jacobean

Just seen on the BBc website that William Franklyn has died. I heard him on Radio 4's quote unquote recently as the announcer and he didn't sound too good then. His rich deep voice had lost some of its luster. RIP

Marky B

Sad to hear about William Franklyn. One of the most famous voices in broadcasting. Schh.....you know who.
RIP William.
Ta Ta
Marky B

I am special. The heavens always open for me.

julian_craster

Veteran actor Franklyn dies at 80

BBC News:
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Veteran actor Franklyn dies at 80

Veteran actor William Franklyn, best-remembered as the voice of the "Schhh... You Know Who" Schweppes adverts, has died aged 80.
Franklyn died after a long battle with prostate cancer, his family said.
His 50-year career encompassed TV, radio, film and stage, appearing in episodes of The Avengers and The Scarlet Pimpernel among many others.
He also appeared in television shows such as Top Secret, Splitting Heirs and Ooh, You Are Awful.
Franklyn was born into a theatrical family in London in 1926, and spent his early childhood living in Australia while his father, Leo Franklyn, toured in musical comedies.
Suave secret agent
He returned to London at the age of 11 and was evacuated to Devon at the beginning of the war.
At 15, Franklyn appeared at London's Savoy Theatre in My Sister Eileen and then spent five years in the army.
He did his first TV work at Alexandra Palace as the villain in a John Slater serial before going to the Theatre Royal, Windsor.
From there his TV, film, and the theatre career blossomed.
It was during the 1960s that Franklyn landed the role in the adverts for Schweppes tonic.
He appeared on screen in 10 of the commercials between 1965 and 1973, and voiced 40.
Franklyn played suave secret agent Peter Dallas in the 1960s TV drama Top Secret, and in later years he increasingly took on comedy parts in shows such as French and Saunders.

Franklyn appeared on the BBC's What's My Line in 1973
In 2004 he took over from the late Peter Jones as the voice of the Book on Radio 4's The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.
He is survived by his wife, Susanna, and three daughters.

Moor Larkin

He was in an Avengers episode on BBC4 the other night, as a toff seeking to blackmail the government....... by destroying Dorset.......

[code]http://www.flickr.com/photos/29487363@N02/sets/72157606700675506/code]

Fellwanderer

Yes - I noticed that. I'm surprised they didn't let him - well, someone had to say it

RIP

All the best
FELL

A signature is no substitute for a life

Rob Compton

Here, leave Dorset out of it! My favourite county!

Now if it had been Slough, or Birmingham......

rgds
Rob:

alan gowdy

I remember his father, Leo appearing in all those Brian Rix Whitehall farces years ago.

David Brent

Another star disappears into the heavens.
Gee, there seems to have been a spate of good actors leaving us over the last month or so.
William Franklyn was a favourite actor of mine and his passing is a very sad loss.

Dave.

julian_craster

Obituary
William Franklyn

Actor who excelled at the stiff upper lip is remembered for spies and Schweppes
Dennis Barker
Wednesday November 1, 2006
The Guardian

