Rita Farr

"We're going to save the world, or whatever, and then I will have a stiff Manhattan and go to bed."

- Rita Farr

Rita Farr (born Gertrude Cramp) (b. pre 1929) is a former actress and Hollywood starlet, who was exposed to a toxic gas by Niles Caulder as part of the Immortus Initiative. Said gas altered her cellular structure - which allows her to stretch her body, but also causes it to deform. She was eventually collected by Caulder to live with others in his house.

Early life
In Burbank during the year 1931, a young Rita watches her mother get ready as a major movie executive is coming to visit. Rita is eager to get a part in a movie, but her mother sends her to bed. All while implying that Rita isn't pretty. She later sees her mother having sex with the aforementioned movie executive, much to her devastation.

Renowned actress Rita Farr
"I was a belly dancer, an SEO spy, the queen of Muscle Beach. I used to be Rita Farr, star of stage and screen. Now I don't know how I am."

- Rita Farr

At some point in time, Rita was a renowned actress. She was kept an institution for decades after a toxic gas left her cells unstable. She was eventually rescued by Caulder.

In the 1950s, Gertrude Cramp worked as a actress under the stage name "Rita Farr". While on the set of Forbidden Congo, she made a fuss to the first assistant director Charles regarding an amputee crew member. They resumed filming after he was replaced, but as she walked down a gangway, Rita fell through it and into the water. Taking a moment to find her surroundings, Rita was exposed to a gas underwater. She was saved by a crew member, who took her ashore. When she prompted a lady for a towel, everyone stayed back, before giving her a mirror to show her the deformities that were appearing on her face, and soon the rest of her body. She eventually went into hiding, finding a home at Doom Manor thanks to Dr. Niles Caulder.

Living at Doom Manor
After Cliff Steele came to the Manor, Rita assured him that Dr. Caulder meant well, and to give him a chance. She continued to encourage Cliff as he learnt to walk again, having suffered an accident that rendered him with no body and only a brain. In 2019, when the Chief went away on a trip, the group was coerced into going into town by Crazy Jane. While in town, Rita opted to go to a diner. She ordered some food, before she was enraptured by a story by the waitress, who unknowingly recognized her as Rita Farr. The woman spoke of her fond childhood memories of watching Rita's films, but soon began to claim that Rita started doing pornography. Shocked, Rita began to get emotional, one half of her face drooping and her leg blobbing up. She paid her bill, before attempting to leave. However, before she could reach the door, Rita turned into a gelatinous mass. Blinded by emotion, she moved on down the street, only finally stopped by Cliff, who pulled up some road. They returned to the mansion, and the Chief eventually, scolding them for their recklessness. Explaining that enemies would soon target them, all but Cliff chose to leave, instead staying to protect the locals. However, the rest soon acquiesced and joined Cliff, staring down a rather odd albino donkey.

A portal began to open up, swallowing the town, along with Jane and the bus. She scolded Cliff for his part in the events, before they headed back to the Manor. The following morning, Rita went around the house and did some cleaning. Listening to some news reports, she started to droop, but calmed herself down. She headed to Larry's room, using some bandages to cover her hand up. Larry arrived home, much to her surprise, and he admitted to having run away from her during her prior outburst, for which she forgave him. They headed downstairs, where they ran into Cliff and Cyborg bringing in an unconscious Jane. They acquainted themselves with Vic, before Rita returned to her room. Jane began to wreak havoc, and so Larry went to Rita's room, suggesting they get some air. While they appreciated the sunshine, Vic examined the albino donkey, noticing its throat to be a keyhole, potentially leading to somewhere. Rita initially refused to help, but soon gave in. As they fed her into the mouth, she began poking amorphous eye into the hole. She slowly began to slip from the garbage bag she was in, falling right through. She found herself transported to an alternate dimension, shortly followed by Vic and Larry. They discovered headphones marked for them from "Nobody", and they put them on, hearing him narrating all of their actions. They were suddenly transported to dream-like worlds, Rita once again a celebrated film star. She initially played along, but eventually broke character, being torturously reminded by the disembodied voice of her past involving a baby in a stroller. Rita and company were promptly rescued by the Negative Spirit, who transported them and the entire town of Cloverton back to the real world. Before she went to bed, Rita was stopped by Vic, who complimented her on being a star, to which she took high praise, before instructing him to the guest room.

