Mia Farrow: Flower Child, Madonna, Muse

Less a biography than a collection of clippings from various publications, Hollywood film/TV journalists Rubin and Taylor follow the actress from her birth in 1945 through the present. Readers might wish for more about Mia Farrow's parents, director-author John Farrow and screen actress Maureen O'Sullivan (``Jane'' in the early Tarzan movies), but the text remains devoted to its subject. Her career is traced from her first acting stint at age 19 to her role in the TV series Peyton Place , the plum lead in Rosemary's Baby , the disastrous celluloid version of The Great Gatsby and her successes in Woody Allen's films. There are reminders of the actress's failed relationships with Sinatra and Andre Previn and her liaison with Allen, as well as critiques of her films. Here the authors go overboard with praise, even higher than their fulsome paeans to Mia Farrow the madonna, unrivaled in her devotion to her children. Photos not seen by PW. (Aug.)