The handsomely immobile face, commanding height and stiff manner of William Franklyn, who has died aged 81 of prostate cancer, was ideally suited to playing enigmatic intelligence officers on the large or small screen. One of his most enduring achievements was in the 1960s television series Top Secret, in which his spymaster was the epitome of steel-faced purpose. However, he achieved uncomfortable, if lucrative, fame as the suave man in the "Sch... you know who" TV commercials for Schweppes tonic water.
His contribution wrapped an atmosphere of elegance and mystery around a product familiar to the point of banality. This was one of the most successful ad campaigns ever: it occupied him for three weeks a year, made him as much money as a star's salary in the West End, and was dropped by Schweppes only because it was making Franklyn more prominent than the product. Between 1965 and 1973, he appeared on screen in 10 of the commercials and voiced 40.
Born in London, he was the son of Leo Franklyn, a stalwart of the Whitehall farces. Franklyn Sr retired at 79 from No Sex Please, We're British; he looked like a funny man, but William definitely did not. After an early childhood in Australia, he returned to the UK, and, small and sickly, he forced himself first into parachuting, which led to him becoming a paratrooper in the second world war, and then into acting, because, he said, it also made you conquer nervousness.
Unimpressed, Leo decided his son should be a journalist, but agreed to go and see him perform in the comedy Arsenic and Old Lace on the pier at Southsea. "You're getting your laughs - you'd better stick to it," was his verdict.
It was the beginning of the career of an intelligent if not intellectual actor, which was to diversify into films, television series and panel games. He was for a time a job-guessing panellist on the BBC's What's My Line? quiz programme, made notorious by the irascible Gilbert Harding, in which Franklyn always remained calm. He called it "an acting job until you get relaxed into it".
At one point, any title with the word "spy" in it obliged producers to telephone his agent. In the late 1970s, after he had survived the Schweppes connection for two years - he was dropped because producers still thought him too close to that role to offer him anything else - he was offered the role of host, quizmaster and interrogator on Master Spy. This was an ITV series in which members of the public were asked to decypher coded messages, disguise themselves, talk their way out of situations, outsmart foreign agents and identify a visiting celebrity wearing disguise. There were also appearances in The Avengers and The Scarlet Pimpernel.
In Pit of Darkness (1962), one of the fairly few cinema films in which he took the starring role, Franklyn was a husband manipulated and compromised in a murder investigation by mysterious conspiracies. Mercilessly exposed as the central player on the big screen, and playing a distracted part for which audience sympathy was vital, he seemed undemonstrative, even wooden.
Later, as a change of gear, he appeared in another television series, Paradise Island (1977), in which he played the entertainments officer of an ocean liner, who shared, after the ship went down, a desert island with Bill Maynard's puritanical cleric. Neither this nor Master Spy enjoyed the laurels conferred on Top Secret, but they confirmed his reputation as an actor who could get laughs, without being a natural funny man.
Then, after a run of such West End comedies as There's A Girl In My Soup and Tunnel Of Love, plus many film roles, his acting hit a dead patch. He bought himself a barrow and went from house to house in fashionable areas of London asking for "junk", which he then sold as antiques from a shop in the Portobello Road. He was proud to say that when he started he had a bank overdraft of £1,700, whereas, when he stopped, as acting work reappeared, he was double that amount in credit.
He was even prouder of his work as a director, beginning with There's A Girl in My Soup with an Italian cast (who spoke no English) in Italy. Franklyn took a six-week Berlitz crash course in Italian and returned from the production with anecdotes, carefully polished over the years, about how as a director of Italian actors it did not matter whether you spoke Italian or not because they chatted among themselves and took no notice of the director.
Franklyn's stiff-upper-lip English persona (he loved cricket, squash and tennis and once tried to play for Essex as a fast bowler) was a durable one. In 1991, after appearances in 66 television shows and an eight-year absence from TV, he appeared again, this time as a smooth Tory nastie in Alan Bleasdale's social drama series GBH. He was a judge in The Courtroom (2004), and in 2004-05, he was the voice of the Book in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on Radio 4. His image may have been limiting, but it commanded a definite niche.
He was married first in 1952 to Margo Johns, by whom he had a daughter, and then to Susanna Jupp, by whom he had two daughters. She and his daughters survive him.

