Joe Franklin
Joe Franklin | |
---|---|
Manhattan, New York, U.S. | |
Alma mater | Columbia University (ungraduated) [1] |
Occupation(s) | Television and radio personality |
Known for | Inventing the talk show format |
Children | 1 |
Joe Franklin (March 9, 1926 – January 24, 2015), born Joseph Fortgang, was an American radio and television host personality, author and actor from New York City. Franklin is noted for having the first talk show and inventing the format. His television series debuted in January 1951 on WJZ-TV (later WABC-TV), moving to WOR-TV (later WWOR-TV) in 1962, remaining there until 1993, one of the longest running uninterrupted careers in broadcasting history.[2]
Early life
Franklin was born Joseph Fortgang on March 9, 1926, in
Career
At 14, Franklin began writing skits for The
In 1999, Franklin partnered with Producer Steve Garrin and Restaurant Mogul Dennis Riese to open Joe Franklin's Memory Lane Restaurant on West 45th Street in Broadway's theater district.[7] After the restaurant closed in 2003 it reopened the following year as "Joe Franklin's Comedy Club" on West 50th Street. Many name comedians came to the club and performed on stage to break in their new material, and many aspiring comics got their first stage time there. It closed in 2005.
After retiring from his television show, Franklin concentrated on his overnight radio show, playing old records on
Famous guests
Franklin's guests included an eclectic mix of actual celebrities and low level performers, sometimes on the same panel. He claimed to have had
Other guest claims include
Woody Allen, Andy Kaufman, Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand, Julia Roberts, Bruce Springsteen, Robin Williams, John Belushi, Richard Pryor, and They Might Be Giants got their first television exposure on The Joe Franklin Show. Frank Sinatra reportedly appeared four times. Franklin frequently appeared at his restaurant, where he conducted live, in-person interviews with entertainers such as Carol Channing, Anita O'Day and Billy Crystal, who impersonated Franklin on Saturday Night Live.
In media
Franklin appeared as himself in such New York-based films as
Franklin's show was first parodied by Billy Crystal during the 1984–1985 season of Saturday Night Live.
On the locally produced program The Uncle Floyd Show, host Floyd Vivino parodied Franklin as "Joe Frankfurter".
In 1997, Franklin was profiled in the documentary film 50,000,000 Joe Franklin Fans Can't Be Wrong (1997), directed by Joshua Brown.[10]
Also in 1997, Franklin was satirized by Drew Friedman in * Any Similarity to Persons Living or Dead is Purely Coincidental (with Josh Alan Friedman) (Fantagraphics Books, 1997)
Franklin appears in the 2005 documentary The Aristocrats, an anthology of absurdly crude humor.[11]
In 2014, Franklin starred in Owen Kline and Andrew Lampert's comedic short film Jazzy for Joe, which featured Franklin raising an abandoned baby discovered on his doorstep. The film was programmed by Robert Downey Sr. and run as the finale of a 2014 retrospective of his own filmography at the late West Hollywood theater Cinefamily.[12]
Personal life
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Franklin married Lois Meriden, a onetime performer with Sally Rand's burlesque-style "fan dancers". They had a son, Bradley. Later, Franklin's longtime companion was Jodi Fritz.[5]
Franklin died of prostate cancer at a Manhattan hospice on January 24, 2015, aged 88.[13][14]
Selected books
- 1953 The Marilyn Monroe Story, R. Field Company; Greenberg.
- 1959 Classics of the Silent Screen: A Pictorial Treasury, The Citadel press (reprinted in 2013 by Literary Licensing, LLC); attributed to Franklin but actually written by noted film historian William K. Everson[15]
- 1974 Joe Franklin's Memory Lane Cookbook, Lion Books, ISBN 9780874602425
- 1978 A Gift for People , M. Evans Company, ISBN 0-87131-244-1
- 1980 Joe Franklin's Awfully Corny Joke Book, Chelsea House Publishers, ISBN 9780877541424
- 1981 Seventy Years of Great Film Comedians: A Joe Franklin Memory Lane Scrapbook, Global Communications, ISBN 9780938294061
- 1985 Joe Franklin's Encyclopedia of Comedians, Bell Pub. Co., ISBN 9780517467657
- 1992 Joe Franklin's Movie Trivia, Hastings House, ISBN 9780803893481
- 2001 Up Late with Joe Franklin, Scribner, ISBN 978-0-02-540775-6
- 2012 The Marilyn Monroe Story: The Intimate Inside Story of Hollywood's Hottest Glamour Girl., Campfire Network, ISBN 1475004141.
References
- ^ "Remembering Joe Franklin". Emmys. Television Academy. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
- ^ a b Hinckley, David (November 26, 1999). "Joe Franklin: Truth in Packaging". New York Daily News. Archived from the original on July 3, 2009. Retrieved 2008-01-01.
- ^ Arnold, Laurence (January 25, 2015). "Joe Franklin, 'King of Nostalgia' on NYC Radio, TV, Dies at 88". Bloomberg. Retrieved January 26, 2015.
- ^ Barron, James (January 24, 2015). "Joe Franklin, a Talk Show Institution in New York, Dies at 88". The New York Times. Retrieved March 23, 2017.
- ^ a b c Joe Franklin dies at 88; interviewed 'plate twirlers' and stars. Los Angeles Times via Internet Archive. Retrieved August 13, 2020.
- ^ Joe Franklin, NNDB Tracking the Entire World. NNDB. Retrieved August 13, 2020.
- ^ "Joe Franklin's Memory Lane Bar & Restaurant is NOW OPEN...", JoeFranklin.com; accessed January 26, 2015.
- ^ "Bloomberg Radio Shows: Bloomberg on the Weekend". Bloomberg. Retrieved December 17, 2011.
- ^ "Joe Franklin Talk Show Icon Dies", Theaterpizzazz.com. January 25, 2015.
- The Paley Center for Media. 1998. Retrieved August 9, 2015.
- ^ Goodyear, Dana (October 24, 2005). "Quiet Depravity". The New Yorker.
- ^ Gayne, Zach, Screenanarchy, December 5, 2014, "Robert Downey Sr. On Truth, Soul, And Cinefamily"; accessed January 2, 2021.
- New York Times. Retrieved January 26, 2015.
Joe Franklin ... died on Saturday in at the ary Manning Walsh Hospice Center in Manhattan. He was 88. Steve Garrin, Mr. Franklin's producer and longtime friend, said the cause was prostate cancer. ...
- ^ Sharpio, Rich (January 24, 2015). "Joe Franklin 'King of Nostalgia' dead at 88". New York Daily News. New York. Retrieved 2015-01-25.
- ^ Brownlow, Kevin (16 April 1996), "Obituary: William K. Everson", The Independent, archived from the original on 2022-06-09, retrieved 2020-07-20
External links
- Joe Franklin at IMDb
- "Interviews with Franklin by Frank Sisco, Steve Serwatka and Tom Sullivan". 2003-09-05.
- Theatre Museum Award
- Radio interview (7 mins, 2015) on NPR's Fresh Air
- Joe Franklin Interview NAMM Oral History Library (1995)