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Gretchen Franklin

Gretchen Franklin

Birth : 1911-07-07, Covent Garden, London, England, UK

Death : 2005-07-11

History

Born in Covent Garden, West London in 1911, Gretchen Franklin was an English actress and dancer whose showbusiness career spanned over 70 years. She was best known for her role as Ethel Skinner in the long-running BBC 1 soap opera EastEnders. She appeared in the very first episode in 1985 and was a regular in the series until 1988. After this she returned to the show intermittently until 2000 when her character was killed off, allowing Franklin to retire from acting at the age of 89. Born into a theatrical family (her father had a song and dance act, her grandfather was a famous music hall entertainer at the turn of the century and her cousin was Dad's Army star Clive Dunn) Gretchen Franklin made her theatre debut as a teenage chorus girl. She toured with comedians such as Gracie Fields before making the switch to serious acting. Her film appearances included Cloak Without Dagger (1956), Flame in the Streets (1961), The Murder Game (1965), Help! (1965), How I Won The War (1967), Twisted Nerve (1968), The Night Visitor (1971), The Three Musketeers (1973), Quincy's Quest (1979), and Ragtime (1981), among others. She is namechecked in The Fall's 1990 song Telephone Thing.

Profile

Gretchen Franklin

Movies

Return to Waterloo

Return to Waterloo

Woman on Train

A man taking the train to work one morning is overcome by melancholy memories and morbid fantasies.

Elderly Woman

A young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence, and other nostalgic events in early 1900s New York City.

The One and Only Phyllis Dixey

The One and Only Phyllis Dixey

Phyllis's Dresser

Aspiring dancer Phyllis Dixey makes her name as a stripper.

The Three Musketeers

The Three Musketeers

D’Artagnan’s Mother

The young D'Artagnan arrives in Paris with dreams of becoming a king's musketeer. He meets and quarrels with three men, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, each of whom challenges him to a duel. D'Artagnan finds out they are musketeers and is invited to join them in their efforts to oppose Cardinal Richelieu, who wishes to increase his already considerable power over the king. D'Artagnan must also juggle affairs with the charming Constance Bonancieux and the passionate Lady De Winter, a secret agent for the cardinal.

The Night Visitor

The Night Visitor

Mrs. Hansen

An insane Swedish farmer escapes from an asylum to get revenge on his sister, her husband and others.

Clarkie

Martin Durnley is a young man with an infantilizing mother, resentful stepfather and an institutionalized brother with Down's syndrome. To cope, he retreats into an alternate child personality he calls Georgie. After being caught during a theft attempt at a department store, he befriends a female customer who is sympathetic to him, but his friendship soon turns into obsession.

Bus Conductress

A young wife is becoming very distraught over the fact that her husband, a secret service "spy" for England, has changed his mind about transferring away so that he can spend more time with her and their young son. He has grown cold and distant towards her; she thinks it 's because of the secretiveness of his work. Meanwhile, an American spy comes to England and is induced to help the British "team" with an undercover spy ring. When this spy ring is over turned the "bugs" that crawl out from under its rock shocks everyone!

How I Won the War

How I Won the War

2nd Old Lady

An inept British WWII commander leads his troops to a series of misadventures in North Africa and Europe.

Neighbour

An obscure Eastern cult that practices human sacrifice pursues Ringo after he unknowingly puts on a ceremonial ring (that, of course, won't come off). On top of that, a pair of mad scientists, members of Scotland Yard, and a beautiful but dead-eyed assassin all have their own plans for the Fab Four.

The Silent Playground

The Silent Playground

Mrs. Elgin

Police hunt for mental hospital out patient Simon Lacey, who has been unwittingly handing out barbiturates to children as sweets.

Flame in the Streets

Flame in the Streets

Mrs. Bingham

Flame in the Streets is a 1961 British drama film directed by Roy Ward Baker. Racial tensions manifest themselves at home, work and on the streets during Bonfire Night in the burgeoning West Indian community of early 1960s Britain. Trades union leader (Mills) fights for the rights of a black worker but struggles with the news that his own daughter is planning to marry a West Indian, much against his own logic and the prejudice of his wife.

Ticket to Paradise

Ticket to Paradise

Mrs. Higginbottom

Travel agent Emrys Jones and tourist Patricia Dainton fall in love in sunny Italy. Jones has led Dainton to believe that he's fabulously wealthy, and she has likewise deceived him. When the truth inevitably outs, it hardly matters, since hero and heroine now love each other for themselves rather than their bank accounts.

The Secret Place

The Secret Place

Mother (uncredited)

British Melodrama and crime thriller that follows a group of jewel robbers after a major heist. The film makes extensive use of bombed out areas of London.

Mrs. Webb

A British theater actress unable to get out of her contract is assisted by an American playwright when a pair of her scissors is discovered lodged in her producer's back.

Cloak Without Dagger

Cloak Without Dagger

Emmie

A British Intelligence officer fails a mission during WW2. Years later whilst working in a hotel he bumps into an old flame who is desperate to discover what went wrong?

Elsie

A woman travels to England to attend her parents' funeral. She is told by officials that they died of natural causes together, but she doesn't buy it. She comes to suspect that the nurse who took care of her parents was involved in their deaths, but since the nurse is well thought of in the town, no one believes her. What she doesn't know is that her parents' killer has selected her as the next victim

Martha (uncredited)

Tottie True is a gay-90s British music-hall performer who has her sights set on moving from rags to riches, who loses her heart to the pure-and-true blue balloonist, Sid Skinner, but continues her upward search on improving her social status. She finally settles for Lord Landon Digby who has lots of assets and a very-stiff upper lip. She gets a lot of the latter and very little of the former, and decides Sid might have been a better choice.