MIA TELLS HER SIDE

By Martha Duffy

The book was published last week with the kind of fanfare that trumpets commercial fireworks. It was withheld from reviewers and the media until Wednesday, the day it went on sale. That protected any headline-grabbing revelations it might contain, not to mention the serializations scheduled to run in 12 countries. Said a spokesman for the publisher: "It was a very calibrated timing."

Other things required no calibration, since the book was Mia Farrow's memoir, What Falls Away (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday; 370 pages; $25). An author as hot as Farrow doesn't go on a book tour. Barbara, Oprah and Larry date her up. She was, after all, involved in a show-biz shocker. Four and a half years ago, she discovered that Woody Allen, her lover of 12 years and the father of one of her 14 children (four natural, 10 adopted), was also the lover of her 21-year-old adopted daughter Soon-Yi. This at a time when Farrow thought her worst problem was Allen's crush on her younger daughter Dylan, then seven.

It is a juicy book and a good one. It may even be a bit of a trendsetter. Like Katharine Graham in her recently published autobiography, Personal History, Farrow questions her own passivity in dealing with men and blames herself. Farrow had advantages from the start. She was born to Hollywood royalty (her mother was movie star Maureen O'Sullivan; her father, John Farrow, a director). Among her contemporaries were Candice Bergen and Liza Minnelli. Farrow went on to a major movie career of her own (Rosemary's Baby, The Great Gatsby). She married Frank Sinatra while still in her teens, and, later, conductor Andre Previn.

Near the beginning is a charming section on growing up in Hollywood--the elaborate children's parties, the famous and talented who came to her parents' dinners, the ceremonial arrival of the Farrows--nine strong--at the Roman Catholic Church of the Good Shepherd, where the family had its own pew. In such a heady environment, it isn't surprising that Mia's godmother was gossip columnist Louella Parsons or that Charles Boyer lived next door. But celebrity seems to follow her. Her girlhood pet was the real Lassie's grandson. When she retreated to the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who should turn up but all four Beatles. They sang the night away. And while Farrow was in Hanoi undoing an adoption snag, she went to a commissary and found Mother Teresa eating breakfast.

Details like these are half the fun of What Falls Away. Farrow knows how to orchestrate a scene, a sophisticated writing skill. She also makes each of the children's personalities distinct and, of course, sympathetic, something that professional novelists can have trouble with.

But the book will be bought for the parts on Sinatra and Allen. She and Sinatra were happiest in the beginning when they were goofily in love and their relationship was largely secret. But then came the squabbles with paparazzi and "the interminable Vegas nights," when Frank was drunk and petulant. Farrow started making films in distant locations; divorce followed shortly after.

Writing about Sinatra and Previn, who was out touring for most of their marriage, Farrow is fairly mild, even philosophical. With Allen she is bitter and exacting. Minor flaws are recorded, right down to his carefully assembled casual look in clothes. Allen was fastidious. When her sister came around in a pink T shirt, he was scornful. From the start, Farrow was frustrated by his indifference to her ever growing family. Why did she keep adopting? She traces the inspiration to her son Moses, the first child she took in who was afflicted (with cerebral palsy). He was a gentle, luminous boy, and she realized that by giving others a home she was enriching herself.

When the kids were not involved, there is evidence of great intimacy between Farrow and Allen. They talked four or five times a day, and even used light and mirror signals to communicate across Central Park--he lived on the east side, she on the west. But things were still tricky: "There were three of us in the relationship: Woody, his shrink and me. He didn't even buy sheets without talking to her."

When Farrow found the pornographic pictures of Soon-Yi, she erupted. In a strong scene, she depicts Allen begging to come back and promising to give up her daughter, but amid floods of tears Farrow was unyielding. She realized that her trust had already been undermined by her suspicions that Allen's interest in pretty, blond Dylan--the only child he sought out--was in part erotic. "Why did I stay with Woody Allen when so much was wrong?" she asks herself. "How can I explain to my children, when even to me it is incomprehensible and unforgivable?...Wasn't it my own appalling denial of the facts that permitted him to inflict his damage on those I love most?"

Afterword: Soon-Yi Previn still lives with Woody Allen. According to a spokeswoman for Allen, he considers the book Farrow's way of using Dylan to avenge herself against him. As for Farrow, her kids now range from a law school graduate to a toddler. Wait till they start writing.