Mia Farrow is mourning the loss of her sister Tisa Farrow after the actress “died unexpectedly” at the age of 72.
“If there is a Heaven, undoubtedly my beautiful sister Tisa is being welcomed there,” Mia, 78, wrote on Instagram Thursday. “She was the best of us – i have never met a more generous and loving person. She loved life & never complained. Ever.”
Mia described Tisa, who “was a nurse for 27 years,” as a “wonderful sister” and a “devoted” mother to late son Jason, daughter Bridget and grandson Kylor, who were “the lights of her life.”
“She died unexpectedly yesterday morning. Apparently in her sleep,” Mia concluded. “This is a hard time for all of us who admire and love her so deeply.”
Tisa’s cause of death has yet to be revealed.
Tisa, the youngest of seven, was born in Los Angeles in the early 1950s to Irish actress Maureen O’Sullivan and Australian director John Farrow.
Despite her “very strict” upbringing, Tisa decided to drop out of high school as a teenager to pursue a career in the entertainment industry.
Yet regardless of her family’s connections, Tisa told the New York Times in 1970 that she had a hard time finding work before landing her first role in “Homer” (1970).
“I spent a long time going around town trying out for commercials, and I didn’t get one,” she told the outlet at the time. “I would always run into some career woman who disliked me right away because she didn’t like my sister Mia.”
Although she believed her last name may have hindered her at first, Tisa was very close with her family.
“None of the girls are alike — but we all like each other,” she said of her three sisters.
While Tisa described herself as just “the baby” of the bunch, she credited Mia to being “the strongest.”
“She has a very strong character and is unsinkable,” Tisa said of the “Rosemary’s Baby” star, noting that her other sister Prudence was the “strange” and “spiritual” one and sister Stephanie was “the prettiest and the funniest” of the four.
After “Homer,” Tisa appeared in several other big projects, including James Toback’s “Fingers,” William Richert’s “Winter Kills” and Woody Allen’s “Manhattan” — which was filmed right before the director started dating Mia.
Tisa is survived by all three of her sisters, her brother John, daughter Bridget and grandson Kylor. Her brother Michael died in a plane crash in 1958 and her other brother Patrick died by suicide in 2009.
Her son, Jason — whom she shared with husband Terry Deane — was killed in Iraq in 2008 while serving in the Army.
