BRILLIANT CURE BUT WE LOST THE PATIENT
The Psychiatric Assault on Hollywood and the Famous
by Phillip Day

Michael Jackson is just one victim in a long list of tragic, pharma-induced Hollywood deaths. From the start, psychiatry’s philosophies and treatments wrought far-reaching effects in the areas of pop-culture, mass entertainment, media, religion and the family. Hollywood and the arts industry became rapidly infected and seduced with the new ‘mental health’ ethos, which brought with it its rebellion against law, order and religion. Language later found itself peppered with ‘getting my head together’, ‘doing my head in’, ‘love and peace, dude’, ‘freaking out’, ‘far out, man’ and ‘chill’.

In the early decades of the 20th century, Los Angeles storefronts, Hollywood parlours and Santa Monica boardwalk shacks advertised psychoanalysis and tarot readings. Hollywood was getting spiritual, but quite what spirit it was getting into was not immediately apparent.

Freud’s sexual philosophies and Freud himself achieved cult status among the film-set, Samuel Goldwyn from Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer (MGM) even tediously sailing to Europe in 1924 in an attempt to persuade Freud to assist in creating ‘a really great love story’. Freud declined.

CCHR reports: “As early as 1922, we see an actor resembling a psychiatrist setting up key scenes in ‘The Man Who Saw Tomorrow’, a silent film in which the hero goes to a psychiatrist/mesmerist to find out which of two women he should marry. ‘The Case of Becky’ (1921) involved a ‘nerve specialist’ and ‘One Glorious Day’ has Will Rogers playing a ‘mild-mannered psychology professor’. By 1925, there was a popular song entitled, ‘Don’t Tell Me What You Did Last Night, for I’ve Been Reading Freud.’” 1

The clever goal pursued by psychiatry was to increase its government funding and reputation with the public through positive portrayals of its ‘philosophies’ on the silver screen. In 1916, psychologist Hugo Münsterberg had penned The Photoplay: A Psychological Study, which clearly articulated psychiatry’s newly discovered passion for the possibilities of the entertainment industry.

By 1940, the psychiatrist’s many portrayals in movies had elevated the ‘shrink’ to a god-like status in the eyes of the public. Always the pipe-smoking benevolent ‘father’, bestowing wisdom and chemicals into the ears and mouths of his ‘children’, the psychiatrist was in his element. The more extreme psychiatric treatments, such as Walter Freeman’s famous icepick and the infamous Nazi electroshock, were all but absent from a Saturday night’s cinema and TV fare. And the strategy was wildly successful. National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants for psychiatric research alone in America rocketed from under $10 million in 1957 to around $50 million by 1963 - an increase of 580% in just six years. Between 1963 and 1995, the funding exploded almost 900% from $60 million to just under $1 billion.

In 1939, Blind Alley portrayed a Dr Shelby remonstrating on the thin line between sanity and madness. The year before, Carefree had explored the sexual connection between the psychiatrist and his patient, with Fred Astaire playing the dancing doctor who falls for his patient, Ginger Rogers. Later movies, such as Elia Kazan’s Splendour in the Grass (witty, omniscient psychiatrist helps Natalie Wood to ‘get her head together’), and, of course, John Huston’s Freud, starring Montgomery Clift, served almost to present the analyst as the saviour of mankind. Pressure Point, David and Lisa and Tender is the Night all propagated the psychiatrist as the authoritative voice of balance and reason. But the damage was already being wrought behind the scenes.

MARILYN MONROE
A young Norma Jean, caught up in the web of drugs and film industry pressures, turned to psychiatry to alleviate her problems. One of Marilyn’s psychiatrists was Dr Marianne Kris, who received Monroe five days a week for therapy. Kris later prescribed the actress the powerful barbiturates that would eventually kill her. After a particularly nasty session, Kris committed Marilyn Monroe to a mental institution, where she was locked in a padded cell for two days. Monroe pounded the door hysterically until her hands bled. After her release, she fired Kris.

Dr Ralph Greenson was Monroe’s psychiatrist in the final years. Still ensuring the actress remained on her barbiturates, Greenson increasingly began to take over the starlet’s life, severing her connections with friends, and even her husband, baseball star Joe DiMaggio. The pretext was that familiarity would cause set-backs and prejudice the actress’s recovery from the schizophrenia Greenson was publicly diagnosing as the reason for the starlet’s absences. Towards the end, there is evidence Monroe had begun to realise the catastrophic effects the Svengalian Greenson was having on her life. She had made 23 films in the seven years prior to commencing therapy. Thereafter, she would complete a mere six films in the final seven years of her life. On 4th August 1962, after a six-hour therapy session with Dr Greenson, Marilyn Monroe was found by her housekeeper Eunice Murray, naked and sprawled across her silk sheets. Death had been delivered from Greenson’s barbiturate bottle on her nightstand at the age of 36.

