Gretchen Franklin

At 94 years old, Gretchen Franklin has this physical status:

Gretchen Franklin (7 July 1911 – July 2005) was an English actor and dancer with a career in show business spanning over 70 years.

She was born in Covent Garden, Central London.

From 1985 to 1988, Ethel Skinner appeared in the long-running BBC 1 soap opera EastEnders on a regular basis.

After this, she returned to the program in a sporadic manner.

These appearances became shorter and more widely distributed.

Her last appearance was in 2000, when her character was killed off.

Early life

Gretchen Franklin was born into a theatrical family, her parents Gordon and Violet Franklin's only child. Her father performed a song-and-dance act, while her grandfather, a well-known music-hall entertainer at the turn of the twentieth century, was a well-known music hall entertainer. Clive Dunn, her younger cousin (1920-2012), was a comedian.

She began performing as an adolescent, making her debut as a pantomime chorus girl in Bournemouth. She began dancing lessons at the Theatre Girls Club in Soho, London's West End, in 1929, and she later became a tap dancer and founding member of the Four Brilliant Blondes. At the London Palladium, Franklin was a Tiller Girl known for their high kicks.

She appeared on stage with comedians Syd and Max Harrison, on the Gracie Fields Show, and with another dance group, The Three Girlies, before shifting to more dramatic roles.

Personal life and death

Franklin was married to writer John Caswell Garth, who was also the general manager of the Wilson Barrett studio company and himself an occasional actor from 1934 to his death from cancer in 1953 at the age of 50. Franklin, who was 42 years old at the time, never remarried. There were no children at the time.

Franklin dedicated a large portion of her later life to charity and gave away all the royalties she received from EastEnders repeats to her favorite animal charities off-screen. "One isn't buying new fur coats and diamonds at my age," she said. "If you're going to get a lot of repeat fees four times a year, you might be a bit more generous to others."

Franklin was expected to present the Lifetime Soap Achievement Award to former colleague June Brown at the British Soap Awards in May 2005, but she was too ill to attend. Anna Wing, a fellow EastEnders actress who played Lou Beale, had it instead delivered it to Brown. In her address, Wing mentioned Franklin.

Franklin died in Barnes on July 11, 2005, four days after her 94th birthday. In 2006, her life and work were honoured at the British Academy Television Awards.

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Acting career

She made her break during the Second World War while acting in Sweet and Low, the first of a string of highly popular West End revues. The revues were staged at the New Ambassadors Theatre, starring Hermione Gingold. Franklin and Gingold became close friends and were reunited in another revue, Slings and Arrows (Comedy Theatre, 1948).

She appeared in several scripts and made one of her first screen appearances in Before I Wake (1955). Cloak Without Dagger (1956), Fire in the Streets (1961), The Murder Game (1968), Twisted Nerve (1968), The Night Visitor (1974), and Ragtime (1981), among other things.

Franklin has appeared in numerous television and on stage productions. In the 1958 play Verdict by British mystery writer Agatha Christie, one of Franklin's best known stage roles was playing Mrs Roper. It was produced by Peter Saunders and directed by Charles Hickman and ran for 250 performances.

In 1965, Franklin was performing on stage in Spring and Port Wine as the first Mrs Alf Garnett in a first episode of Till Death Us Do Part with Warren Mitchell. However, she missed out on a permanent role in what was supposed to be a hit series due to her inability to perform on a regular basis (not that she was unable to participate in the series), and it was Franklin who recommended Dandy Nichols for the role. Franklin and Nichols appeared in two films directed by Richard Lester, the Beatles film Help! (1965) and How I Won the War (1967) starring John Lennon.

Later on, Franklin appeared in several television series, including Crossroads, in which she played Myrtle Cavendish; The short-lived soap George and Mildred as Mildred's mother; and Rising Damp as Rigsby's Aunt Maud; and "A Fair Swap" as Aunt Maud. She appeared on television shows as well as Dixon of Dock Green and Z-Cars. Mrs.Silk appeared in the episode 'A Private Nuisance' in 1972. In an episode of The Protectors ("A Pocket Full of Posies," 1974), she appeared with Eartha Kitt (1996), performing a song and dance routine. In 1979, she appeared in films including Danger Man, Follyfoot, and the final Quatermass serial.

In an episode of Enid Blyton's Famous Five ("Five on Billycock Hill"), Franklin also played the nutty, troubled mother Mrs Janes, and the witch Cordelia appeared in the first episode of The Black Adder ("The Foretelling," 1983), starring Rowan Atkinson.

In an episode of Keeping Up Appearances broadcast in 1990, Franklin played Daddy's Fiancée.

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