A New Beginning
Rita decides to attempt to audition for the local community theater in  Cloverton and ends up doing so at a local nursery. However, in the middle of her monologue, she has flashbacks to her mental block and botches the audition. Later at Doom Manor, Rita goes over her lines and is unexpectedly visited by the play's director who asks her to take over the role of the Blob Lady and Rita agrees only for a hallucination of her mother to also appear and belittle her in the process. As it turns out, Rita is having a nightmare. Eventually Rita decides she is going to go shadow the Cloverton beekeeper. As it turns out, when Rita goes to meet with the beekeeper, she finds out this Cloverton resident is kind of rough around the edges. She also has a daughter that she's hard on and has her take a jar of honey to help her get better grades at school. This ends upseting  Rita as it reminds her of the difficult relationship she had with her own mother. , She eventually opens up to the beekeeper about her mother, who suggests that she needs to see things through her mother's eyes and since she can't talk to her, she needs to find a surrogate to scream at. The surrogate being the bees in this way, but it doesn't work for Rita the way she hoped it would. On her way home, though, she encounters a mugging in progress and as the Beekeeper ends up saving the day.

Fight with Candlemaker
At the fair, Rita runs into her imaginary friend, a paper doll named Mademoiselle Roxy that the Candlemaker created to torture her. Eventually Rita opens up about her own issues to her paper doll. Unfortunately, much like her teammates, she got waxed, except Cliff, who gets busted apart first instead.



Personality
Rita at first is seen as a very narcissistic, haughty and always speaking in airs, spending nearly 70 years stuck in the past of her glory days surrounding herself with her own image and continually watching her movies. As her image and legacy is routed in her self worth, Rita is repulsed by deformity and most of all her own condition.

After her psychological torture from Mr. Nobody and her exchanges with Cyborg and the elderly Mento, she accepted her failings and began a personal journey to become a better person, selflessly saving Elliot Patterson's life, accepting her past sins. revealing her birth name and devoting herself to the search for the chief which she was reluctant to do at first.

Although fame, grandiose and her childhood issues with her mother overlay her deeper qualities, Rita is deep down a caring and protective person who upon resolving her issues, Rita desires to become a superhero and use her powers for good.

Powers

 * Meta-human physiology: While on the set of Forbidden Congo, Rita was exposed to an unknown gas, mutating her biology.
 * Elasticity: Rita using her elasticity.png Rita is able to stretch her limbs far beyond their capabilities as shown when she was able to stretch her arm multiple feet across a room.
 * Longevity: Rita's physiology seems to have stalled her aging as she looks exactly the same now as she did sixty years ago.
 * Enhanced strength: Rita's powers seem to also grant her a degree of strength as she was able to hold Willoughby Kipling in place with one hand and apply enough pressure to his chest to affect his breathing. It's also implied that she could have killed him if she had held him like that much longer.
 * Enhanced durability: Rita's elasticity grants her a degree of immunity to attacks.

Weaknesses

 * Power instability: Rita has little voluntary control over her powers, as they will flare up whenever she feels stressed. While she can trigger them at will via her acting talent, reverting them is another story.
 * Blob deformation: When Rita is nervous or stressed, her body will become droopy and deformed. At its fullest extent, this can cause Rita to collapse into an amorphous blob. She can apparently gain mass in this form, as the blob is several times bigger than her human form.
 * Increased metabolism: Rita needs to consume extremely large amounts of calories in order to maintain her form. It is implied that at least a good portion of the very big meals Larry cooks are for her. She is shown eating more food than the rest of the team at dinner and even eats entire chickens in one sitting.

Trivia

 * Rita was once nominated for a Golden Globe.

Behind the scenes

 * In the DC comics, Elasti-Girl is an actress and former olympic swimmer Rita Farr. She is a founding member of the Doom Patrol. She gained her elasticity when exposed to volcanic gas on a film shoot. Her first appearance in the comics was My Greatest Adventure #80 (June, 1963).