ROBERT WALKER
Hollywood star Robert Walker suffered from depression and heavy drinking following his separation from actress Jennifer Jones. In 1948, Walker was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct and was given an ultimatum by MGM Studios head of production, Dora Schary. Submit to psychiatric therapy, or be fired. After a short spell in the Menninger private psychiatric hospital, Walker took up treatment with Hollywood’s ‘psychiatrist to the stars’, Frederick Hacker. On 28th August 1951, Walker went into shock and died after taking barbiturates while intoxicated.

VIVIEN LEIGH
Hollywood actress Vivienne Leigh’s hysterical outbursts were well known in the industry. After filming of Elephant Walk in Ceylon was constantly interrupted by Leigh’s frequent losses of control, wanderings in the night and hallucinations (widely believed to be caused by a combination of her TB medication and heavy drinking), her husband, film legend Laurence Olivier, became concerned for her mental well-being, and repeatedly pleaded with the actress to ‘seek help’.

Vivien was persuaded to be flown to England for ‘treatment’ at the Netheren psychiatric hospital. Her treatments included being packed in ice, a diet of raw eggs and repeated electroshocks. Olivier naturally noticed her change in personality. While being treated on location as an outpatient in Warsaw, she performed with a splitting headache. Burn marks from the electroshock were visible on her head. Olivier finally divorced her in despair in 1960. Even though it was widely recognised that physical illness can produce psychiatric-like symptoms, Vivien Leigh’s long-running tuberculosis was relegated in favour of her psychiatrists continuing to diagnose the Hollywood star with various mental disorders. On 7th July 1967, after her TB had spread untreated to both lungs, Leigh was found lying on the floor. Choking on her own liquid, she had drowned.

ERNEST HEMMINGWAY

In July 1961, just two days after leaving the famous Mayo psychiatric clinic, Papa Hemmingway put a shotgun barrel to his head and pulled the trigger.3

FRANCES FARMER
‘Bad’ Hollywood starlet Frances Farmer was always in trouble. High-spirited, rebellious, passionate and magnetically beautiful, Farmer was typical of many stars of that era who lived life in the fast lane. After her marriage to actor Leif Erickson failed, Farmer became increasingly unable to cope with her hectic schedule, turning to psychiatric amphetamines such as Benzedrine. Her constant drinking and fights soon landed her in court. After starring in the prophetically named No Escape in 1943, she was involved in a drunken brawl and arrested. Frances was placed into the custody of psychiatrist Thomas H Leonard, with whom she failed to co-operate. Leonard diagnosed her as “suffering from manic-depressive psychosis – probably the forerunner of a definite dementia praecox” – a diagnosis later described by doctors as ‘pure gibberish’.

Farmer was transferred to the screen actor’s sanitarium at La Crescenta, California, and subjected to a living nightmare under psychiatric care. The Hollywood starlet was given at least 90 insulin shocks, finally escaping from the institution in terror. Her mother later signed a complaint against her and she was re-committed into custodial care in March 1944. At West Washington State hospital in Steilacoom, her psychiatrists gave her repeated ice baths and electroshock sessions in an effort to break her will. Finally, the subdued starlet was declared ‘cured’ and discharged.

One of the most vivid recollections of some veterans of the institution would be the sight of Frances Farmer being held down by the orderlies and raped by drunken gangs of soldiers. She was also used as an experimental subject for drugs such as Thorazine, Stelazine, Mellaril and Proxilin.” 4

One of the last psychiatrists to visit Farmer was Dr Walter Freeman. Farmer’s biographer William Arnold describes what happened:

“The tormented actress was held before him. He put electrodes to her temples and gave her electroshock until she passed out. Then he lifted her left eyelid and plunged the icepick-shaped instrument under her eyeball and into her brain. [After ‘treating’ a number of other patients, Freeman left. William Keller, the superintendent of the hospital, had walked out, sickened]. An hour later, Keller returned to the operating theatre and found everyone gone. He walked into the anteroom and looked at the post-operative patients resting on cots. One woman was silently weeping and several others were staring blankly at the ceiling. Near one end of the row of patients was Frances Farmer. She would no longer exhibit the restless, impatient mind and the erratic, creative impulses of a difficult and complex artist. She would no longer resist authority or provoke controversy. She would no longer be a threat to anyone.” 5

The movie Frances was made of her life in 1982, starring another leading Hollywood actress, Jessica Lange. Frances Farmer died at the age of 57, broken, tortured and destitute.

JUDY GARLAND
Instantly recognised for her undeniable star quality and beautiful singing voice, the angelic Judy was known to the whole world after The Wizard of Oz. In Gerald Frank’s biography, Judy, we learn that Garland was bound by a clause in her contract which stated that should her singing voice fail, or her body-shape change inordinately, she could be suspended without pay.

