The OFFICIAL Arlene Francis Thread

Well?

OP, are you in the legitimate theater?

Do you practice the lively arts?

Do you have a picture currently playing on Broadway?

OP I always liked her too. I read her autobiography. Really no dirt. She did paint a pretty negative picture describing the night a drunk Judy Garland was the secret guest. Apparently Judy holed up in the dressing room refusing to go on. One of the show's producers was going to be a last minute substitute. At the very last minute, Garland flew out of the dressing room and grabbed the chalk out of the producer's hand before making her entrance to sign in. Arlene thought Garland's behavior was bad. That is really the only negative thing I remember about the book. Granted, it has been several years since I read it.

I guess she wasn't a good actress or didn't try hard, because she never got any good roles? Or maybe her WML gig provided her with enough money that she didn't have to try hard?

[quote]Francis was known for a heart-shaped diamond pendant, a gift from Gabel, which she wore on nearly all of her What's My Line appearances. A mugger robbed her of the pendant as she was exiting a New York City taxi in 1988...Wikipedia

r5

Which year was that? I would like to see if I could find the episode on YouTube.

When Arlene's son, Peter Gabel, graduated from college, he and Christopher Cerf (Bennett's son) were roommates in New York. Peter went on to be president of a San Francisco College. Cerf now runs the Newark, New Jersey Board of Education. They've been married to women for decades.

She's had two tragedies in her life. A maid knocked a barbell out the window of Arlene's apartment at the Ritz Tower Hotel, killing a man on the street Returning from a weekend in the Hamptons, Arlene was driving on the Long Island Expressway. She collided with a car. The other driver died.

Arlene is in the Laura Bush, Caitlyn Jenner, Matthew Broderick club?

Wasn't it Peter Gabel and Jonathan Cerf who were the Harvard roommates?

Except for being an enema freak there really isn't any dirt on her.

She destroyed her image by appearing on that silly WML? revival with Soupy Sales.

R7 Just go to YouTube and search What's My Line? Judy Garland. It was in 1967. Judy mentions she is cast in Valley of the Dolls. Daughter Liza had been married that afternoon too

She got her start in Hollywood being tortured by Bela Lugosi in Robert Florey's Murders in the Rue Morgue(1932).

R8 is full of shit. Peter Gabel is gay and out and has always been. He's also a 1%er SJW who is BEGGING for funds. Why would he use his own money, right? He's very wealthy, has several homes around the SFBA yet is SHILLING for funds for "The Arlene Francis Center".

Arlene married a gay guy (Martin Gabel) didn't she, according to what DL said? And Peter's gay...so...interesting

R6, working the NY theater circuit is a lot of work for so little pay. I think Arlene decided early on when she landed her first radio gig that this was where the money's at and that's what she was going to devote her time and energy to. And she was very successful at that. When tv came along, naturally she embraced the new medium wholeheartedly. She continued to do theater, but usually as a supporting player since it didn't distract too much from her radio/tv career.

I liked the WML episode when Arlene is drooling of a young Frank Gifford.

She was in the movie "One Two Three" with James Cagney.

Is it bigger than a bread box?

Arlene interviews a very young Jackie Kennedy. By the end of the interview you can tell Arlene thinks Jackie is a dolt and Arlene seems like she wants kick her ass. BTW BEST hairstyle for Jackie ever.

She replaced Agnes Moorehead ,who was dying of cancer, in the Broadway musical GIGI

Arelene or any "ene" name is trashy. Including Kathleen. Just up there with Gina, Dina. Charlene. Do reen or how about this one.. Dorraine? Bwah!

Jacqueline? Trashy?

Love her but only came to appreciate her wit and charm recently watching all of the WML episodes on youtube. As a young kid, I never got her.

My impression was always that she craved a bigger career in the legitimate theater but she appeared in flop after flop during and after the years WML was on. I think her biggest hit might have been the revival of Dinner at Eight, in which she played the Marie Dressler role. The entire all-star cast of that revival appeared together as The Mystery Guest on WML right after the show opened.

Looking her up on IBDb.com I see she also appeared in the original cast of The Women on Broadway in 1936.

Apparently, when Billy Wilder was casting the role of Jimmy Cagney's wife for One, Two Three in 1960, he asked for an "Arlene Francis type" and then realized he could have the real thing. She's fun in the film but not much of an actress, just Arlene Francis. She then went on to play Edward Andrews' wife in the Doris Day/James Garner comedy The Thrill of it All, giving birth in a taxi cab at age 52.

She had the intelligence and grace and charm and wit that was needed for live TV talk shows and game shows in the 1950s. Nothing ruffled her and she could always come up with a sincere and often disarming quip in any situation. On WML she was often downright bawdy (well, for the 1950s).

