Gretchen Franklin Video | Celebrity Interview and Paparazzi

Gretchen Franklin (7 July 1911 – 11 July 2005) was an English actress with a career in showbusiness that spanned over eighty years. She was born in Covent Garden, west London, a cousin of the actor Clive Dunn. She was best known for playing the character of Ethel Skinner in the long running BBC One, soap opera, EastEnders. She played the role on a regular basis from 1985 until 1988. After this she returned to the show intermittently. These appearances became more brief and widely spaced as time went on. Her final appearance was in 2000, when her character was killed off. Franklin was... MORE

Gretchen Franklin (7 July 1911 – 11 July 2005) was an English actress with a career in showbusiness that spanned over eighty years. She was born in Covent Garden, west London, a cousin of the actor Clive Dunn. She was best known for playing the character of Ethel Skinner in the long running BBC One, soap opera, EastEnders. She played the role on a regular basis from 1985 until 1988. After this she returned to the show intermittently. These appearances became more brief and widely spaced as time went on. Her final appearance was in 2000, when her character was killed off. Franklin was born into a theatrical family. Her father had a song-and-dance act, while her grandfather was a well-known music hall entertainer at the turn of the century. She entered show business as a teenager, making her début as a pantomime chorus girl in Bournemouth. In 1929, she took dancing lessons at the Theatre Girls Club in Soho in London's West End and she later became a renowned tap dancer and founder member of a quartet known as Four Brilliant Blondes. She toured in variety with the comedians Syd and Max Harrisonwith and on the Gracie Fields Show, and performed with another dance group, The Three LESS