that sell." Carson attempted to shift the conversation in another direction, but Farrell maintained that quality films couldn't do well in Sioux City because local "perverts" preferred pornographic films.
The reaction in Sioux City was swift and unpleasant. Her parents, who still lived in Sioux City, were inundated with hostile phone calls in the days that followed, according to contemporary news reports. "The Tonight Show," likewise, faced a wave of angry telegrams and phone calls. Dietrich Dirks, at the time the president and general manager of Sioux City NBC affiliate KTIV, wrote to Carson saying, "We deeply regret Sharon Farrell's unfortunate comments concerning her hometown, Sioux City. Local theater owners refute her contention that patrons are interested only in pornography."
As a result, Farrell stayed away from Sioux City for decades, returning only in 2012 with her memoir, “Sharon Farrell, Hollywood Princess from Sioux City, Iowa,” to renew old acquaintances and prove she harbored no ill will.
Farrell's screen career came to a halt in 1999, when she moved with a business manager/boyfriend to Fiji.
"He told me life in films was over -- even though I had won an award at a film festival and was on 'The Young and the Restless.' He said, 'That's nothing. Let's get out of here,'" she said of the experience. They moved to Fiji, bought a house and, after a jet ski accident, he abandoned her and took control of her finances.
"Everybody thought I was dead," Farrell said later.
She existed on little or no money until a housekeeper took her to live with her family and help her get "whole." She progressed, but another illness prompted them to send her to New Zealand, where hospital employees found a phone number for actor Sam Jones. They called; Jones got in touch with Farrell's son, Chance Boyer, and helped get her back to Los Angeles.
A friend took Farrell to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings so she could have coffee each morning; women at a Lutheran church gave her assistance. A producer from "NCIS" offered her clothes.
Eventually she put her life back in order.
"I'm proud of her, to a point," Farrell's then-90-year-old mother Hazel Forsmoe said in 2012. "But, in many ways, Hollywood ruined her happiness. She's not the same old Sharon, but she is grounded."
Actress Sharon Farrell is shown in 1967. Farrell died May 15.
Farrell married and divorced on several occasions. Her first was to actor Andrew Prine in 1962. Prine divorced her within about a year, testifying in court that she berated him in front of friends and once tore up his clothing. Her second marriage, to her Hollywood manager Ron DeBlasio, ended with an annulment in 1969 (he was reportedly on tour with Tiny Tim at the time). Less than a year later she married John Boyer, who was also her manager. That marriage ended in divorce. In 1973 she married accountant Steve Salkin. They divorced within a year or so, and she subsequently married the writer Dale Trevillion. That marriage, Farrell's longest by far, ended in divorce after more than 30 years.
"I come from Sioux City but my family wasn't religious," Farrell told the columnist Earl Wilson in 1969, after her second marriage ended, and by which time she was taking instruction in Catholicism. "I was never baptized. I decided I like the pomp and ceremony of the church. It makes sense to me."
Information on Farrell's survivors, other than her sister, was not immediately available.