May I Be Frank With You?

Today's featured actor has worked a lot over the course of a thirty-year-long screen career and yet his name is not exactly at the tip of most viewer's tongues. Born on April 17th, 1947 in Olympia, Washington, Charles Resor Frank, would eventually emerge as an example of boy-next-door handsomeness and wholesome appeal. These traits led to multiple jobs over the years that, while fruitful, also tended to keep him in a bit of a box creatively. Graduating from Middlebury College, a private, expensive liberal arts school in Vermont, in 1969, he swiftly headed to The Big Apple in order to pursue an acting career as Charles Frank. it wasn't long before he was snatched up by one of the New York soap operas and placed well on his way to success. 

Seen here with the immortal daytime figures Erica Kane and Phoebe Tyler (played by Susan Lucci and Ruth Warrick), Frank was cast as young Dr. Jeff Martin on All My Children. He was, in fact, the first of Erica's many husbands on the show, though the character ultimately left him to pursue her modeling career. (Frank was a recast, a "prettier" Jeff than the prior actor Christopher Lofton, who'd briefly originated the role.)

A more successful pairing awaited in the form of Mary Kennicott, played by actress Susan Blanchard. The characters wed on screen in 1974 and, in one of life's twists, the actors fell in love and remained together in real life. Married in 1977, they remain together to this day!

Having made his mark on daytime TV, he headed west to Los Angeles in 1974 to try his hand at prime-time and soon enough began appearing as a guest on such shows as Switch, Police Woman, Laverne & Shirley and, as seen here with Linda Lavin and Hal Linden, Barney Miller. (His role here was of a low-rent cowboy picked up in a massage parlor!)

His good looks were put to use in a two-part episode of Wonder Woman during its first season. He was paired with Debra Winger during her now-infamous appearance as Wonder Girl!

On Hawaii 5-O, he joined Lee Purcell as part of a crime ring, demonstrating that his nice looks didn't always ensure that he'd be a nice character.

Featured parts on hot shows such as Hawaii 5-O and, as seen here, Barnaby Jones, led to his face becoming familiar to regular TV viewers.

He also popped up on two installments of M*A*S*H, a show that's lived in perpetual reruns ever since, meaning that most any fan of that show has seen him at least once.

Pretty much out of the gate, Frank worked alongside many skilled performers. Here, on Oscar-winner Ruth Gordon's episode of Columbo, he played her victim (though the character was an utter heel, lending all sympathy to her, his murderer, rather than to himself.)

In 1977, he landed the male lead in a TV-movie, drek though it was. The project was called Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo, released at a time when the oversized spiders had fully captured much of the public's imagination.

1978 turned out to be something of a landmark year for Frank. He secured big-screen work (small roles in admittedly lower-profile movies) including The Other Side of the Mountain: Part II, in which he played a rather lunkheaded date in paralyzed Marilyn Hassett's nightmare.

And there was Henry Winkler's period wrestling comedy The One and Only, in which he played the super-preppy college boyfriend of Kim Darby. She quickly falls for Winkler, leaving Frank in the dust. 

So it was that he was back on TV with better billing in cheesy fare such as Ski Lift to Death (1978.)

And, busy as a bee, he played the "perfect" husband to Cybill Shepherd (fleeing to TV for the first time after some cinematic missteps) in A Guide for the Married Woman (1978.)

However, all was not lost. That same year he was cast in another TV-movie called The New Maverick, in which he played nephew to one-time series stars James Garner and Jack Kelly.

Happily for him, the telefilm also included a role for his recently-wed wife, Susan Blanchard.

So well-received was the movie that in 1979, Frank was granted his own rendition of the series, called Young Maverick.

Again, Blanchard was on hand as his love interest. Unfortunately, the series was not a ratings winner and it was buried after eight episodes.

By now in demand as a reliable and attractive television presence, he spent part of 1980 in preparation for another series of his own. Unfortunately, the pilot for "Jack Flash" not only didn't go to series, it was never even aired on TV!

Still, opportunities of another sort presented themselves. No doubt thanks to his knowing his way around a cowboy hat, he was cast in a different pilot. This one was a kooky take-off on the prime-time soaps, chiefly Dallas, that were proliferating and finding tremendous ratings success. Filthy Rich saw him as one of the few upstanding members of a Tennessee family, all squabbling under one roof. You'll note the presence of both Delta Burke and Dixie Carter in the cast, who would later reunite on Designing Women, created by the same writer-producer.

Filthy Rich had begun as a wacky one-hour pilot that hadn't sold. When it was aired later during the summer, it got terrific ratings and so the cast was reconvened to go to (half-hour) series for the fall. This meant that Burke was forced to turn down the role of Katherine Wentworth on Dallas (!), giving Morgan Brittany a big break. Incidentally, Burke played Frank's widowed step-mother, not his wife! The seeds of her weight/drug issues began here as she was continually needled to stay as thin as possible.

Many of Frank's scenes were set in his sizable bathroom with a large, black tub. Years later, Frank appeared on Designing Women as a "metrosexual" who Carter dates (Burke was off the show by then), but he also guested on Woman of the House, the short-lived spin-off of Burke's, so he had no hand in all the melee from that period. In any event, Rich didn't live up to expectations and, despite a lot of fans who recall it fondly even now, it was canned after 15 episodes.

Regardless, 1983 brought Frank one of his greatest opportunities yet...

He joined a strong ensemble of actors in portraying the U.S.'s first astronauts in The Right Stuff (1983.)

