UNICEF People

Mia Farrow

© UNICEF/HQ 02-0442/Pirozzi

Mia Farrow feeds a malnourished girl, Esperança, age 6, at a nutrition centre in Angola, 2002.

Award-winning actress, Mia Farrow, has devoted much time to humanitarian causes, particularly those supporting children. UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy announced Farrow's appointment as a Goodwill Ambassador on 27 September 2000, during the first Global Polio Partners Summit at the United Nations (UN) in New York.

Farrow, who had polio as a child, gave one of the summit’s opening speeches. Her 12-year-old adopted son Thaddeus, who contracted the disease while living in an orphanage in India, also took part by setting in motion the countdown clock that tracks the remaining time to a polio-free world. Farrow has done much to draw attention to efforts to eradicate the disease since her appointment.

Farrow's association with UNICEF dates from December 1998, when she participated in a celebration at the UN in New York to mark the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In July 1999, she helped launch the UNICEF report The Progress of Nations 1999, which devoted a chapter to the fight against polio.

Helping to reach children

Farrow's first mission as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, was to Nigeria in January 2001. She helped to launch a national polio immunization day designed to reach every child under five, and visited a variety of other UNICEF-supported health and educational programmes.

© UNICEF/HQ 02-0427/Pirozzi

Mia Farrow speaks with Julia, age 20, who lost part of one leg in a landmine accident. Angola, 2002.

In August 2002, Farrow travelled to Angola to highlight the plight of women and children after nearly three decades of war. She travelled to four of the worst-affected provinces, meeting with victims of the conflict as well as teachers, doctors, aid workers, officials and former rebel soldiers. She also visited UNICEF-supported government projects to register the birth of millions of Angolan children and to trace and re-unite families.

Between these trips Farrow has been busy promoting other UNICEF initiatives. In May 2002 she attended the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children, which set a new agenda for children’s health, education and protection for the next decade.

Talent and versatility

Born in Los Angeles, Farrow made her stage debut in 1963 in an off-Broadway production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Her career took off after she landed a starring role in the television series Peyton Place, but full recognition of her talent came after Roman Polanski’s 1968 film Rosemary’s Baby. Since then she has continually demonstrated her talent and versatility in such films as The Great Gatsby, Death on the Nile, A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy, Hannah and Her Sisters, Alice (for which she received a Golden Globe award), Husbands and Wives and Reckless. In 1997, she published a memoir, What Falls Away.