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Former ABC7 Film Critic Gary Franklin Dies at 79

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Oct. 4, 2007 (KABC-TV) -- Film critic, and our former colleague here at ABC7, Gary Franklin has died at the age of 79.

Franklin, who had suffered four strokes in recent years, died Tuesday at his home in Chatsworth. Franklin worked at several local television and radio stations, first as a hard news reporter, but then moved on to the movie beat.

He worked as entertainment critic here at KABC in the late 1980's and retired in 1991.

Franklin was an award-winning still photographer, which he continued to pursue after leaving television.

Franklin's 1-to-10 scale of movie reviews made him a familiar name and even carried weight with Hollywood studios. He rated movies and TV shows "on the Franklin Scale of 1 to 10, 10 being best." Because he was the local reviewer in the heart of the entertainment industry, his reviews had influence with Hollywood's movers and shakers.

Franklin pulled no punches when he felt a movie was exploitative. He gave director Oliver Stone a zero on the scale for the violent "Natural Born Killers," calling it a "cultural crime."

"I have always let my social conscience influence my criticism," Franklin told the Los Angeles Times in 1991. "People should be speaking out about the effects of movie violence, brutality and sexuality in the world, and I'm glad I've had the chance to make a tiny impact."

"That's how I'd like to be remembered," he said. "And perhaps for having saved (my viewers) a few bucks here and there."

Franklin was born in Leipzig, Germany, on Sept. 22, 1928. His Jewish family came to America in 1938 to escape the Nazis. Franklin earned a film degree from City College of New York. He was an Army cameraman in Korea and then began to produce television documentaries in New York and Canada before beginning a broadcast career in Virginia in 1954.

In addition to his daughter, Franklin is survived by his wife, Sylvia; another daughter, Michelle Truesdell, and four grandchildren.

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