Pamela Franklin (born 3 February 1950) is a British former actress. She is best known for her role as Sandy in the film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), for which she won a NBR Award and received a BAFTA Award nomination.
Franklin, who had three brothers, was born in Yokohama, Japan, and grew up in East Asia, where her father was an importer/exporter. The family lived in Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, and Ceylon before returning to the United Kingdom.[1] When she was eight she was sent to the Elmhurst School of Ballet in the UK.[2]
Early career
Franklin made her film debut at age 11 in The Innocents (1961),[3] and her TV debut in the Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color's The Horse Without a Head (1963).
In 1971, she starred in the penultimate episode of Green Acres, titled "Hawaiian Honeymoon". The episode was a backdoor pilot for the proposed sitcom titled Pam, which would have featured Franklin and Don Porter as a father and daughter operating the Moana Rexford hotel in Hawaii. The pilot was not picked up.
As an adult, Franklin became somewhat typecast in horror films after her performances in the popular occult thrillers Necromancy (1972)[5] and The Legend of Hell House (1973)[6] opposite Roddy McDowall. This was followed with the television horror movie Satan's School for Girls (1973). Her last film role was in The Food of the Gods (1976), although she made television appearances until 1981, including an episode of Police Story, in which she became physically ill playing a rape victim.[citation needed]
Franklin met British actor Harvey Jason, 10 years her senior, on the set of Necromancy. Although the film was not released until 1972, the couple married in 1970,[8] settled near Hollywood and had two sons. Her husband and one of their sons, Louis, co-own a bookstore in West Hollywood.
On the commentary track for the 2014 Region A Blu-ray release of The Legend of Hell House released by Scream Factory, Franklin notes that she was pregnant with her second child whilst filming The Food of the Gods and that she was ready for a change of career, although she enjoyed making the film and living on the island location. She also claimed working in television in the United States was a mistake at the time, as it limited her career and producers only saw her as a TV actor from then on.
^Although a 1983 production of Macbeth at the Garden Grove Shakespearean Festival in California mentioned that a "Pamela Franklin" played Lady Macbeth, the actress was not the same Pamela Franklin. See cast for Grove Theater: A Little Shakespeare--Long Beach Style, Orange Coast Magazine, November 1983, pp. 146-147
