Prudence Farrow

Prudence Anne Villiers Farrow Bruns (born January 20, 1948) is an American author, meditation teacher, and film producer. She is the daughter of film director John Farrow and actress Maureen O'Sullivan, and the younger sister of actress Mia Farrow. She is the subject of the Beatles song "Dear Prudence".

Farrow was raised in the Catholic faith and attended convent schools. Farrow learned the Transcendental Meditation technique (TM) in 1966 at UCLA. In 1967 Farrow became interested in yoga and opened a yoga institute at a former church in Boston. On January 23, 1968, Farrow, along with her sister Mia and brother John, traveled with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi from New York to India, and then to the Maharishi's ashram in Rishikesh for a Transcendental Meditation teacher training course.

The Beatles arrived shortly thereafter, on February 16 and 20. Farrow was dedicated to practicing the TM technique so she could become a TM teacher. According to Farrow: "I would always rush straight back to my room after lectures and meals so I could meditate. John, George and Paul would all want to sit around jamming and having a good time and I'd be flying into my room. They were all serious about what they were doing, but they just weren't as fanatical as me". She "turned into a near recluse" and "rarely came out" of her cottage. John Lennon was asked to "contact her and make sure she came out more often to socialize" and he wrote the song "Dear Prudence". According to Lennon, "She'd been locked in for three weeks and was trying to reach God quicker than anyone else".

Farrow taught TM for several decades after her teacher training course in India. Among those she mentored was comedian Andy Kaufman. She returned to India for further instruction from the Maharishi in 1986 and has taught Transcendental Meditation in Florida since 1970.

Later in her life, Farrow earned a BA, an MA, and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley where she majored in Asian studies. Her doctoral dissertation was on pulse diagnosis, titled Nadivijnana, the Crest-Jewel of Ayurveda: A Translation of Six Central Texts and an Examination of the Sources, Influences and Development of Indian Pulse-Diagnosis. Farrow became an elementary school teacher and according to her résumé she has held teaching positions or presented at conferences held at the University of California at Berkeley, Rutgers University and the University of Wisconsin.

Farrow has worked in the theater and film industry as a production assistant on The Muppets Take Manhattan in 1984 and the art department coordinator for The Purple Rose of Cairo. She also "conceived and co-produced" the 1994 film Widows' Peak, which featured her sister, Mia, in a part originally written for their mother, Maureen O'Sullivan. In 1999, she was one of four producers involved in staging Up From the Ground at the Westbeth Theatre in New York City.

Farrow became a magazine writer in the 2000s. Using her married name, Prudence Bruns, she has authored articles on Asian studies, world religions, ayurveda, and healthy living. In 2012 Farrow established the non-profit Dear Prudence Foundation to raise funds for a documentary film of the 2013 Kumbh Mela festival which is held in India every twelve years.

Farrow has three children and four grandchildren. She was dating New York real estate heir Robert Durst when his wife went missing.