William Franklyn, actor, born September 22 1925; died October 31 2006


------------------------------------------------
William Franklyn
Voice of 'Schhh! You know who'
The Independent
01 November 2006
William Leo Franklyn, actor: born London 22 September 1925; married first Margo Johns (one daughter; marriage dissolved), second 1969 Susanna Carroll (two daughters); died London 31 October 2006.
In an acting career spanning more than half a century, William Franklyn performed drama and comedy on stage and screen, but he will for ever be remembered for his distinctive tones advertising Schweppes tonic water, with the whispered words: "Schhh! You know who." The "schhh" sounded like one of the bottle being opened and his voice was just as distinctive as the tonic's yellow labels.
Franklyn was seen on screen promoting the drink in 50 television commercials over nine years, starting in 1963. In an early one, he slipped out of a dinner-jacket, James Bond-style, clearly giving the message that the drink was the ultimate in sophistication and very English, and the actor was credited with helping to boost sales by almost £1m.
Such was the impact of the commercials that they also appeared in Channel 4's The 100 Greatest TV Ads six years ago. When they were originally aired, they confirmed the Franklyn stereotype as debonair and suave, following his starring role in the television series Top Secret (1961-62) as Peter Dallas, a British agent who returns to the Buenos Aires of his childhood, where he is hired to fight crime wherever it occurs in Argentina by a wealthy businessman, Miguel Garetta - played by Patrick Cargill, an actor with an equally distinctive voice.
Franklyn had a slightly adventurous childhood himself. The grandson of Arthur Rigby Snr and the nephew of Arthur Rigby Jnr, both actors, he was born in Kensington, London, in 1925, the son of another actor, Leo Franklyn, who went on to become a celebrated member of Brian Rix's Whitehall Theatre company in farces of the 1950s and 1960s. When William Franklyn was a baby, his family moved to Australia, where his father drove around in an old Pullman car while acting in musical comedies in theatres across the country. During 10 years there, the young Franklyn was educated privately in Melbourne, at Wesley College and Haileybury College.
Despite his acting lineage, he had little desire to perform himself as a child, put off by the experience of being dragged, blushing, through dressing-rooms of half-naked women. "It sounds very good," he said, "but, actually, it made me terrified." However, the family returned to London when he was 11, he was evacuated to Luscombe Castle, in Devon, when war broke out and, at the age of 18, he was thrown into acting at the deep end, taking a role in the West End comedy My Sister Eileen (alongside Coral Browne, Savoy Theatre, 1943).
After serving in the paratroops, he returned to the stage in Arsenic and Old Lace, on Southsea Pier (1946), and followed it with six years at repertory theatres in Ryde and Margate, eventually becoming straight man to the comedy legend Tommy Trinder. He also acted in Peter Ustinov's West End play The Love of Four Colonels (Wyndham's, 1951).
At times, acting work was scarce, so Franklyn set himself up as an up-market rag-and-bone man, taking junk from houses in Chelsea and selling it in his own ramshackle shop. His philosophy about acting was simple: "I think actors really ought to be buccaneering characters. I act for money, not for an ego trip."
He made his film début, as a surgeon, in the Ealing Studios political melodrama The Secret People (1951), in a cast that included Audrey Hepburn. For Ealing, he also appeared in the airport-terminal drama Out of the Clouds (1954), before taking roles in a string of pictures, such as The Love Match (starring Arthur Askey, 1955), Above Us the Waves (with John Mills, 1955), Quatermass 2 (1957), The Girl at the Next Table (featuring Ian Carmichael and Janette Scott, 1957) and the prisoner-of-war drama The Danger Within (1958). He also had a starring role as a safe designer who busts a crime ring in Pit of Darkness (1961).
By then, Franklyn had also established himself as a television character actor. Following his small-screen début in the BBC children's serial Seven Little Australians (1953), he acted in Mid Level ("Television Playhouse", 1955), the first play screened by ITV, two days after its inauguration, he had a regular role as Jacques Fleury in The Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1955-56) and one-off parts in popular series such as The Count of Monte Cristo (1956), The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1957) and International Detective (1960).
After starring in Top Secret, he contributed some sketches to the BBC satirical show That Was the Week That Was (1962-63) and soon became known for just being himself. He provided the voiceover in the game-show Whodunnit? (1972-78), then hosted the espionage quiz series The Masterspy (1979).
His style was also perfect for the role of the straight man linking comedy sketches in What's On Next? (1976-78), written mostly by Barry Cryer, who was seen alongside personalities such as Sandra Dickinson, Hinge and Bracket, Anna Dawson, Bob Todd and the rising stars Jim Davidson and Pam Ayres.
During the same period, Franklyn starred in the sitcom Paradise Island (1977) as the lovelorn hedonist Cuthbert Fullworthy, an entertainments officer who finds himself and the Rev Alexander Goodwin (Bill Maynard) marooned on a Pacific desert island, the only survivors of a shipwreck. He was back alongside Cryer, Dawson and Todd, as well as Madeline Smith and the newcomer Jimmy Mulville, in The Steam Video Company (1984), a series of six different comedy tales, such as "Creature from the Black Forest Gateau" and "I Was Hitler's Bookie". His last television acting role was as a judge in The Courtroom (2004).
Franklyn's other films included the Morecambe and Wise comedy The Intelligence Men (1965), Ooh . . . You Are Awful (starring Dick Emery, 1972) and Splitting Heirs (written by Eric Idle, 1993). Intriguingly, he also played Earl Mountbatten of Burma in the television film Diana: Her True Story (1993).
Two years ago, he replaced the voice of the Book, Peter Jones, for two new series of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy on BBC radio (2004-05), otherwise featuring the original cast from quarter of a century earlier. During his career, Franklyn did voice-overs for hundreds of commercials and documentaries, and for 11 years read on the BBC series Quote . . . Unquote.
His two marriages were both to actresses, Margo Johns, from whom he was divorced, and Susanna Carroll. His eldest daughter is the actress Sabina Franklyn.
Anthony Hayward

julian_craster

The Times
November 01, 2006

William Franklyn
September 22, 1925 - October 31, 2006
Versatile actor and distinctive voiceover, notably in the advertising campaign for Schweppes


