Prudence Anne Villiers Farrow Bruns (born January 20, 1948) is an American author, meditation teacher, and film producer. She is the daughter of film director

John Farrow John Villiers Farrow, KGCHS (10 February 190427 January 1963) was an Australian film director, producer, and screenwriter. Spending a considerable amount of his career in the United States, in 1942 he was nominated for the Academy Award for B ...

and actress

Maureen O'Sullivan Maureen O'Sullivan (17 May 1911 – 23 June 1998) was an Irish-American actress, who played Jane in the ''Tarzan'' series of films during the era of Johnny Weissmuller. She performed with such actors as Laurence Olivier, Greta Garbo, Willia ...

and younger sister of actress

Mia Farrow Maria de Lourdes Villiers "Mia" Farrow ( ; born February 9, 1945) is an American actress. She first gained notice for her role as Allison MacKenzie in the television soap opera '' Peyton Place'' and gained further recognition for her subsequen ...

. Farrow is the subject of the Beatles song " Dear Prudence," which references her time studying

Transcendental Meditation Transcendental Meditation (TM) is a form of silent mantra meditation advocated by the Transcendental Meditation movement. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi created the technique in India in the mid-1950s. Advocates of TM claim that the technique promotes ...

Rishikesh Rishikesh, also spelt as Hrishikesh, is a city near Dehradun in Dehradun district of the Indian state Uttarakhand. It is situated on the right bank of the Ganges River and is a pilgrimage town for Hindus, with ancient sages and saints medita ...

with the Beatles in early 1968.

Early life

Farrow was raised as a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

and attended

convent A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglic ...

schools. She learned the

Transcendental Meditation technique The Transcendental Meditation technique (abbreviated as TM) is the technique associated with the practice of Transcendental Meditation developed by the Indian spiritual figure Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The practice involves the use of a private m ...

(TM) in 1966 at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...

, and the next year became interested in yoga, opening a yoga institute at a former church in Boston. In 1968 Farrow, along with her sister Mia and brother Johnny, traveled with

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (born Mahesh Prasad Varma, 12 January 1918

from New York to India, and then to the Maharishi's ashram in

for a Transcendental Meditation teacher training course."Although the Beatles left the retreat before the course on transcendental meditation was finished, Prudence Farrow, Mike Love of the Beach Boys, and others stayed on and became TM teachers" The Beatles arrived shortly thereafter. Farrow was dedicated to practicing the TM technique so she could become a TM teacher. She said: "I would always rush straight back to my room after lectures and meals so I could meditate. John, George and Paul would all want to sit around jamming and having a good time and I'd be flying into my room. They were all serious about what they were doing, but they just weren't as fanatical as me". She "turned into a near recluse" and "rarely came out" of her cottage. Lennon was asked to "contact her and make sure she came out more often to socialize" and he wrote the song " Dear Prudence". According to Lennon, "She'd been locked in for three weeks and was trying to reach God quicker than anyone else".The American book of the Dead, Oliver Trager, page 90, Simon and Schuster, 1997

Career

Farrow taught TM for several decades after her teacher training course in India. Among those she mentored was comedian

Andy Kaufman Andrew Geoffrey Kaufman ( ; January 17, 1949 – May 16, 1984) was an American entertainer and performance artist. While often called a "comedian", Kaufman preferred to describe himself instead as a "song and dance man". He has sometimes b ...

. She returned to India for further instruction from the Maharishi in 1986 and has taught Transcendental Meditation in

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...

since 1970. Later in her life, Farrow earned a BA, an MA, and a PhD from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, where she majored in Asian studies. Her doctoral dissertation was on pulse diagnosis, titled ''Nadivijnana, the Crest-Jewel of Ayurveda: A Translation of Six Central Texts and an Examination of the Sources, Influences and Development of Indian Pulse-Diagnosis''. Farrow became an elementary school teacher and according to her résumé she has held teaching positions or presented at conferences held at the University of California at Berkeley,

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and wa ...

and the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

. Farrow has worked in the theater and film industry as a

production assistant A production assistant, also known as a PA, is a member of the film crew and is a job title used in filmmaking and television for a person responsible for various aspects of a production. The job of a PA can vary greatly depending on the budget ...

on '' The Muppets Take Manhattan'' (1984) and the

art department Art department in filmmaking terms means the section of a production's crew concerned with visual artistry. Working under the supervision of the production designer and/or art director, the art department is responsible for arranging the overa ...

coordinator for '' The Purple Rose of Cairo'' (1985). She also "conceived and co-produced" the film '' Widows' Peak'' (1994), which featured her sister, Mia, in a part originally written for their mother, Maureen O'Sullivan. In 1999, she was one of four producers involved in staging '' Up From the Ground'' at the Westbeth Theatre in New York City. Farrow became a magazine writer in the 2000s. Using her married name, Prudence Bruns, she has authored articles on Asian studies, world religions,

ayurveda Ayurveda () is an alternative medicine system with historical roots in the Indian subcontinent. The theory and practice of Ayurveda is pseudoscientific. Ayurveda is heavily practiced in India and Nepal, where around 80% of the population repor ...

, and healthy living. In 2012, Farrow established the non-profit Dear Prudence Foundation to raise funds for a

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

of the 2013

Kumbh Mela Kumbh Mela or Kumbha Mela () is a major pilgrimage and festival in Hinduism. It is celebrated in a cycle of approximately 12 years, to celebrate every revolution Brihaspati ( Jupiter) completes, at four river-bank pilgrimage sites: Allahabad ...

festival which is held in India every twelve years.

Personal life

Farrow married teacher Albert Morrill Bruns in December 1969. They have three children and four grandchildren. In late 1981, Robert Durst was nearing the end of an alleged three-year affair with Farrow while he was married to Kathie McCormack. According to the ''

New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com. It was established ...

'', a few months before McCormack's disappearance in January 1982, Farrow called her and asked that she give Durst up, as friends said she wanted him all to herself. After Durst was acquitted of murdering Morris Black in 2003, Farrow contacted law-enforcement authorities with concerns for her safety, as she said Durst was angry with her for terminating their relationship three days before McCormack disappeared.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Farrow, Prudence 1948 births Living people American film producers American people of Australian descent American people of Irish descent Transcendental Meditation exponents