For a while, Mia Farrow was a genuine housewife. In a life of bright lights and dark, dark shadows, this must surely count as one of the most unusual periods of them all: a moment of apparent stability and respectability in the late 70s and early 80s. During this time, she picked up her twin sons Matthew and Sascha by the conductor Andre Previn from their ballet classes and music lessons and took them back to the family home in Leigh, southeast England, much as if she had never been the daughter of Tarzan's Jane, Maureen O'Sullivan, nor the young bride of Frank Sinatra.
But this was the era when the notion of adopting needy children took hold. At 28, she persuaded Previn to help her adopt two Vietnamese daughters, Lark Song, who died of pneumonia in 2008, and Summer Song, now known as Daisy.
It was a motherhood jag that has stayed the distance and which has come to define Farrow, 68, at least as much as her prodigious acting talent or her clear, angelic looks. The actress eventually had a total of 15 children, including Fletcher, her third son by Previn, her adopted Korean daughter Soon Yi, and her son Ronan, once known as Satchel.