Joe Franklin was my friend.
Well, not really. Joe Franklin was everybody’s “friend” and had a tendency to call someone he just met “the greatest man who ever lived.” He was the ultimate sincere-phony, and if you were lucky to come within his circle, you eventually loved him for it. The man created his own eccentric myth, at once legitimately famous and legendary—for creating the TV talk-show format we know today and for giving pre-celebrities their first media exposure—but also slightly embarrassing. Who was this diminutive creature in his hurricane-of-detritus office, trundling to New Jersey to tape hour-long programs that mixed wannabes, somebodies, has-beens and nobodies?
Who was this fellow who had a pun for every occasion but was sensitive enough about his reputation to sue fellow TV eccentric Uncle Floyd over a parody? Who was smart enough to write several books about the history of film and comedy, yet went into high dudgeon when Sarah Silverman, doing a bit for “The Aristocrats” mock accused him of sexual assault? And who was this man who sat at a desk interviewing Bing Crosby, Buster Keaton, John Wayne, Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman and who even had his name on a midtown restaurant, but would sit in a workspace that would make even Fibber McGee shudder. (If you don’t know who Fibber McGee is, you might be too young for this article. Just saying.)
When I was in grade school, I would come home and watch “The Joe Franklin Show” (aka “Memory Lane”) on WOR channel 9, not to see boring chats with septuagenarian celebs but just in the hopes of seeing him show the occasional silent movie “Mmmm…Lloyd V. Hamilton my friends!”). I even wrote him a fan letter, essentially begging him for more Chaplin on film and fewer chiropractors in person.
Two decades later, when I published “This Month on Stage,” a journal of theater reviews that later morphed into my website, TotalTheater.com, I actually appeared on the “Joe Franklin Show.” (Or, as friends snarked, “who hasn’t appeared on “The Joe Franklin Show?”. Actually, it wasn’t easy. The ultimate passive aggressive, Joe would never say no, but he’d find ways to make “yes” nearly as impenetrable. You’d call him on a Monday to ask to be on the program, and he’d say, “I can’t talk now, but call me on Thursday; I’ll make you happy.” So you’d call on Thursday, and a helper would say, “Joe can’t talk, but call him Monday. He’s got good things planned.” Monday would roll around, you’d make the call, and Joe, in a hoarse croak, would say, “Call me Thursday morning, first thing. It’ll happen.”
This could, and did, go on for weeks. But if you were sufficiently persistent, just maybe you would be allowed to enter the hallowed halls of WOR and watch little Joe climb the raised platform of his desk, interview the likes of Eddie Cantor’s grandson, a cabaret singer and a diet-book writer (all together, of course), and then slot you in for the last ten minutes.
I don’t even remember how well I did on the show (I have it on tape somewhere, I reckon), but a young woman who was randomly flipping TV channels at 1 AM that night would later tell me that she saw me on “The Joe Franklin Show” and thought I was really cute. We’ll be married 17 years this March.
And yet, weeks after my appearance, when I tried to get back on a second time, I’d call JF and hear, “You were just terrific. Call me Thursday; I’ll make you happy.” I called on Thursday: “Can’t talk, I have a terrible cold. Call me Monday.” And so on.
This time, I surrendered, and never did get to make the pilgrimage back to idyllic Secaucus, New Jersey. But if you’re in what they call “the showbiz,” Joe Franklin is never completely out of your life. I visited his midtown office a couple of times, where he was always accommodating, albeit interrupted every twelve seconds by his ringing red telephone.
One time, when I was doing Stagebuddy Live (a variety-cum-tak show) in midtown, I saw Joe on the street and invited him to take part. An hour later, there he was. Three years ago, when I co-wrote and directed a play called Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon, which was running at the Roy Arias Theater just off 8th Avenue, I visited Joe’s office and invited him that night. Damned if he wasn’t there in the second row—staying through both acts, I might add—and telling people sitting nearby who recognized him that he liked my play.
My last Joe moments were by telephone, mostly when Brian Gari (the aforementioned grandson of Eddie Cantor), would email and say, “Dave, Joe needs to talk to you. It’s important.” So I’d excitedly dial Joe’s office in the hopes of maybe being one of his Bloomberg radio interviews or just to shoot the breeze about nostalgia, or maybe—the ultimate—to hear him say, “Dave, I need a paid assistant to organize my collection and get it ready for a museum.” But no, invariably Joe was asking me if I could talk to some unknown doctor-turned-writer who was desperate to get on the radio, so Joe wondered if there’d be a place for him on “Dave’s Gone By.” “I’d consider it a huge favor,” Joe would say. “And if you ever need any money or need anything, I’m here for you, kid.”
It was B.S., of course, but not really. I can’t imagine how many down-and-outs had Joe given a few bucks to or welcomed into his strange aura over the decades. And it’s likely no one can count the number of people whose one-and-only appearance on television came flanked between “Franklin Show” producer Richie Orenstein and a B-movie actress, as all three waited for the host to finish his pitch for Martin Paint, my friends.
On Saturday, 88-year-old Joseph Fortgang died of prostate cancer. He told a reporter in 2011, “I’d like to be remembered as somebody who was kind and nice and gentle, and suppressed any knowledge I might have, if I had any, in order to let the guest shine.” But I’ll remember Joe for something else he told me—and likely told everyone—countless times. “It’s all about being sincere. Sincerity is what counts. And once you can fake that . . .”
Joe Franklin appeared on my radio program, DAVE’S GONE BY, in April 2007. Here’s a link to the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir5635e8bpk and to the full program: https://stagebuddy.com/webshowepisode/daves-gone-214-4107-memory-lane.
