Anne Francis, American actress and a popular television star, died on 2 January 2011 from complications of pancreatic cancer at a retirement home in Santa Barbara, California.
Anne Francis was born in Ossining, New York, on September 16, 1930. She was the only child of Philip Ward Francis and Edith (nee Albertson) Francis.
Anne Francis (September 16, 1930 – January 2, 2011) was an American actress. She is best known for her roles in Blackboard Jungle (1955) and Funny Girl (1968).
Anne Francis, a smoldering sex symbol who played the intergalactic Miranda in the cult sci-fi movie Forbidden Planet and was a sexy private detective on TV’s Honey West, died on January 2 in Santa Barbara, California. She was 80 and had been diagnosed with lung cancer.
Born in Ossining, New York on September 16, 1930, she became a John Robert Powers model at age 6 and made her Broadway debut at 11 as the child version of Gertrude Lawrence’s star in Lady in the Dark (1941). She moved to radio soap work and television in the early ’50s, appearing on a number of children’s shows before finding a home on the big screen with the success of her role in Blackboard Jungle, where she was cast opposite Glenn Ford in a school that was rife with sexual harassment and delinquency.
Eventually she landed a contract at MGM, where she often took the lead in films such as Elopement and Lydia Bailey. After a brief stint at 20th Century-Fox, she returned to MGM and starred in a number of classics, including A Lion Is in the Streets and Dreamboat.
After her film career waned in the 1950s, she turned to television, guest-starring on a variety of live shows and programs. Her roles on The Twilight Zone, as a self-sufficient detective in “Jess-Belle” and as Marsha White in “The After Hours,” earned her an Emmy nomination. She also appeared in a couple of episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and three episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.
She was married twice, to Bamlet Lawrence Price Junior (divorced 1955) and Robert Abeloff. She adopted a daughter and later settled in Santa Barbara, where she died at age 80.
In her early days, she worked on one of New York’s first television stations, and she appeared in the early days of color broadcasting. She also appeared on a variety of sitcoms and was the host of NBC’s Versatile Varieties.
The actress was a natural beauty who made her way quickly into Hollywood. She was cast in a number of low-budget movies and began to get more substantial roles as her career progressed.
With her talent and her ability to play with her emotions, she was able to find a lot of success in the sexy era of the film industry. She remained a favorite of viewers for her sexy performances and her natural charm.
Her most memorable role was in the cult science-fiction classic Forbidden Planet, where she played an astronaut who lands on an uncharted planet. She won a Golden Globe for her role and received an Emmy nomination.
A smoldering sex symbol, she was also a likable character actor, playing various versions of mothers and wives in her many films. She was a member of the National Action Network and was an avid horseback rider.
Anne Francis was born in Ossining, New York.
Her father was Philip Ward Francis, a Quaker who worked in the silk industry. He moved his family from Elizabeth, New Jersey to Ossining, New York in 1930 to start a business but the company failed. Anne got modeling jobs to help her family out during the Great Depression. Her debut on the stage was in 1941 in a play by Kurt Weill, Lady in the Dark, and her career in radio and television followed.
Her mother, Edith Albertson, was a social worker and later an art dealer who ran a store in Manhattan. She gave birth to Francis in Ossining, New York, on September 16, 1930. She was a very active actress and moved to California in 1949 where she starred in movies. She died of pancreatic cancer on January 2, 2011.
During her early childhood, she began appearing on children’s radio programs and made her Broadway debut at the age of 11. In addition to acting in movies and theater, she also had a successful career in radio soap operas. She also wrote and directed a short film called Gemini Rising that was released theatrically and then broadcast on PBS.
Although she made some bobbysoxer films during the post-World War II years, her real breakthrough came when she signed with MGM in 1950 and was cast as Altaira Morbius, the space-age Miranda in the cult science-fiction classic Forbidden Planet (1956). She received the title role in a stage production of the play, which became a hit in Hollywood.
She won a Golden Globe for her performance and was nominated for an Emmy award. She later starred in the ABC series Honey West, in which she played the first TV female detective.
Francis also played bowling-alley waitress Terri Dowling on the popular television series My Three Sons. She married Laird Fergus McBain Douglas, a Scottish nobleman, in the four-part storyline.
After her career in film ended, she returned to television where she became a staple on such shows as The Twilight Zone, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Columbo. She was also a frequent guest star on other television programs throughout her career.
During her life, she was very involved in the International New Thought Alliance and she had a strong spiritual outlook on life. She was an excellent listener and writer and was a very caring person. She was also very sociable and loved people. She was a member of several churches and had a very good relationship with her family.
She was born in Ossining, New York and passed away on January 2nd, 2011 at the age of 80. She is survived by her two daughters; Jane and Maggie, her daughter in law Robert Abeloff and her grandson Brian. She will be greatly missed by her many fans and friends.
Anne Francis was married to Bamlet Lawrence Price Jr. and Robert Abeloff.
Anne Francis was born on September 16, 1930, in Ossining, New York, to Edith (née Lawrence) and Philip Ward Francis. She attended the Professional Children’s School in New York, and began her acting career on Broadway at the age of eleven. She later starred in several films and television shows, including Blackboard Jungle (1955) and Funny Girl (1968).
She was a leading actress for more than 20 years, appearing in many well-known Hollywood movies. Her roles in Blackboard Jungle and Forbidden Planet garnered her widespread recognition, as did her performance as the title character of Honey West, an action-drama series aired from 1965 to 1966. She received a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination for her role in the series, which broke many stereotypes about women in movies.
Her appearance as Altaira Morbius in the science fiction film Forbidden Planet, released by Metro Goldwyn Mayer in 1956, was a breakthrough for her and made her a star in the baby-boomer generation. She received acclaim for her naive, witty performance in the film and its subsequent television adaptation. She was a guest star on The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Mission: Impossible, My Three Sons, and Murder, She Wrote, among others.
Francis first appeared on television in a 1939 Christmas show and for seven months during 1941, she was the star of a daily children’s program for CBS-TV. She also had an appearance on NBC’s The Bonny Maid Versatile Varietty Show, where she acted out the floor-covering commercials for Bonny Maids.
In 1960, she had a lead role in a provocative movie about a high-priced call girl, Girl of the Night. She also had a role in William Conrad’s film noir Brainstorm and co-starred in Impasse, an adventure film starring Burt Reynolds.
During her career, she appeared in more than two dozen films and TV shows. Her best-known performances were as Altaira Morbius in Forbidden Planet and as Honey West in the television series Honey West.
She played a private investigator in the 1965-1966 television series Honey West, a role that earned her an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe award. She was also a frequent guest on various detective and mystery series, including Burke’s Law, The Fugitive, and The Invaders.
Her role as Honey West helped her to become a leading actor, and her character’s sexiness and cleverness broke many of the negative stereotypes about women in film and television. She was the first television actress to be cast in a series with a female detective’s name in the title, and her performance won her numerous awards.
In 1972, she had a role in My Three Sons, as Lady Terri Douglas, and she was also a regular in Dallas from 1980-1981. She had a recurring role in Riptide from 1984-1986, and she appeared on Matlock and The Golden Girls in the 1990s. In 2007, she was diagnosed with lung cancer and underwent a number of medical procedures to treat her condition. She died of lung cancer on January 2, 2011, at the age of 81.