“There are people who are suffering beyond description. They are innocent people, they didn’t bring this upon themselves. They are the victims of the sins of other people. And while it’s hard to see, it’s important to understand that these people exist.”
– Mia Farrow (born Februry 9, 1945)
Happy Birthday to the beautiful (and when I say that, I’m always talking about the inside), inspiring, kind-hearted humanitarian, Mia Farrow!
I was recently reading a Nicholas Kristof column where he talked about the way Mia Farrow travels when she goes to Darfur. He wrote, “I take a tent or at least a sleeping bag if I have to camp out; she takes a rope and makes a circle with it, and then sleeps in the center — on the theory that scorpions and camel spiders will reach the rope and then keep going around it.” She is clearly a far cry from any Hollywood stereotypes we may have.
Mia Farrow has served as UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 2000 and works tirelessly for human rights in Africa. She travels the world, going to the most dangerous places (Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda), documenting her trips through photos and urging the United Nations and the U.S. government to get involved and help those with “no voice.”
Her efforts in spreading awareness for these atrocities are getting results. In October 2011, President Obama announced that he is sending 100 U.S. military advisers to central Africa to assist in ending the reign of terror from the Lord’s Resistance Army, the group responsible for the genocide in this central African region.
Farrow first gained notoriety for her role as Allison Mackenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place, and for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra (she was 21 and he was 50). An early film role, as the woman pregnant with Satan’s baby in 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby, saw her portrayal nominated for many awards. She has made dozens of films over her illustrious career.
Farrow married André Previn in 1970, and they divorced in ’79. A year later, she began seeing actor/director Woody Allen, and the couple adopted several children and had a child of their own together. They never married, and their relationship ended abruptly in 1993 when Farrow discovered a sexual relationship between Allen and her adopted daughter Soon-Yi.
We wish Mia Farrow gratitude and a Happy Birthday! Thank you for making the world a better place and inspiring us to do the same.
You can learn more about her at her blog: www.miafarrow.org, or her Wikipedia and Biography.com profiles.
Also by Ellen Padnos:
Water Buffaloes and Bees and Goats, Oh My
Celebrity Pictures courtesy of ImageCollect.
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