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Anne Francis | |
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 Studio publicity photo from the 1950s | |
| Born | September 16, 1930 Ossining, New York, U.S. |
| Died | January 2, 2011 (aged 80) |
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| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1936–2006 |
| Known for | Forbidden Planet Bad Day at Black Rock Blackboard Jungle |
| Television | Honey West |
| Spouses |
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| Children | 2 |
Anne Francis (September 16, 1930 – January 2, 2011) was an American actress known for her ground-breaking roles in the science fiction film Forbidden Planet (1956) and the television action-drama series Honey West (1965–1966). Forbidden Planet marked a first in in-color, big-budget, science-fiction-themed motion pictures. Nine years later, Francis challenged female stereotypes in Honey West, in which she played a perky blonde private investigator who was as quick with body slams as with witty one-liners. She earned a Golden Globe Award and Emmy Award nomination for her performance.[1]
Francis was known largely for her physical assets, including a trademark mole near her lower lip. The beauty mark was even written into the script of one of her films.[2] In 2005, TV Guide ranked Francis at number 18 on its "50 Sexiest Stars of All Time" list.[3]
Francis was born in Ossining, New York, on September 16, 1930.[4][5] Contrary to some sources, which erroneously claim she was born Ann Marvak (rather than Francis),[1][6] her parents' marriage registration and census records from 1925 and 1930 confirm that their names were Philip Ward Francis and Edith (née Albertson) Francis.[7][8] She was their only child.[citation needed]
Francis entered show business as a child, working as a model at 5 years old to assist her family during the Great Depression. She made her Broadway debut at the age of 11.[9][2]
Francis made her first film appearances in This Time for Keeps (1947) and Summer Holiday (1948).[10] She played supporting roles in the films So Young, So Bad (1950), Lydia Bailey (1952), The Rocket Man (1954), Susan Slept Here (1954), and Bad Day at Black Rock (1955); her first leading role was in Blackboard Jungle (1955). Her best-known film role is that of Altaira in Forbidden Planet (1956), a science-fiction classic that was nominated for a best-effects Oscar.[11][12]
Her movie roles were then confined to low-budget efforts: a call girl in Girl of the Night (1960), a scheming trophy wife in Brainstorm (1965), as Jerry Lewis's wife in Hook, Line & Sinker (1969), and as co-star to a young Burt Reynolds in the adventure movie Impasse (1969). An exception was her role as chorine Georgia James in Funny Girl (1968).
When motion-picture opportunities became scarcer for Francis near the close of the 1950s, she moved, successfully, to television. Beginning as a guest on The Untouchables and as the title character in The Doreen Maney Story, she appeared in two episodes of The Twilight Zone ("The After Hours" and "Jess-Belle"), two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents ("Hooked" and "Keep Me Company"), and three episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour ("What Really Happened", "Blood Bargain", and "The Trap"). In 1961, she appeared twice in Route 66, first in "Play it Glissando" and then "A Month of Sundays". Francis appeared in two episodes of the Western series The Virginian, two episodes of Columbo ("Short Fuse" and "A Stitch in Crime") and the episode "Incident of the Shambling Man" on the CBS Western Rawhide. She was cast in an episode of Gene Kelly's drama series, Going My Way, based on the 1944 film of the same name. During 1964, she guest-starred in "Hideout" and "Rachel's Mother" in The Reporter, as well as two successive appearances in The Man from U.N.C.L.E..[13] She appeared in season four, episode 10 of Mission Impossible, titled "The Double Circle".
Honey West was an action drama; the character was formally introduced in the April 21, 1965, episode of Burke's Law titled "Who Killed the Jackpot?", after which it was spun off as a series that lasted one season of 30 half-hour episodes. Honey was a shrewd, high-energy private investigator who collaborated with assistant Sam Bolt (John Ericson) in a company that was inherited from her father. At home, she cared for her pet ocelot named Bruce.
The show was cancelled due to budgetary considerations, and ABC executives imported the similarly themed hit British show The Avengers.