WILLIAM FRANKLYN was a third-generation actor whose smooth tones were the delight of audiences but the envy of colleagues. As a stage and film player his strongly masculine range encompassed both spies and villains — he would have made an interesting, if eccentric, James Bond.
His distinctive voice laid the basis for a 65-year theatrical career that was punctuated only by a formidable stint as a Second World War paratrooper. When discussing holiday destinations he once remarked: “Yes, I’ve dropped in on those people with a machinegun in my hands.”

Known to his family as “Pip” and to everyone else as Bill, Franklyn in later years became the doyen of voiceovers. He succeeded his great friend Peter Jones as the book-narrator in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, besides reading the extracts in Radio 4’s Quote/Unquote and The News Quiz, as well as appearing in numerous advertising campaigns the most famous of which was probably for Schweppes (“Schh . . . you know who”).
Mythology obscures biography when it comes to his earlier life, partly because Franklyn loved nothing better than to retell an anecdote.
He was in fact born in London in 1925, the son of Leo, a grand farceur and musical comedy star. Leo very soon packed William off in his trunk to tour Australia and only brought the boy back to the UK when he was 11.
From this Australian period much of William’s character was formed — a tough education at Haileybury College, Melbourne, and an undying love affair with cricket turned him into a serious competitor.
Franklyn was never known to suffer from a shade of shyness. After evacuation to Luscombe Castle in Devon at the beginning of the war he applied to the forces as a 15-year-old and simultaneously made his debut at the Savoy Theatre in My Sister Eileen.
On his return from Palestine upon demobilisation he threw himself into the light relief of Arsenic and Old Lace, and years of assorted repertory appearances culminated as straight man to the comedian Tommy Trinder.
Early television work took him to Alexandra Palace as the baddy in a John Slater serial. He also appeared in the first ITV drama which was called Mid-Level, by Barclay Mather and set in Hong Kong — no copy of it now survives.
From there he went to the Theatre Royal, Windsor, for what he called his version of a theatrical university, pursuing an ambulatory career between television, films and the theatre.
Among his many screen credits are The Intelligence Men, Pit of Darkness, Quatermass II, The Satanic Rites of Dracula, Robert Ryland’s Last Journey and Diana — Her True Story. His television successes included the lead in The Master Spy.
Although Franklyn probably loved acting a lot he certainly adored cricket to the point of obsession. As a youngster he opened the bowling for the Stage Cricket Club with a rare and persistent ferocity, sometimes in partnership with his lifelong friend (Lord) Brian Rix.
As the years passed he transformed himself into a canny exponent of leg spin, perhaps overfond of the long delivery from 23 yards. On the pitch he could prove a nightmare to the opposition in many other ways — not least talking a batsman out of his wicket by beginning yet another reverberant sentence from his position in the gulley: “When I was a boy in Australia . . . "
As an umpire he was partial, holding the unusual distinction of once making an appeal himself against the batsman.
He later founded his own team, the Sargentmen, to help to raise money for cancer charities and played on into his 80th year.
His character was always a mix of the tough and tender, but Franklyn adored and was adored by his family. He is survived by his second wife, Susie, and his three daughters.

William Franklyn, actor, was born on September 22, 1925. He died on October 31, 2006, aged 81.



