American actress Anne Francis is best known for playing Altaira Morbius in the science fiction film “Forbidden Planet” and for playing the title character in the ABC series “Honey West.” In her later works, a female detective character’s name first appeared in a TV show’s title.
She started her career as a child model at the age of five and went on to work in radio and television soap operas.
She began performing on stage at a young age, when she was only 11 years old, in Broadway shows. Even though she had a limited number of film appearances, she is renowned for her work in movies including “Bad Day at Black Rock,” “Blackboard Jungle,” “Girl of the Night,” “Brainstorm,” “Funny Girl,” and “Hook, Line, & Sinker.”
Nevertheless, she often appeared in guest spots on many television programs during the course of her career.
The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Untouchables, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Mission: Impossible, My Three Sons, and Murder, She Wrote were a few of her most well-known TV performances.
Anne Francis’s Date of Birth and Parents
On September 16, 1930, in Ossining, New York, Anne Lloyd Francis was born to Edith and businessman Philip Ward Francis.
When she was five, she started working as a John Robert Powers model to support her family during the Great Depression. She made her Broadway debut at the age of 11 in “Lady in the Dark,” playing the young version of Gertrude Lawrence’s role.
Anne Francis’s Education
Her parents had just one kid, her. She went to the Professional Children’s School in New York.
Anne Francis’s Husband
Bamlet Lawrence Price, Jr., a pilot in the United States Air Force, was married to Anne Francis on May 17, 1952, but they later divorced on April 6, 1955.
She then wed Dr. Robert David Abeloff on January 31, 1960, and was divorced from him on December 14, 1964, four years later.
On March 21, 1962, she gave birth to Jane Elizabeth Abeloff with her second husband. Later that year, she became one of the first single people in California to be allowed adoption when she took in Margaret “Maggie” West.
She was a Democrat who backed Adlai Stevenson’s run for president in 1952. In 1982, she released her autobiography Voices from Home, with the subtitle “An Inner Journey.”
She received a lung cancer diagnosis in 2007 and passed away on January 2, 2011, at a retirement community in Santa Barbara, California, as a result of complications from pancreatic cancer. After passing away, she was cremated, and her ashes were strewn at sea.
Anne Francis’s Career
After making her screen debut in the 1947 musical “This Time for Keeps” in an uncredited part, Anne Francis went on to appear in minor roles in movies including “Susan Slept Here,” “So Young, So Bad,” and “Bad Day at Black Rock.”
Her first leading part was in the 1955 film “Blackboard Jungle,” which helped set her up for the Oscar-nominated sci-fi classic “Forbidden Planet,” in which she played Altaira Morbius, who would become one of the most well-known cinematic characters.
She took on a variety of parts during the 1960s, such as a pricey call girl in “Girl of the Night,” the lead in “Brainstorm,” Georgia James in “Funny Girl,” and Nancy Ingersoll in “Hook, Line, and Sinker.”
The Love God?, Pancho Villa, Born Again, Return: A Matter of Passion, and The Double 0 Kid are among her few following film credits.
Anne Francis often appeared as a guest star on television shows in the 1950s and 1960s, including “Kraft Theatre,” “Climax!” “The Twilight Zone,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” and “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.”
She also had appearances in two episodes of The Virginian, one episode of Columbo, one episode of Rawhide, and one episode of “The Untouchables,” “Going My Way,” and “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”
She appeared on a 1965 episode of Burke’s Law as Honey West, a character who would go on to have his own television series the same year.
She received both an “Emmy” nomination and a “Golden Globe” award for her performance as the sexy private eye who owned a Cobra and kept an ocelot as a pet.
She appeared in supporting parts on “The Fugitive,” “The Invaders,” “Mission: Impossible,” and “The Name of the Game” in the second half of the decade. She played Terri Dowling, a bowling alley waitress, in the series last season in 1971.
She made an appearance on one episode of each of the following shows: “Barnaby Jones,” “Kung Fu,” “Moving On,” “Wonder Woman,” “Baa Baa Black Sheep,” and “The Eddie Capra Mysteries” in the 1970s.
Her early television performances include three guest parts on “Murder, She Wrote,” a regular character on “Dallas,” and on a number of other shows. Her most recent appearance was in 2004 on the program “Without a Trace.”
The character of Altaira Morbius in “Forbidden Planet,” a science-fiction version of Shakespeare’s “Tempest,” was by far Anne Francis’s greatest performance.
She received several honors and prizes for her performance as the titular private eye in the television series “Honey West” (1965–1966).