Fictional Character Biography
Francine was born to a wealthy South Carolina couple, Nicholas and Cassandra Dawson. She was abandoned by her birth parents because they were not allowed to bring a baby into first class with them, and so casually left her at the airport.
She spent her early childhood in a Roman Catholic orphanage. She is naturally left-handed but this was literally beaten out of her, with a side of beef (or a mackerel on Fridays), by the nuns working there who saw lefties as "the devil's minions." As a result she took to using her right hand and was conditioned to hate left-handed people. This was made evident in later life when she forcibly asked Steve's science partner to leave the house (though, initially, the family thought that she was a racist because Steve's science partner was an African american girl). However, as of the most recent episodes, she has adapted to being left-handed once again, using it as her more dominant hand.
She was adopted at age 7 by Bàba and Māma Ling, Chinese Americans, who first saw her at 5 years old, but she was too expensive at that point so they waited for the market to fall. She speaks fluent Chinese, and often speaks in it to her parents to disguise their conversations in front of Stan much to his annoyance. Her parents have their own biological daughter, Gwen, who they are ashamed of for being supposedly very attractive but quite stupid (as Bàba puts it, "Imagine a Chinese girl can't do math!") However, Stan makes it a habit of lustfully moaning and proclaiming his sexual attraction to her, much to Francine's calm frustration.
When Francine was about 14 years old in high school, she had an obsessive crush on her algebra teacher, Mr. Feeny. She became so obsessed with him, she was discovered by his wife in his closet, "cutting herself and sniffing his T-shirts." The police were called and Francine lied to them and said that she and Mr. Feeny were lovers. Mr. Feeny was sent to jail and committed suicide there. During the rest of high school, she was attacked by a group of popular pretty girls while showering in gym class and was said to have been "very depressed," until she found the "miracle of marijuana," although in "Jones for a Smith," she doesn't believe her daughter smokes marijuana, despite Hayley's realization that she has a problem with it and Hayley begging Francine to let her into rehab for her addiction (though this could be Francine looking down on her daughter for not embracing the drug the way Francine did at her age).
While in college Francine stabbed her roommate to death - a fact that she casually admits to her family over dinner. Even though she was a party girl during her college years and seems to hold very liberal beliefs, she keeps them mostly to herself in order to keep with her husband's conservative values. However, she does not keep her extremely intense hatred of George Clooney to herself. She hates him because he stole her spotlight in her only television appearance on an episode of Scarecrow and Mrs. King, which would have guaranteed her a movie career (though in "Deacon Stan, Jesus Man," Francine hated George Clooney because he won't settle down and get married like everyone else). Since then, Francine's dream has been to, at the very least, make George Clooney cry, which Stan has helped her do.
Francine, then a groupie, first met Stan when he had just graduated from the CIA academy and offered a post as an operative. She was trying to hitchhike home, and Stan pulled over and gave her a ride. During the trip, Stan veered to avoid hitting a car and accidentally ran over a raccoon, which he then shot to put it out of its misery. This act of compassion attracted Francine so much she started dating Stan and married him soon after they had met. When Stan was still oblivious to the fact that Greg Corbin and Terry Bates, their next door neighbours, were gay, he suggested that he and Francine fix them up with her sister Gwen. While Francine knows they're gay, Stan thinks her reluctance is because Gwen is "too hot" and then reminisces about her appearance at their wedding (though Stan does eventually discover the truth).
Read more about this topic: Francine Smith
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