-------------------------------------------------------------------

William Franklyn
Daily Telegraph
01/11/2006

William Franklyn, who died yesterday aged 81, was a character actor on stage and television, but was equally well known for his voiceovers in commercials – his tour de force in that department was as the debonair globe-trotter in the advertisement for Schweppes tonic water, in which he whispered sexily: "Schhh… you know who."
This award-winning television campaign (which boosted sales by nearly £1 million) was created by the advertising agency Ogilvy and Mather; the slogan was the brainchild of Royston Taylor, who had tried to think of a way of promoting the product without mentioning its name. The "Schhh… " was supposed to suggest a bottle of tonic water being opened.
The commercials placed Franklyn in exotic locations surrounded by swarms of beautiful women; he appeared in more than 50 of them between 1965 and 1973, later observing: "They were great fun, but they typecast me."
Franklyn was often seen on the stage, but although he confessed that he would have liked to have played Hamlet, he had no general ambition to play the classic roles. His suave, easy style, however, earned him many and various opportunities on the small screen. In Thames Television's Paradise Island he played a sex-hungry ship's entertainments officer stranded on a desert island with a vicar (Bill Maynard); in a different vein, he was link man for the quick-fire gag show What's On Next.
William Leo Franklyn was born in London on September 22 1925, the son of Leo Franklyn and Mary Rigby, both of whom were actors. He spent his childhood in Australia, where his father, an established comedian, was busy touring. While his father was away, Bill attended Haileybury School in Melbourne.
As a child he was terrified by the theatre, associating it with being dragged, blushing, through dressing-rooms peopled by half-naked women. At the age of 11 the family returned to Britain and Bill was sent to boarding school, which was evacuated during the war to Luscombe Castle, Devon. He made an early appearance on stage at the Savoy, as one of a squad of Panamanian sailors in a conga line in My Sister Eileen. He then served as a paratrooper in Palestine.
After demobilisation Franklyn pursued his acting career in earnest, appearing at Southsea in Arsenic and Old Lace, and going on to rep at Ryde, Margate and Northampton. At Windsor he played the lead in plays such as Night and Day, Relatively Speaking and Springtime for Henry. He also appeared at the King's Head, Islington, where Rattigan's In Praise of Love gave him a more subtle role, which he tackled with his usual confidence.
Franklyn got his break in the West End in The Love of Four Colonels, and went on to become one of the early stars of ITV, appearing in its first broadcast play, Mid-Level. This was the start of a long career in television, which included appearances in The Makepeace Story; The Last Flight; Top Secret; No Wreath for the General; No Cloak, No Dagger; Latterly; Masterspy; and The Purple Twilight. More recently he had parts in Lovejoy, Doctors and French And Saunders. He was a regular contributor to BBC radio programmes, and in 2004 took over from the late Peter Jones as the voice of the Book on Radio 4's Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.
Throughout his career Franklyn's regular voiceover and commentary work provided him with a steady income, and he fitted in theatre work when he could. He appeared in London in plays such as Tunnel of Love, There's a Girl in My Soup and Ghost on Tiptoe, as well as in thrillers such as Deathtrap, Dead Ringer and A Touch of Danger.
On the cinema screen Franklyn featured in Quatermass II (1957) and in Roman Polanski's Cul de Sac (1966). Other screen credits included Fury at Smugglers' Bay (1958); Pit of Darkness (1962); The Legend of Young Dick Turpin; The Intelligence Men (1965); and The Satanic Rights of Dracula (1973).
In 1969 Franklyn directed an Italian production of There's a Girl in My Soup, even though his knowledge of the Italian language went little beyond Linguaphone lesson one. When he was provided with an interpreter, Franklyn observed: "The Italians are too busy talking among themselves to hear what language is being used."
Franklyn could tear up a script on the set, or announce at a rehearsal (with the author well within earshot) that he had put in a few of his own one-liners to liven things up a bit. But he was warm-hearted and friendly, and always conscientious.
He hated periods of inactivity, and at one time – when acting opportunities were scarce – he turned his hand to the antiques business. His hobbies included philately and squash, but his principal recreation was cricket.
As a young man he had had a trial for Essex as a fast bowler, and he continued to play into old age, though by then he had metamorphosed into a leg-break specialist. He was for many years a prominent member of The Stage's Cricket Club; he also ran his own team, the Sargent Men, which raised money for the Malcolm Sargent Cancer Fund for Children.
William Franklyn married first, in 1952, Margot Johns. They divorced in 1962, and in 1966 he married the actress Susanna Carroll, among whose roles was that of a Drahvin in Dr Who.
By his first marriage he had a daughter, the actress Sabina Franklyn; by his second he had two daughters: Francesca, a film producer, and Melissa, also an actress.

Merton Park

I will always remember him as the villain in Danger Within, great film! Also in The Flesh is Weak.

He had an unmistakeable voice, and was a pretty good actor. RIP

julian_craster

I remember William Franklyn in Polanski's CUL-DE-SAC....

Phil Turner

His performance in Danger Within always sticks in my memory too, despite his long list of credits. Another link with classic British cinema and TV sadly broken.

Regards
Phil Turner