
Acting
Jul 6, 1911
Covent Garden, London, England, UK
Gretchen Franklin
Acting
Biography
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.
Feature Films (25)

A woman abandons her husband, changes her name, and remarries again. Complications ensue.
The Murder Game

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
Before I Wake

A feud over rose-growing escalates to manic proportions when one neighbor acquires a fast-growing creeper.
The Trouble with Our Ivy

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.
Ticket to Paradise

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

The Four Musketeers defend the queen and her dressmaker from Cardinal Richelieu and Milady de Winter.
The Four Musketeers

Secrets Chocolates receive an unexpected sales boost when three maintenance workers fall into the chocolate vat and are fed through the production line.
Secrets

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.
Twisted Nerve

Agnes realizes 'the other woman' in her and Bob's family life is the company he works for. 'The Company' demands total priority and loyalty in Bob's life.
The Company Man

In 17th century France, young D'Artagnan wants to join the King's Musketeers, but instead befriends three legendary musketeers—Athos, Porthos, and Aramis—and together, they become embroiled in the political intrigue surrounding King Louis XIII and his adversaries, particularly the powerful Cardinal Richelieu.
The Three Musketeers

Domestic difficulties develop in a working-class family when their daughter falls in love with a Jamaican man.
Flame in the Streets
Television & Series (49)

A snobbish housewife is determined to climb the social ladder, in spite of her family's working class connections and the constant chagrin of her long suffering husband.
Keeping Up Appearances

The Artful Dodger was a short-lived black-and-white British sitcom starring Dave Morris and Gretchen Franklin. It ran for one series in 1959. It was written by Frank Roscoe and Dave Morris.
The Artful Dodger

Budgie is a popular British television series starring former popstar Adam Faith which was produced by ITV company London Weekend Television and broadcast on the ITV network between 1971 and 1972. The series was created by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall . The show was produced by Verity Lambert, Rex Firkin was the Executive producer.
Budgie

The everyday lives of working-class residents of Albert Square, a traditional Victorian square of terrace houses surrounding a park in the East End of London's Walford borough.
EastEnders

Z-Cars or Z Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.







