The Farmer's Daughter Remembered: The Biography of Actress Inger Stevens [Hardcover]

William T. Patterson (Author), William Windom (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 6, 2000

Besides being a talented and prolific actress, Inger Stevens had a very interesting and abundant life. A great deal has been written about her, but so little of it is true. This biography covers her troubled childhood, her distraught marriages, and her relationships with many of her co-stars. Learn the truth about her suicide attempt a decade before her death, why her estate has not been settled; and the details about her death Was it suicide or murder?

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The author, William T. Patterson, is a retired private investigator. He used his investigative skills to locate many of the former friends and relatives of actress Inger Stevens. His intense research took him to Sweden, London, Philadelphia, New York City and Hollywood.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Xlibris Corporation (March 6, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738811920
• ISBN-13: 978-0738811925
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,203,241 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating fragments of a troubled star's story, January 17, 2003

By 

Leon S. Barwick III - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Farmer's Daughter Remembered (Paperback)

There's not a lot of information out there readily available on Inger Stevens' life, and from what Mr. Patterson writes, most of it is wrong anyway. According to his biography of the actress, Ms. Stevens herself gave out fictitious and occasionally contradictory accounts of her life to reporters and acquaintances, which must have made it hard to piece together a definitive account of what happened to her.

To that end, Patterson should be commended for his efforts to detail her story, and for his detective work into her mysterious death (which he states may have been a murder). This book's strength is its pooling of information on this often overlooked actress -- the compilation of personal letters, interviews with family and friends, reviews and articles from a variety of sources -- giving her fans and interested readers insights into her unique personality.

The book's weaknesses, however, are apparent in the writing and editing. The information is often presented in choppy, disjointed fashion, while the prose is at times awkward, repetitive and poorly punctuated.

These qualms aside, the facts of Inger Stevens' life not only speak for themselves, they shout how lonely and lost she often was. Even if she didn't take her own life, her long trail of badly chosen relationships only led one way. It's a sad story, and I appreciate the hard work Mr. Patterson invested to tell it.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Farmers Daughter Remembered, February 22, 2005

By 

Ann Mulhall "mulhall" (England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Farmer's Daughter Remembered: The Biography of Actress Inger Stevens (Hardcover)

Sensitive portrayal of a fine actress. Detailed account of her troubled childhood, rise to stardom, broken affairs, battles with depression. Added with some lovely photos. This book makes interesting reading for any Inger Stevens fan.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Woman on Fire, March 17, 2005

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Farmer's Daughter Remembered: The Biography of Actress Inger Stevens (Hardcover)

Manu US viewers remember seeing Inger Stevens first in the child custody Bing Crosby melodrama MAN ON FIRE. Because it was seen as Bing's follow up to the heavy drama of THE COUNTRY GIRL, which had starred Grace Kelly, Inger Stevens was compared unfavorably to Grace Kelly's classic good looks and acting ability. Even though the critics anknowledged that in a glum part, Inger Stevens brought some life to it, she was dismissed as a Grace Kelly wannabe before her career got off the ground. And Hollywood insiders and gossips were wagging their tongues about Inger and Bing. Today, in the wake of "Bennifer," their purported romance would make them "Binger" I guess. Anyhow Crosby was notoriously caddish to his female co-stars, and most of them wound up on the scrap heap of Hollywood history, but for Inger Stevens, she was just beginning a romantic history that would see her careening from romance to romance like a bumper car out of control. Who didn't she fall for? James Mason, Harry Belafonte, Anthony Quinn, David Janssen, just about every guy who crossed her path who might as well have had "Trouble" written on his forehead.

It was almost as if, as Patterson indicates, she had some kind of delusion about where to locate strength in a man, and life found her confused about what was real, what wasn't. The druggy vacuity of VALLEY OF THE DOLLS seems campy to us today when we see it on screen, but it was the harsh reality of Inger's life.

Patterson's book takes the high road in trying to separate out the rumor from the fact, and it opens up a lot of previously sealed doors. Though Inger made only seventeen films, and of course many episodes of her popular TV series, we continue to think of her as a beautiful blonde whose life was just too painful for her to go on living.