In the Paramount school for stock players, he met Frances Farmer. She was a poignantly beautiful young girl out of the University of Washington, who had been catapulted into the hurly-burly of starletdom by winning a local popularity contest. Erickson immediately fell in love and married her. What he didn't know was that Frances couldn't take the success that was to come.
When Harold Clurman cast her as Lorna Moon, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks in Clifford Odets's "Golden Boy" on Broadway, she became the Mia Farrow of her time, 1937's Golden Girl. Movie producers fought for her services. By 1939, the marriage to her "blond Adonis" seemed less desirable. On a drive to New York, she broke the news to "Bill." He was "stupefied," according to her later account of it. She found him "strong, kind and loving," but, she added, "he is not fatherly. He could never fulfill the role of husband."
In 1942, she was arrested for drunken driving. "You bore me," she told the arresting officer. She didn't pay the fine, and a bench warrant was issued. When the officers arrived at the house, she refused to dress. After a wild scene in a Santa Monica courtroom, she blew what was left of her career and ended up for a while in a mental hospital. They were finally divorced and he married another actress, Margaret Hayes. It lasted about a year.
TV GUIDE, August 23-29, 1969. "The Dusty Trail to the High Chaparral."
