Acting Career
Her big breakthrough came during the Second World War when she was cast in Sweet and Low, the first of a series of highly successful West End revues. Staged at the New Ambassadors Theatre, the revues starred Hermione Gingold. Franklin and Gingold became firm friends and were reunited in another revue, Slings and Arrows (Comedy Theatre, 1948).
She also appeared in several straight plays and made one of her early screen appearances in Before I Wake (1954) and later had minor roles in Operation Conspiracy (1957), Flame in the Streets (1961), Help! (1965) and many others.
Franklin appeared in several productions for the BBC and on stage. One of Franklin's best known stage roles was playing Mrs Roper in the 1958 play Verdict by British mystery writer Agatha Christie. It was produced by Peter Saunders and directed by Charles Hickman, and ran for 250 performances.
Franklin was acting on stage in the West End in Spring and Port Wine in 1965 when she was cast as the first Mrs Alf Garnett in a pilot episode of Till Death Us Do Part, with Warren Mitchell. However, she missed the chance to become a permanent part in what was to become a successful series - because she couldn't obtain her release from her stage role (unable to take a regular role in the series, it was Franklin who recommended her friend Dandy Nichols for the part in the series). Both Gretchen Franklin and Dandy Nichols have a cameo part in the Beatles film Help.
Later Franklin had regular roles in several television series, including Crossroads, in which she played Myrtle Cavendish; the short-lived soap Castle Haven; the British sitcom, George and Mildred as Mildred's mother Mrs Tremble, and Rising Damp as Rigsby's Aunt Maud. She was also a regular supporting figure on television dramas such as Dixon of Dock Green and Z-Cars. She had bit parts in series such as Danger Man, Follyfoot and Quatermass (to which she returned for the final Quatermass serial in 1979) but was more often seen in comedy. Franklin also played the cranky, troubled sad mother Mrs Janes in the episode "Five on Billycock Hill" on the 1978 television show, Enid Blyton's Famous Five.
In 1990, Franklin played Daddy's Fiance in Keeping Up Appearances.
Read more about this topic: Gretchen Franklin
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