Francis made a guest appearance in a 1967 episode of The Fugitive and in The Invaders the same year. She guest-starred in a 1973 episode of Barnaby Jones, "Murder in the Doll's House".[14]
At the start of the final season of My Three Sons in 1971, Francis played bowling-alley waitress Terri Dowling, who married character Laird Fergus McBain Douglas of Sithian Bridge, Scotland, and returned to his homeland as a member of the nobility. (Fred MacMurray played the dual-character roles of Steve Douglas and Fergus McBain Douglas in this four-part story arc.) She appeared twice as a guest star on Columbo, once as the manipulated lover of the murderer ("Short Fuse", 1972)[15] and once as the murder victim ("A Stitch in Crime", 1973).[16]
In 1974, Francis appeared as Ida, the madame of a bawdy house on the series Kung Fu in the episode "Night of the Owls, Day of the Doves". In 1975, she appeared as Abby in an episode of Movin' On titled "The Price of Loving". In 1976, she appeared as Lola Flynn in an episode of Wonder Woman, entitled "Beauty on Parade". In 1977, she appeared as Lieutenant Commander Gladys Hope, the head nurse in two episodes of the World War II series Baa Baa Black Sheep. She portrayed Melissa Osborne in the episode "How Do I Kill Thee?" of The Eddie Capra Mysteries in 1978.[citation needed]
During the 1980–81 season of Dallas, Francis had a recurring role as Arliss Cooper, the mother of Mitch and Afton Cooper. In 1982, she played an armored car robber and mother in "In the Best of Families" episode of CHiPs. The same year she had a cameo in the TV movie Mazes and Monsters starring Tom Hanks. She later played Mama Jo in the first few episodes (four total) of the 1984 TV-detective series Riptide.[17] In that same year, she guest-starred in the premiere episode of Murder, She Wrote, credited as Anne Lloyd Francis; she went on to guest-star in two more episodes during the show's run. In December 1984, again credited as Anne Lloyd Francis, she guest-starred in the Christmas-themed S8 E13 of The Love Boat playing the mother of Kim Lankford's character, Carol, in the vignette "Noel's Christmas Carol". She appeared on episodes of Matlock and The Golden Girls.
In 1996, Francis appeared in the Wings episode "The Lady Vanishes", as Vera, a 1940s gun moll. In 1997, in the Home Improvement episode "A Funny Valentine", she appeared as Liddy, Tim Allen's high-school classmate's mother. She guest-starred in 1998 on The Drew Carey Show as the mother of Drew's girlfriend Nicki in the episodes "Nicki's Parents" and "Nicki's Wedding". Francis's final television acting role was in "Shadows", a 2004 episode of Without a Trace.[10]
Francis was married to United States Air Force pilot Bamlet Lawrence Price, Jr.,[1] from May 1952 through April 1955, and to Robert Abeloff from 1960 through 1964. She never remarried after divorcing Abeloff.[18][11]
Francis and Abeloff had one daughter, Jane Elizabeth Abeloff (born March 21, 1962).[19] Francis later adopted Margaret "Maggie" West in 1970,[20][21] one of the first adoptions granted to an unmarried person in California.[1]
Francis studied flying toward the end of the 1960s, eventually earning her pilot's license.[22]
In 1982, Francis published an autobiography, Voices from Home: An Inner Journey.[23] On its cover, she wrote that the book "is my spiritual exposé. It is about our essence of being, the inner workings of mind and spirit which contribute to the growth of the invisible and most important part of us."[24] A subsequent biography titled Anne Francis: The Life and Career was written by Laura Wagner and published by McFarland & Company in 2011.[25]
A smoker for much of her adult life, Francis said that she quit the habit in the mid-1980s, but was diagnosed with non-small-cell lung cancer in 2006.[11]
Francis died from complications due to pancreatic cancer on January 2, 2011, at a retirement home in Santa Barbara, California.[5] Her ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean.[26]
Because I am an actress, I am sure the first response to my having written a book will be, "Aha, another Hollywood biography." Since the market is flooded with biographies of professional revelations from many luminaries and super stars, the next response might quite possibly be, 'Who cares?'. I care! I care because VOICES FROM HOME is not a book about hidden skeletons, social calendars, and name revealing dalliances. It is far more intimate. It is my spiritual expose. It is about our essence of being, the unexplicable reality of mysticism, psychic phenomena, and the inner workings of mind and spirit which contribute to the growth of the invisible and most important part of us; hidden from the glare of lights and the camera's eye.
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