Down to Earth

Indeed, as one of the stars of Forbidden Planet, she was interviewed for the fiftieth anniversary DVD (I wonder if Robby the Robot is doing a commentary?!). She also played a mannequin who comes to life in an episode of the classic Twilight Zone, she was Streisand's leggy best friend in Funny Girl, and she traded barbs with Bea Arthur aka Dorothy Zbornak on an episode of The Golden Girls. Francis was TV's first leading female private eye in Honey West, earning her the Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination. What many of her fans may not know is that she has been involved with AIDS fundraising for many years.

I never do make it up to Santa Barbara so Anne and I decide to meet up at my L.A. pad after she attends the Seventh Annual Rick Weiss Humanitarian Award Gala in Palm Springs. This year's honoree is Sidney Poitier, her costar in Blackboard Jungle. The award ceremony was started by Earl Greenburg as a tribute to his partner, who died of AIDS in 1994. Proceeds benefit such organizations as AIDS Assistance, The Desert AIDS Project, Gay Associated Youth, and Shelter from the Storm.  

Anne used to live in Palm Springs and is still active with that city's Desert AIDS Project. "Anne has always been there for the Desert AIDS Project," remarks Allen Reese, CEO. "She's donated items for auctions, participated in events, and has been present for several dedications. Her enthusiasm is only surpassed by her dedication and commitment to end this epidemic."

Francis also devotes her time to many other charitable organizations, such as The Unity Shoppe, which provides food, clothes, toys for kids, and other necessities to people in critical situations, and The Third Age Foundation, which supports those fifty and over through the stages of aging. What motivates her? Anne is taken aback by my question, gets slightly defensive, and snaps, "Just the fact that people need help!" I explain that it is a choice and not everyone does give of themselves. She agrees and points out that many people can't give because they are in the position of daily survival, and so she is thankful that she can.

Momentarily, I go blank and feel like Lucy Ricardo in Hollywood. I can't believe Anne Francis is in my home. At seventy-five, she's still striking, with dazzling baby blues, champagne blond hair, that signature beauty mark, and, oh, those sexy gams! (She began her career as a child model.)  Sporting a bright, mustard-dyed jacket, matching earrings embedded with tiny pearls, a white feminine tee, and faded blue jeans, Francis is classy and vivacious. After she arrived, she excused herself to freshen up. From the living room I could hear her singing, before we begin our chat together on the sofa.

"I first became aware of AIDS in the eighties when friends of mine started dying," Anne says, taking a bite of cheese on a wheat cracker. "I have lost so many close friends to this epidemic. Like the other day, I was thinking of Chuck Cadol, who was a healthy, food-conscious, gym kind-of-guy. One day we were watching pelicans diving for fish. He said, 'Ya know, when I get to the other side, I'm gonna tell God I don't like his food chain plan.' Recently, I saw a hawk circling around in the sky [searching for food], and I thought, Well, I guess Chuck hasn't spoken to God yet about changing the plan!"

Ten years ago her friend, Richard Rothenstein, an HBO public relations executive also died of AIDS.  "He was like a son," she remarks shaking her head. "That was awful to watch. It got down to the lesions and the morphine...," she stops and can't continue.  She mentions another friend and AIDS victim, a choreographer named Greg Rosatti, who danced in the film Grease.  "Greggy was so funny. What a funny, funny guy," she says pensively, preceding to tell an incident where they were shopping and Greg was dressed in Western attire, complete with cowboy hat and boots, performing spins down the aisle of their local Von's grocery store. 

How does Anne cope with all these deaths? "You don't cope with it!" she shouts, her eyes widening. "You go through pain and you mourn. That's coping. If you don't, you are utterly destroyed." With a faraway look, she continues. "When Liam [Sullivan, an actor, from dozens of TV shows and films like The Secret Storm, That Darn Cat!] died of a heart attack alone in the bathroom, I couldn't even go to his funeral. I was wiped out at that point--and he was like my brother."

Her spiritual beliefs have helped her through emotional times. In Voices from Home, she talks about her exploration of metaphysics. "The Teacher Within has far greater wisdom than any man of this world. Each one of us has an inner space that is inviolable. Many answers to our questions reside there, if we will have the eyes to see and the ears to hear." She even describes in detail what it was like for her coming into this world. "I really didn't want to come in, but I knew I had to," she says, sitting across from me, leaning in. "But nobody was making me do it. I just didn't want to leave all that beauty. It's hard for some people to accept an afterlife. Maybe because they don't want to be hurt again. If they can believe there is nothing, then they can be pleasantly surprised."

When Anne was four years-old, she almost drowned in a lake. "I slipped, I was lying there, and all these gorgeous colors started spinning around. The music that I heard was absolutely incredible. And I was just as happy as could be. Suddenly I was pulled out, put on the ground where they began pushing on me. I was coughing and I was sobbing, but I wasn't sobbing from the pain. I just didn't want to leave this beauty that I was in."

Anne felt that same sense of connectedness when she and Sidney Poitier met the other night at the AIDS event in Palm Springs for the first time in fifty years.  "I said to Sidney, It's incredible what's going on in Africa.  There's just so much pain all over this planet that needs help, but that's what this world is. This world is so horrible," she pauses, and in an emotional whisper adds, "and so beautiful. And Sidney said, 'Yes, it is.'  It's, It's...," she stumbles to find the words, "It's amazing what we've all been put into." She reflects, looking out on the patio at the brilliant lavender bougainvilleas. "I don't reaaalllly think I want to do this again," she says with a half-smile.  "I don't want to learn how to tie my shoes again. If I have to come back I hope everything is Velcro--don't you?!"

