It’s a wrap: TV, film a whirlwind career

There’s no doubt that working in the television and film industry is “the kind of business people talk about,” says Tubac resident Dan Franklin.

The kind of career where Franklin — as a production manager, assistant director and associate producer at various times — got to know such stars as Tom Selleck, Whoopi Goldberg and Molly Ringwald.

Selleck is “really a nice man. One of the top,” says Franklin, who was associate producer and unit production manager for the 1989 movie feature “Her Alibi,” starring Selleck and Paulina Porizkova.

Franklin got to know Goldberg, “a really hard worker,” when he was associate producer and unit production manager of the 1988 film “Clara’s Heart.” The cast of this movie, which was filmed in Baltimore and Jamaica, included a young Neil Patrick Harris.

In 1984, Franklin was unit production manager on the movie “Sixteen Candles,” with Ringwald.

“She was a hard-working

kid” who was accompanied by her mother, Franklin recalls. “We all got along well.”

He continues to receive residual checks from that film, a recent one for $2.50, another for $150, he notes with a wry smile.

Franklin was nominated for two Emmy awards for his work as co-producer in NBC’s 1990 “Blind Faith” miniseries with Robert Urich, and in its 1992 crime drama “Cruel Doubt,” with Blythe Danner and her daughter Gwyneth Paltrow.

Among his other projects were 1978’s “Blue Collar” with Richard Pryor and Harvey Keitel, several Danielle Steele movies of the week that included actresses Cheryl Ladd and Eva Marie Saint, and the 1994 film “Mother’s Boys” with Jamie Lee Curtis and Vanessa Redgrave.

Franklin’s last movie of the week, before he retired 11 years ago, was “Monday After the Miracle,” a 1998 CBS production with Roma Downey.

Working for Paramount, Warner Bros., Universal, NBC and CBS was a world away from Franklin’s start as a 19-year-old DJ on a Tennessee radio station. He went on to work for other stations in the Volunteer State, as well as in Louisiana and Mississippi and, while in the Army, was a newscaster and DJ for the American Forces Korea Network.

“I played romantic music, which the GIs loved,” between midnight and 6 a.m., Franklin recalls.

After his discharge from the Army, Franklin continued in radio then got a role on a PBS television station in Memphis as Commander Dan of the Space Patrol.

“It was great,” Franklin says of this puppet show. “My boss was named Gen. Nuisance, and every show had a moral lesson.”

When the acting bug really bit, Franklin sold his 1956 or ’57 Dodge and bought a one-way train ticket to Hollywood.

“My dad was skeptical but supportive,” he recalls.

Franklin enrolled in the Pasadena Playhouse acting school, where he met his future wife, Martha. The couple have been married 48 years and have two grown sons.

When Franklin realized that being up on stage was the wrong side of the camera for him, he got a job at ABC as a page and worked his way through the stockroom, purchasing and programming before joining the Director’s Guild of America as a stage manager for a news show.

He was there eight years when a friend told him Universal Studios was hiring, and Franklin started freelance work for Universal as a second assistant director.

In 1976-77, he was the assistant director for 12 episodes of the television show “Emergency” and went on to work as a first assistant director and a production manager.

The latter goes over the studio’s budget for a particular project, hires the crew and makes up the first shooting schedule. Looking for locations is also part of the job.

“Then the director comes in and we start all over with the locations,” Franklin notes with a smile.

Overall, his was a demanding career that sometimes ran 14 hours a day, “but I loved it,” Franklin says.

Like the time he had to hire 100 clowns for “Her Alibi.” He was able to find 25 professional clowns between New York City and Baltimore, then went to the Shriners and state fairs for “background clowns.”

“It was a fun deal,” Franklin says. “I had to bring in a circus tent from Florida, and the lead clown said, ‘I know this tent. Pray it doesn’t rain.’” Of course it did, and there were many puddles under the big top.

“I got to know lots of people in the business,” Franklin says. “I was very lucky. I was always working.

“I always took care of the crew,” he adds. “The crew really works hard, and I made sure they were all treated right. I never had a problem getting a crew.”

At age 78, Franklin says his job now is playing golf. He really misses the old days, but wonders if he would still have the stamina to do it.

“It’s been a very interesting career and it took me a lot of places,” he says. “It was very rewarding even though it was hard work. It was the kind of career where you can see your results.”

kwalenga@gvnews.com | 547-9739