It wasn’t long before the starlet was acquainting herself with psychiatric drugs such as Benzedrine and Phenobarbital to control her appetite and weight. As demand for her talents grew, Garland often couldn’t sleep. The side-effects of her medications soon became apparent. Swinging like a pendulum between exhaustion and high anxiety, Garland was soon on a ‘cocktail’ of downers and uppers to assist her in fulfilling the demands of her acting schedule.

Judy had read Freud and consulted with famous psychiatrist Karl Menninger who told her ‘she had problems; they could become serious; she needed help.’ Menninger was one of a group of psychiatrists who were attracted to Hollywood actors and actresses for the renown, the referrals they could garner, and of course, the big pay cheques. Garland fell into the hands of ‘psychiatrist to the stars’, Frederick Hacker, who had ‘treated’ Robert Walker.

Hooked on Dexedrine and Seconals, experiencing hallucinations, shortness of breath and, later, suicidal tendencies, Garland used barbiturates as tranquillisers and amphetamines as stimulants. Gradually, the drugs and the pressure began to take their physical toll. Caught up in the frightening spiral of the cure becoming the sickness, becoming the cure, becoming the sickness, Judy committed herself to a psychiatric institution under advice from Hacker.

In 1949, not even yet 27 years old, Garland was given repeated electroshocks, later becoming a patient at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital to recuperate. Despite a fabulous comeback to the theatre in 1951 in New York, Garland was stung by media speculation about her ballooning weight. Once again she turned to amphetamines to control her appetite.

By the end of the 1950’s, Garland was in serious trouble and returned to hospital. She was placed on Thorazine, Valium and Ritalin. By 1968, she was hallucinating and suffering from rage, anxiety, suicidal tendencies, disturbed thinking and perception distortions. By the time Judy performed on stage for the final time the following year in Greenwich Village, New York, she was taking up to 40 Ritalin tablets a day and drinking heavily. On 21st June 1969, six days later, the tormented starlet died of a drugs overdose in a London hotel.

LENA ZAVARONI
The famous British child star had been struggling with anorexia for 22 years. In September 1999, after years of psychotherapy, anti-depressants and electroshock treatment had failed, she was admitted to the University Hospital of Wales at Cardiff for a lobotomy. In spite of warnings that the discredited operation could destroy her intellect, erase parts of her memory and change her character, Lena and her family persuaded themselves that it was for the best. After all, Britain’s most skilled ‘brain surgeons’ would be presiding. Bob Burrows, a spokesman for the hospital, pointed out to the London Times that the operation was performed using the latest cutting-edge technology:

“We are one of the UK’s premier teaching hospitals and at the leading edge of research and medical technology. Miss Zavaroni came to Cardiff because we are one of the few centres in the world that carry out this operation.” 6

Lena died of a chest infection two weeks after the operation. She weighed just 49 lbs.

LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS
Many of the famous have owned up to needing drugs to get by. Singer Del Shannon (Charles Westover) thought the Prozac prescribed to him by his psychiatrist would “…help me over the hump I’m in.” His wife LeAnne “…watched him turn into somebody who was agitated, pacing, had trembling hands, insomnia and couldn’t function.” On 8th February 1990, after taking Prozac for just 15 days, Charles Westover shot himself in the head with a .22 calibre rifle.

Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson both admitted using the ‘liquid sunshine’ drug, Prozac, Diana becoming the subject of huge media speculation over her drug use. Royal author Andrew Morton’s controversial book, Diana: Her New Life, detailed her catastrophic mood-swings and alleged suicide attempt on board a royal flight, where she had attempted to slash her arms, smearing blood over the walls and seats before being restrained.7

Lady Brocket, Libby Purves, Al Pacino, Roseanne Barr and Mariella Frostrup are a few among many who have been some-time users of Prozac. INXS pop-frontman Michael Hutchence died in November 1997 in an apparent hanging suicide. His song-writing partner, Andrew Farriss, attributed the death to Prozac and alcohol. The actor and comedian Chris Farley died aged 33 after a four-day alcohol and drug binge. Prozac was present in his blood. Don Simpson, co-producer of Hollywood blockbusters such as Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun and Crimson Tide, died in 1996 aged 52. Police searching Simpson’s Bel Air estate in Los Angeles discovered thousands of tablets and pills lined up neatly in alphabetical order in his bedroom closet. They later discovered that Simpson had obtained over 15,000 psychiatric amphetamines, tranquillisers and sedatives from 15 doctors and 8 pharmacies. Steve Simmons, a senior investigator for the California Medical Board, stated:

“Everybody understands how lethal street drugs like heroin are, but it takes a prescription overdose by someone famous like Don Simpson to drive home the fact that pharmaceutical medications are just as deadly.” 8