Anne is deeply disturbed by the escalating seroconversions in teens. She was fortunate to have been spared confronting the AIDS crisis when her girls were adolescent. Jane, forty-three, and Maggie, thirty-five, were fully informed by the time AIDS entered the public consciousness. Francis feels it's partly the media's fault for teens' lack of awareness."The airwaves are not covering the crisis, nor are they providing vital AIDS information," insists Anne, pondering for a second, rustling through her thick hair, layering strands of it with her fingertips. "I think making an HIV commercial would be helpful, a serious one, but with a twist," she says with a gleam in her eye.

"Do it like these other damn stupid commercials where they list off all the possible side effects." She begins cracking up before she even starts listing them, "diarrhea, vomiting, upset stomach, constipation." I continue: headache, facial flushing, blurred vision. We giggle. Anne thinks these PSAs could be similar to the old antismoking commercials where people were filmed from their deathbeds pleading, "Don't make the same mistake I made." She mulls over her idea. "Yeah, if you can mix clever and meaningful, make it entertaining yet be educational, it would grab the kids. Look, I'm getting chills...."

"I think young people may know those who are HIV-positive, but they can't see behind the scenes; the medications and the side effects. A documentary needs to be made about an HIVer or PWA that is then required viewing for all students," she declares. I urge her to helm the project. "Me?!" she says, startled. Then she thinks about it, and there appears that familiar gleeful Anne Francis gaze that I've seen many times before on celluloid. Maybe by the time you read this, she will be in production....

AN ACTOR'S ACCOUNT

Anne's thoughts about working on classic TV  

The Twilight Zone
I love and adored Rod Serling. But he smoked, smoked, smoked.  

The Golden Girls
That was fun. Those girls were terrific. 

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
It was fun. I never met him.

Ben Casey
(She giggles with a devilish grin). 

The Fugitive
David (Jansen) was a nice person.  He loved his booze and would start early in the morning with (drinking) scotch. He had a lot of pain in his legs from playing football and that’s how he handled it.  He never showed it. 

My Three Sons
I don't remember too much about it. 

Hawaii 5-0
(She laughs)  I had a wonderful experience. I liked Jack (Lord). The fun part of it was sitting on the side of the road with a Japanese-Hawaiian driver and talking philosophy.  We had a marvelous time.  

Matlock 
Andy (Griffith) was fun to work with, and of course he did his southern accent. I had just finished doing Steel Magnolias in Chicago several days before. So after being immersed in this character who had a southern accent, I was doing it on the Matlock set and it drove Andy up the wall. He’d say in a very slow, patient voice, 'Anne, please don’t do the southern accent. I do the southern accent.' He wasn't really mad.  

Honey West
Oh, I loved doing it!  I loved the crew, and Johnny (Ericson).  It was long, long, hard work though.    

FRANCIS FEEDBACK

  Where is your favorite place to disappear to? 
There's a tree stump near the ocean up on a cliff where I like to go and sit.

Do you have a favorite city?
Santa Barbara. 

Out of the many people you have worked with, is there one in particular who stands out who impressed you the most? 

Well, now, Sidney Poitier.  Let's see.  I've worked with a lot of really terrific people. I've been so lucky.  The people with the best sense of humor I like: Peter Falk, Burt Reynolds, and Johnny Carson.

Whom would you like to work with that you haven't yet?
Oh, I think it would be such fun to work with Robert DeNiro (she elates with much gusto).  He just seems like a wonderful combination of being a threat, but also a pussycat. It would be exciting. Also, Ashton Kutcher.  He's a cutie. When I was younger, I used to flip over guys like him.

Name one of your bad habits.
God, I got a lot of them.  This is hard. (She thinks.) I have to keep on myself not to get sidetracked.

Name your favorite TV sitcom of all times.
Everybody Loves Raymond.  It was such fun.  Before that, Frasier.

What are you most proud of?
(She pauses for some time before answering) My relationship with pets.

What do you want to be remembered for?
Being a mom.

You have an open letter to Barbra Streisand on your Web site. Have you had a  reply from her? 
No. But I ran into an assistant of hers in Santa Barbara a couple of months ago.  He was going to be seeing her, so I said, 'Please give her my love, and tell her that I've written this note.'

OUTTAKES

• Yes, I am a grandmother. I have a four-year-old grandchild.
  
• This country doesn't seem to care that much about Africa. The AIDS epidemic is still political. I don't want to get started on Bush… 
   
• The Desert AIDS Project is growing, and it's lovely.  A friend of mine recently helped donate a wing. There's a lot of good stuff this organization is doing.
   
• I don't know if I'd like to be in demand.  I'd like to do a TV show where I can come and go, but I don't want to carry a show.
   
• When Natalie Wood drowned I almost wrote a note to Bobby (Wagner), but I didn't because I thought he might think I'm being nutty. Drowning for me was beautiful. There was no discomfort.

ANNE'S ANECDOTE

Anne gives a one-word reaction to these people who have been apart of her life

Eleanor Roosevelt -- nice

James Cagney -- fun

Elizabeth Taylor – Oh, gorgeous. Glamour.

Natalie Wood -- Industrious. She used to love to get the broom, sweep the floor and get things cleaned up. (Early in their careers, Anne and Natalie both attended the MGM schoolhouse together.)

Spencer Tracy -- Taskmaster

Jerry Lewis -- Crazy

Barbra Streisand -- Details

Bea Arthur - Barefoot

Debbie Reynolds -- Bouncy

Kay Medford -- Delightful

Peter Lawford – (she hesitates) Tragedy

Rod Serling -- Huggy

She gives one word to describe herself -- Progressing

Contact Anne Francis at www.annefrancis.net

Dann Dulin interviewed Gore Vidal for the August issue.

November 2005