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She died a little while ago.
Bonnie Franklin, 'One Day
At a Time' star, dies
By FRAZIER MOORE AP Television WriterAssociated
Press
Posted: 03/01/2013 10:07:48 AM PST
March 1, 2013 7:6 PM GMTUpdated:
03/01/2013 11:06:12 AM PST
NEW YORK—Bonnie Franklin, the pert,
redheaded actress whom millions came to identify with for her role as divorced
mom Ann Romano on the long-running sitcom "One Day at a Time," has died.
She died Friday at her home in Los Angeles due to complications from
pancreatic cancer, family members said. She was 69. Her family had announced she
was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September.
Franklin was a veteran stage and television performer before "One Day At a
Time" made her a star.
Developed by Norman Lear and co-created by Whitney Blake—herself a former
sitcom star and single mother raising future actress Meredith Baxter—the series
was groundbreaking for its focus on a young divorced mother seeking independence
from a suffocating marriage.
It premiered on CBS in December 1975, just five years after the network had
balked at having Mary Tyler Moore play a divorced woman on her own comedy
series, insisting that newly single Mary Richards be portrayed as having ended
her engagement instead.
On her own in Indianapolis, Ann Romano was raising two teenage girls—played
by Mackenzie Phillips, already famous for the film "American Graffiti," and a
previously unknown Valerie Bertinelli. "One Day At a Time" ran on CBS until
1984, by which time both daughters had grown and married, while Romano had
remarried and become a grandmother. During the first seven of its nine seasons
on the air, the show was a Top 20 hit.
Other Lear productions such as "All in the Family" and "Good Times," "One
Day at a Time" dealt with contemporary issues once absent from TV comedies such
as premarital sex, birth control, suicide and sexual harassment—issues that had
previously been overlooked by TV comedies whose households were usually headed
by a husband and wife or, rarely, a widowed parent.
Meanwhile, the series weathered its own crises as Phillips was twice written
out of the series to deal with her drug abuse and other personal problems.
Writing in her 2009 memoir "High On Arrival," Phillips remembered Franklin as
hardworking and professional, even a perfectionist.
"Bonnie felt a responsibility to the character and always gave a million
notes on the scripts," Phillips wrote. "Above all, she didn't want it to be
sitcom fluff—she wanted it to deal honestly with the struggles and truths of
raising two teenagers as a single mother."
In her 2008 memoir "Losing It," Bertinelli noted that Franklin, just 31 when
the show began, wasn't old enough to be her real mother.
Even so, wrote Bertinelli, "within a few days I recognized her immense talent
and felt privileged to work with her. ... She was like a hip, younger complement
to my real mom."
The truth of "One Day at a Time" was brought home to Franklin when in 2005
she got together with both TV daughters for a "One Day at a Time" reunion
special. She told both actresses, "You are living, in a sense, Ann Romano's
life—you are single parents raising teenage kids. That is shocking and
terrifying to me."
Despite sometimes tackling serious subjects in her work, Franklin was always
a cheery and positive person, Lear said Friday.
"I was wrong—I thought life forces never die. Bonnie was such a life force,"
Lear said in a statement. "Bubbly, always up, the smile never left her face."
Franklin herself was married for 29 years. Her husband, TV producer Marvin
Minoff, died in 2009.
Born Bonnie Gail Franklin in Santa Monica, Calif., she entered show business
at an early age. She was a child tap dancer and actress, and a protege of Donald
O'Connor, with whom she performed in the 1950s on NBC's "Colgate Comedy Hour."
A decade later, she was appearing on such episodic programs as "Mr. Novak,"
"Gidget" and "The Man from U.N.C.L.E."
On stage, Franklin was in the original Broadway production of "Applause," for
which she received a 1970 Tony Award nomination, and other plays including
"Dames at Sea" and "A Thousand Clowns."
Franklin's recent credits include appearances on "The Young and the Restless"
and the TV Land comedy "Hot in Cleveland," which again reunited her with
Bertinelli, one of that show's regulars.
Franklin was a "devoted mother, grandmother, daughter, sister, aunt and
friend," her family said in a statement. She also was a longtime activist for a
range of charities and civic-oriented issues, among them AIDS care and research
and the Stroke Association of Southern California.
In 2001, she and her sister Judy Bush founded the nonprofit Classic and
Contemporary American Plays, an organization that introduces great American
plays to inner-city schools' curriculum.
A private memorial will be held next week, her family said.
Bonnie Franklin, 'One Day At a Time' star, dies - San Jose Mercury News
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