Written By: Ben Cosgrove
Mia Farrow was 22 years old when LIFE magazine ran a seven-page cover story on the actress in May 1967. She was married to Frank Sinatra (he was 30 years her senior, and the marriage lasted less than two years) and at the time was best-known for her work on TV: she was a regular on the classic prime-time soap opera, Peyton Place. But LIFE’s decision to feature the young Los Angeles native proved prescient; within a year she was receiving raves for performances in several prominent films—including the Roman Polanski horror classic, Rosemary’s Baby.
She would go on to a decades-long career as an award-winning actress and an outspoken, fearless campaigner for human rights. Beyond her acting, Ms. Farrow has been a recurring figure in the news because of accusations by her adopted daughter, Dylan, that Woody Allen sexually abused her when she was a child, at a time when Allen and Ms. Farrow were in a long-term relationship. Woody Allen has always denied the charges, while Ms. Farrow has never wavered in her support of Dylan’s claims. Ms. Farrow is also the mother of Ronan Farrow, a journalist whose investigative reporting has been a driver of the #MeToo movement.
In that cover story from 1967, though, the photos are notably light, as Farrow freely clowned for the camera in many shots, and the focus of the story was on her youth, beauty, talent and mystery. As LIFE wrote:
There are these positive statements you can make about Mia Farrow: she is 22; she weighs 99 pounds; she is 5 feet 5 1/2 inches tall; she has less hair than Ringo Starr; she is annoyed that people in London mistake her for Twiggy; she is married to Frank Sinatra.
Beyond such unarguable specifics lies her shapeless world — a place of surmise so fascinatingly complex and maddeningly naive that Sinatra could fathom it only by marrying into it. And ever since the surprising match was made the public has been stuck on the nagging question, “What is Mia Farrow really like?”
The feature goes on to paint a picture of a whip-smart, self-deprecatingly funny daughter of Hollywood (her mother was the famous actress Maureen O’Sullivan, her dad was Oscar-winning writer and director John Farrow)—a woman barely out of her teens yet worldly enough to say of her superstar husband, Sinatra: “He’s an artist. He’s groovy, he’s kinky and—above all—he’s gentle.”
Here, LIFE.com features a series of photographs—most of them never published in LIFE—that feel, in more ways than we can count, as if they were made not only in another time, but in another world.
Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.
Mia Farrow on the set of the film, A Dandy in Aspic, London, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
On a lark in London, Farrow borrowed a construction lantern.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Farrow looked at off-beat antiques while searching for a gift for her husband, Frank Sinatra. She ended up buying him a $2,240 gazebo.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow in London, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow in London, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow and A Dandy in Aspic co-star Laurence Harvey, London, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow and A Dandy in Aspic co-star Laurence Harvey, London, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow in London, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow in London, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow and A Dandy in Aspic co-star Laurence Harvey, London, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow and Laurence Harvey, London, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow and Laurence Harvey, London, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow and Laurence Harvey, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow, Laurence Harvey and A Dandy in Aspic director Anthony Mann, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow mocked A Dandy in Aspic co-star Laurence Harvey for his long hair and the length of time he spent with make-up, when all she did was dab her own eyes.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Between scenes of A Dandy in Aspic, Mia wrestled with co-star Laurence Harvey
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow and director Anthony Mann, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Farrow told director Anthony Mann, ‘I don’t want to be me on screen.’ Mann said of Farrow, ‘She’s marvelous—my main problem is not to change her an inch.”
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow with co-stars on the set of A Dandy in Aspic, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow and Laurence Harvey, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow on set, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow on the set of A Dandy in Aspic, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow and Laurence Harvey on the set of A Dandy in Aspic, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow and Laurence Harvey (left), 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow and Laurence Harvey, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow and Laurence Harvey, London, 1967.
Bill Eppridge Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow, London, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow in Geneva, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
On Swiss estate of her friend Yul Brynner, Mia romped with his five-year-old daughter, Victoria.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow and Yul Brynner’s daughter, Victoria, Switzerland, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow and Yul Brynner’s daughter, Victoria, Switzerland, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow, Switzerland, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow on Lake Geneva in Switzerland, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow and Laurence Harvey, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow at home in London, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mia Farrow at home in London, 1967.
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
At the Sinatras’ Grosvenor Square residence in London (other addresses: Paris, Palm Springs, Los Angeles, New York, Miami and Las Vegas), Mia Farrow wore Cardin original before the gala premiere of ‘Taming of the Shrew.’
Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
