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Bonnie Franklin

Bonnie FranklinAKA Bonnie Gail Franklin

Born: 6-Jan-1944
Birthplace: Santa Monica, CA
Died: 1-Mar-2013
Location of death: Los Angeles, CA
Cause of death: Cancer - Pancreatic
Remains: Buried, Mount Sinai Memorial Park, Los Angeles, CA

Gender: Female
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Ann Romano on One Day at a Time

Bonnie Franklin was best known as Ann Romano, the divorced mother on One Day at a Time, a long-running comedy-drama of the 1970s and 80s. Mackenzie Phillips and Valerie Bertinelli played her teenaged daughters, and the series dealt with "real life" issues so often, almost every episode seemed to be a "very special episode". In One Day's nine-year run, Franklin's character dealt with her girls' growing up and her own impending middle age. She broke up with her divorce lawyer boyfriend Richard Masur, argued with building super Pat Harrington, and struggled financially when ex-husband Joseph Campanella stopped paying alimony and child support. Later, her character fell in love but her fiancé was killed by a drunk driver, and later still she fell for her daughter's husband's father, played by WKRP's Howard Hesseman.

Franklin first appeared on network TV when she was 12, playing Susan Cratchit in a Chrysler Shower of Stars live telecast of A Christmas Carol. As a child actor she also had small roles in Hitchcock's The Wrong Man and the next-to-last film in the long-running Ma & Pa Kettle series, The Kettles in the Ozarks. As an adult, Franklin became an accomplished stage actress, Tony-nominated for her Broadway role in Applause, where she sang the title tune. She never quite scaled down the voltage for the small screen, so on One Day at a Time her character sometimes seemed to veer beyond the difficulty of being a single parent, toward the verge of a nervous breakdown.

During and after the series' run, Franklin appeared in several TV movies, most notably playing Margaret Sanger in the 1980 telefilm Portrait of a Rebel. She also directed several episodes of One Day at a Time and, later, Charles in Charge. By the mid-1980s television offers for her were few, and she returned to regional theater. She also released a tap dancing exercise video titled I Hate to Exercise, I Love to Tap. She died in 2013.

Father: Samuel Benjamin Franklin (banker)
Mother: Claire Hersch Franklin
Brother: Bernard Franklin (doctor)
Sister: Judith Bush ("Judy)
Brother: Richard Franklin
Sister: Victoria Kupetz
Husband: Ronald Sossi (playwright, m. 4-Mar-1967, div. 1970)
Husband: Marvin Minoff (film producer, m. 31-Aug-1980, d. 11-Nov-2009)
Son: Jed Minoff (stepson)
Daughter: Julie Minoff (stepdaughter)

    High School: Beverly Hills High School, Beverly Hills, CA (1961)
    University: Smith College (1961-63, transferred)
    University: BA English, University of California at Los Angeles (1966)

    Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
    John Kerry for President
    Obama for America
    Risk Factors: Pancreatic Cancer

    TELEVISION
    One Day at a Time Ann Romano (1975-84)

    FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
    Broadway: The Golden Age (Apr-2003) · Herself
    Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (5-Sep-1979)


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