Scott Glenn, Scott Paulin, Fred Ward, Dennis Quaid, Lance Henrikson, Ed Harris and Frank portrayed the "Mercury Seven." Not pictured is Sam Sheperd, who played instructor Chuck Yeager, the one actor who was Oscar-nominated (losing to Jack Nicholson in Terms of Endearment.)

Seen here behind Henrikson, Frank's "All American" looks were at last being used in the most prestigious way. The movie was a big hit, brought home four Academy Awards and retains a healthy reputation for the most part even now. This role did not translate to further big-screen work, however.

Instead, he was back on the tube, this time not parodying (we think!), but co-starring in an actual prime-time soap. Dynasty's creators Richard and Esther Shapiro had turned their sudsy attentions to a U.S. naval air station for Emerald Point, N.A.S.

Are ya gettin' a load of Sela Ward on the far left?!  It's hard to believe that a TV series with hunks Andrew Stevens, Frank and Richard Dean Anderson could fail, but it did indeed. (Incidentally, the gal in the middle of Stevens and Dennis Weaver, Stephanie Dunnam, later segued onto Dynasty and was one of my top-five annoying characters ever to appear on the show...)

Playing Frank's wife was one Susan Dey. If The Partridge Family's Miss Dey ever looked worse than this on a program, I'm not aware of it...! Thankfully, she soon resurrected herself to great effect as the sleek and purposeful Grace Van Owen on L.A. Law.

As Emerald failed to make its Point, the pastels began to give way to darker, richer hues and additional names (like Jill St. John and Robert Vaughn) were brought in, but it was all for naught. The show was gone after 22 installments.

Always reliable Frank guested on many TV shows, from The Love Boat to Newhart to Hotel.

And he continued his penchant for working with industry greats, such as when Katharine Hepburn landed on television for Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry.

He portrayed one of wealthy Hepburn's WASP-ish children, concerned over her desire to marry a Jewish gentleman she's become fond of (played by Harold Gould, unseen here.) That same year, 1986, he appeared in one of Loretta Young's rare forays onto TV as well, Christmas Eve!

Having portrayed JFK in the telefilm LBJ: The Early Years, Frank popped up for two eps on The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd with Blair Brown (who'd portrayed Jackie Kennedy a few years before in Kennedy!)

Yet another failed pilot limped onto the tube in 1987. Act II had Broadway star Sandy Duncan marrying a widower and having to pitch in as mother to his trio of kids. Lucky for Duncan it failed so that she could Tarzan-swing over to Valerie's Family: The Hogans after Valerie Harper had been shown the door from her own show!

He did made a return to the big screen, though, in 1987 with Russkies, as one of a few concerned fathers whose sons have become entangled with a shipwrecked Russian soldier during the Cold War. (His wife appeared in the movie as his character's wife.)

Now 40, he was beginning to mature, looks-wise, though still retained that clean-cut, preppy quality that had served him many times along the way. The next year, he guested on L.A. Law three times as a shifty stockbroker.

1988 brought him by far the oddest role on his resume. He appeared in the Donna Dixon  flick Lucky Stiff. In it, he's one of a family of cannibals (!) who try to fatten up visitor Joe Alsakey for dinner. Theirs! (Turns out they are descendants of The Donner Party.) The dark comedy, DOA in theaters, was directed by none other than Anthony Perkins...!

From here came a steady stream of television appearances. They varied in style, from the western Paradise to the war-set Tour of Duty. There was Jake and the Fatman, Dallas, Midnight Caller and the requisite Murder, She Wrote, as seen here. In the inset is Lee Purcell, with whom he'd done Hawaii 5-O all those years ago.

He was always busy, with appearances including Matlock, Life Goes On, Walker, Texas Ranger and even a couple of returns to All My Children, as Dr. Jeff Martin. In 1995, his straight-laced (square?) sort of screen persona was put to use as Senator John Warner in Liz; The Elizabeth Taylor Story. (Hilariously, this was the same year he played a senator on Delta Burke's political sitcom, Woman of the House! I hope newspapers kept their photos captioned correctly!)

Frank is more handsome than Warner, though Sherilyn Fenn gave a creditable performance as La Liz. The lunacy of it all was demonstrated, though, when Frank came to pick Fenn up for their first date and she was sitting on the couch waiting for his arrival... Um, Miss Taylor was notoriously NEVER on time for an occasion! It was understood that her gentlemen callers had better make themselves comfortable until she was ready to descend. As if she'd be plopped on the couch ready to roll...! LOL

Mr. Frank, seen here at a reunion gala for The Right Stuff in 2003, stopped acting on screen in 1997. Now 77, he remains wed to Susan (the couple have one daughter together as well.) Though you won't see it noted on imdb, the couple appeared, happy and compatible, on episodes of the daytime games show Tattletales in the mid-'70s.

By the way, if Ms. Blanchard seems familiar, yet you cannot figure out why, you may have seen her during her looonng run (1976-1982) - no pun intended - as the No Nonsense pantyhose commercial spokeswoman. Early ads showed her putting her fingers into the feet of lesser brands and breaking through!

We are always happy to see the name Charles Frank pop up in the credits of a TV show or movie. That ensures that there will be someone cute to focus on at some point. Speaking of, stay tuned for a few bonus pics from Filthy Rich and Frank's time spent in his bubble bath...!

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And with that I'll pull the plug on this one... Till next time!