Arlene Francis

Arlene Francis (born Arline Francis Kazanjian; October 20, 1907^[1] – May 31, 2001^[2]) was an American actress, radio talk show host, and game show panelist. She is known for her long-standing role as a panelist on the television game show What's My Line?, on which she regularly appeared for 25 years, from 1950 through the mid-1970s.

Early life

Francis was born on October 20, 1907 in Boston, Massachusetts,^[2] the daughter of Leah (née Davis) and Aram Kazanjian.^[3] Her Armenian father was studying art in Paris at age 16 when he learned that both his parents were dead in one of the Hamidian massacres perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia between 1894 and 1896. He immigrated to the United States and became a portrait photographer,^[2] opening his own studio in Boston in the early 20th century. Later in life, Kazanjian painted canvases of dogwoods, "rabbits in flight," and other nature scenes, selling them at auction in New York.^[4]

When Francis was seven years old, her father decided that opportunities were greater in New York and moved the family to a flat in Washington Heights, Manhattan.^[5] Francis remained a New Yorker until her son moved her to a San Francisco nursing home in 1995.^[1]

Career

After attending Finch College, Francis had a broad and varied career as an entertainer. She was an accomplished actress, with 25 Broadway plays to her credit, from La Gringa in 1928 to Don't Call Back in 1975. She also performed in many local theatre and off-Broadway plays.

Francis became a well-known New York City radio personality, hosting several programs, including a long-running midday chat show on WOR-AM that ran from 1960 to 1984.^[1] In the 1940s, she emceed a network radio game show, Blind Date, which she also hosted on television from 1949 to 1952.^[2] She was one of the regular contributors to NBC Radio's Monitor in the 1950s and 1960s.

Francis was a panelist on the game show What's My Line? throughout almost its entire network run on CBS from 1950 to 1967, and she also appeared in the show's revival as a syndicated show the following year.^[1] She joined the original show on its second episode in 1950 and remained a panelist until the end of the network version in 1968, and continued on the syndicated version for its entire run, 1968-75. The original show, which featured guests whose occupation, or "line," the panelists were to guess, became one of the classic television game shows, noted for the urbanity of its host and panelists.^[1] Francis also appeared on many other game shows, including Match Game, Password, and other programs produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman.

Francis was a pioneer for women on television, one of the first to host a program that was not musical or dramatic in nature. From 1954-57, she was host and editor-in-chief of Home,^[2] NBC's hour-long daytime magazine program oriented toward women, which was conceived by network president Pat Weaver to complement the network's Today and Tonight programs. Newsweek magazine put her on its cover as the "first lady of television." She also hosted Talent Patrol in the mid-1950s.

She acted in several films, debuting in the role of a prostitute in Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). Francis was cast even though her only acting experience at that point was in a small Shakespearean production in the convent school from which she had recently graduated.^[6])

In the 1960s, Arlene Francis appeared as the wife of James Cagney in the comedy One, Two, Three (1961), directed by Billy Wilder and filmed on location in Munich. She also made The Thrill of It All (1963) and the television version of the play Laura (1968), which she had played on stage several times. Her final film performance was in the Wilder film Fedora (1978).

Francis wrote an autobiography in 1978 entitled Arlene Francis: A Memoir with help from a longtime friend, Florence Rome. She also wrote That Certain Something: The Magic of Charm in 1960^[2] and a book/cookbook, No Time for Cooking, in 1961.

She died on May 31, 2001 in San Francisco at the age of 93 after a long bout with Alzheimer's disease and cancer.

Personal life

Francis was married twice, first to Neil Agnew from 1935 to 1945. He worked in the sales department of Paramount Pictures, which necessitated frequent business trips during which Francis stayed home alone. The marriage ended in divorce in 1945.^[2] In her 1978 autobiography, she writes of this experience. "Having made the actual physical break, it was easier for me than I had thought to explain to Neil some of what I felt, what I had been feeling for so long a time. Not all, of course. There were areas which I couldn't discuss even then, which would be too hurtful to him, I felt. I saw him fairly often, and he courted me as though we had just met, but I was building up strengths which enabled me to resist not only his blandishments (including a lovely little house which he bought in New York as an enticement to get me to change my mind) but those of my parents, who also would have given anything to see me go back to the status which had been quo."^[7]

Francis' second marriage was to actor/producer Martin Gabel from 1946 until his death on May 22, 1986, of a heart attack.^[2] He was a frequent guest panelist on What's My Line?. The couple, who often exchanged endearments on the show, had a son, Peter Gabel,^[1] born January 28, 1947, a law academic formerly associated with New College of California in San Francisco and associate editor of Tikkun. While working at the World's Fair, son Peter surprised his mother as the "celebrity guest" on a 1964 episode of "What's My Line". He was at his mother's side when she died.

References

Bibliography

• Francis, Arlene with Florence Rome. Arlene Francis: A Memoir. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978.

External links

• Arlene Francis, Actress and TV Panelist, dies at 93

• Arlene Francis at the Internet Movie Database
• Arlene Francis at Find a Grave