She was always so gracious in mentioning the Mystery Guest's latest show or film in the most positive light. It shocks me how shy they could sometimes be about plugging things back then.

For several years in the mid-50s she hosted a show called Home, which was talk show with a magazine format that followed The Today Show every morning. And Arlene was one of the first TV celebrities to make their biggest fortunes through commercial and print advertising endorsements.

She was certainly one of the most well-known and beloved women throughout America in the 1950s, rivaled only perhaps by Fay Emerson, who had a similar career yet is totally forgotten today.

Miss Francis' gowns by Bonwit Teller.

Arlene's consistent charm nicely balanced Dorothy's sourpuss schtick. If the show was on today, the panelists would be vulgar beyond belief and upstaging the guests at every opportunity.

Arlene was pretty great in the first couple of minutes of "The Thrill of it All." She did A LOT of Broadway from the mid-30s through the late 40s in mostly undistinguished plays.

I saw that revival of Dinner at Eight when I was a kid. Arlene Francis, June Havoc, Walter Pidgeon, Darren McGavin and Pamela Tiffin wee in the cast.

Sadly, she was done in by the long term effects of Alzheimer's Disease and cancer. But she did live to the age of 93 even though the last 6 years of her life were lived in a nursing home.

Do you think she peed in diapers?

She was still appearing in public in her late 80s and didn't look appreciably different from her WML appearances in the 1950s but then, she always looked kind of middle-aged. Her marriage to Martin Gabel was a very happy one that lasted 40 years, until his death.

Somehow, both Arlene and Kitty agreed to appear on Howard Stern's Channel 9/WOR show to play a raunchy game, but it was apparent that they were unaware of Stern's type of show.

Do you think Dorothy snubbed Arlene because of her gay husband?

When Peter was flying Arlene out to California to be placed in a nursing home, she was observed asking aloud in the airport, "Are we dressing for dinner?".

Jackie appeared to be the sole survivor of a Georgetown holocaust in the B-roll footage during that interview with Arlene.

Don't forgot Arlene playing a way past menopausal wife having a baby in Doris Day's file "The Thrill of It All". And we had Zazu Piits as the housekeeper!

R38, meet R26.

Zazu Piits?

Oh dear.

In one of his books about theater Hal Prince made a snide comment about how summer stock was where young actors went to learn how much fun Arlene Francis was, but not much else. Arlene's film roles reveal what a stage-y actress she was. Both she and Faye Emerson chased after stage glory that always seemed to elude them. Faye once snapped at Gary Moore in irritation after he bid her a fond adieu from the panel of I've Got a Secret, telling her they'd welcome her back as soon as her latest play flopped.

Let us not forget Arlene's flop Broadway thriller DON'T CALL BACK.

Another flop for Miss Francis Mrs. Dally Has a Lover . . . she spent months learning to play the trombone and the play ran a mere 53 performances.

Still, she got to play opposite a young and hunky Robert Forster.

CBS used to receive letters complaining that Faye Emerson showed too much cleavage on camera.

Eleanor must have been in heaven when Faye was married to one of the Roosevelt sons.

As a little kid, I was somewhat bored by Arlene on WML, I guess her bawdiness went over my head. But I was transfixed by all that was Dorothy Kilgallen; she fascinated me then and still does today....there's never been anyone on TV remotely like her.

On To Tell the Truth, I could take or leave Kitty Carlisle and Peggy Cass. They both seemed rather brusque and unfunny and Kitty in her plunging befeathered decolletage seemed particularly pretentious.

But I was in love back then with both Betsy Palmer and Bess Myerson on I've Got a Secret. Betsy was just so blonde and cute and efferevescent and Bess was so sophisticated and cool....and she was proudly Jewish which went very far in our household.

Bumping for the Goodson/Todman ladies!

[quote]CBS used to receive letters complaining that Faye Emerson showed too much cleavage on camera.

Faye Emerson is credited with American TV's first boob-slip when one of her ninnas slipped out of her plunging neckline on live TV.

[quote]Eleanor must have been in heaven when Faye was married to one of the Roosevelt sons.

Eleanor correctly but somewhat cattily wrote that when she first met her new daughter-in-law Faye, she found her to be a lovely young woman but sensed that she would not be a part of the family for very long. Eleanor and the other Roosevelt women remained cordial and supportive of Faye even after her marriage to Elliot broke up.

Is it true that Martin Gabel used to punch her in the eye?

r43

You must be high as a kite

r14

Here it is, ignore Sue Oakland.

r19

Here it is.

I laughed so hard when Arlene basically admitted her husband was a gay

Martin) Is it something that comes in contact with the body?

Guest) Yes,

Martin) Below the waist?

Guest) Yes....

Arlene) Don't look at me, I don't know what you do when I'm not around.