Film, TV Star Franciosa Dies

By Joal Ryan
1 hour, 38 minutes ago



The protagonist of Tom Waits' "Goin' Out West" never explicitly says he's headed for Hollywood, but the destination is understood because that's where "Tony Franciosa used to date my ma."

Franciosa, who represented a certain swinging masculine ideal as a TV series star of the 1960s and 1970s, died Thursday in a Los Angeles hospital after suffering a stroke. He was 77.

Franciosa, most often billed as Anthony Franciosa, was preceded in death by five days by actress Shelley Winters, his second of four wives. The couple was married from 1957 to 1960. Veteran Associated Press writer Bob Thomas described the union as "brief and tempestuous."

A onetime Oscar nominee, Franciosa found his steadiest work overseas, where he starred in several Italian-produced films, and in Americans' living rooms, where he appeared on their TV sets as the star of five series from the 1960s to 1980s, per the credits at the Internet Movie Database.

Franciosa's best known small-screen vehicle was The Name of the Game (1968-971), which, according to Total Television, was TV's most lavishly budgeted show of its era. Each episode played like a mini-movie, running 90 minutes. Franciosa was one of three resident stars, along with Robert Stack and Gene Barry. The trio took turns toplining adventures, which revolved around the workings at Crime magazine. Franciosa was eventually fired for being difficult, a reputation that dogged him throughout his career.

In 1975, Franciosa inherited Dean Martin's black book from the Matt Helm spy movies for a short-lived series of the same name.

Franciosa's final series was 1984-85's Finder of Lost Loves, an Aaron Spelling concoction that fell flat, for the time sullying Spelling's reputation as a hit maker.

Born Oct. 28, 1928, in New York City, Franciosa emerged from his hometown's method acting scene, a proving ground in the 1950s for the likes of Winters and Paul Newman.

Franciosa and Winters costarred in the 1955 Broadway play A Hatful of Rain, about a drug-addicted Korean War veteran. Franciosa, who played the soldier's brother, reprised his role in the 1957 film, earning a Best Actor Oscar nomination.

Other notable movie credits include: 1957's A Face in the Crowd, in which he played agent to overnight sensation Andy Griffith, and 1972's Across 110th Street, where he did a turn as a really bad guy.

Franciosa's final big-screen appearance, per IMDb.com, came in the 1996 Al Pacino movie City Hall.

Off screen, Franciosa's biggest hit came in 1957 when, according to the AP, he served 10 days in jail for "slugging" a photographer.

LINK

[RickV]

I always used to get him and James Franciscus mixed up. RIP.