Zoren: Of Dave Frankel, on his passing and his fulfilling life after TV

Dave Frankel began his local television news career in about 1984 by being an investigative reporter at Channel 6.

He was successful at the work, but he found his most memorable niche when he was recruited in 1988 (’89?) to report the weather for “Action News’ ” noon and early evening broadcasts.

The weather anchor is the member of the news team who can infuse the most personality into his or her work. Now routinely called the meteorologist, the person at the weather map is not required to maintain the gravitas and serious authority of a news anchor or beat reporter.

When Frankel moved to Channel 6’s weather map, the one that had the adhesive clouds and that could be written on with erasable markers, “Action News” viewers found out he was funny.

In his offhand, conversational, and sometimes silly way, Dave could make people laugh while giving them the lowdown from AccuWether.

Had Frankel continued to do the weather at Channel 6, his life may not have varied much, but he might have spent his entire career at the station.

Instead, Frankel, who died at age 67 Wednesday from primary progressive aphasia, a form of dementia, had four significant periods in his worklife.

At least the worklife we know.

The first two are his investigative and weather assignments as Channel 6. The third was a 1999 move to be an anchor at Channel 3. The fourth, once his television career faded, was to attend Villanova Law School, earn his degree, and start a law practice specializing in the needs of the young and the elderly, people who didn’t seem to have a voice in the legal system unless they had an attorney who could provide it.

At the time of his death, Frankel has been a practicing attorney for almost two decades.

The last time I spoke with him, he talked about how fulfilling it was to be the advocate from people who might find themselves in situations with which they could not cope alone.

Frankel made a name in two difficult fields.

He was definitely a fan favorite at Channel 6, especially because of the upbeat tone of his segments.

The move to the Channel 3 anchor desk never brought about the following Frankel enjoyed at Channel 6. Frankel couldn’t be the buoyant wit he was at the weather map.

Also in the history of the the Philadelphia television market, no one, not even Larry Kane, was ever able build on his popularity at a new venue.

He or she might cause some ratings increase — “might” being the operative word here — but no one who left one local station foranother brought enough viewers with him or her to make a difference in the overall market ratings.

Especially if he or she moved from “Action News,” which has dominated ratings in all time slots for 48 years.

When he left Channel 3, Dave Frankel said goodbye to television and hello to law.

He started his legal career at a large Philadelphia law firm, but soon opened his own office to take more of the kind of cases that mattered to him, those involving children with special needs in various ways from access to education to personal injury.

Frankel is survived by his wife, Marjie, and three children: Bailey, Scott, and Charlie. He and his wife also have six grandchildren.

Passing of Gene, a giant in film

Whether or not any of the questions raised by the death of pantheon actor Gene Hackman are completely answered, few performers in any art could boast of the consistent excellence Hackman displayed during his six decades of prominence.

His signature role might be Popeye Doyle, the hard-bitten, determined detective fighting a drug mob in 1971’s “The French Connection,” but some may argue that, tough and nuanced as that performance is, there are others in which Hackman’s talent shined as much.

My favorite of Hackman’s movie and performances is one for which he did not receive one of his five Oscar nominations, two for Best Actor — “The French Connection” (1971) and “Mississippi Burning (1988) — and three for Best Supporting Actor — “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967), “I Never Sang For My Father (1970), and “Unforgiven” (1992), for which he also earned the Academy Award.

It’s his role as the intense and, like Popeye Doyle, determined eavesdropper in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 film, “The Conversation.”

That was a tough year to secure a Best Actor nomination, considering those who did receive the nod were recipient Art Carney for “Harry and Tonto,” Al Pacino for “The Godfather, Part II,” Jack Nicholson for “Chinatown,” Dustin Hoffman for “Lenny,” and Albert Finney for “Murder on the Orient Express.”

Even so, the discipline and self-abnegation with which Hackman endowed the role of surveillance agent Harry Caul as he hears a murder being committed during a wiretap, showed the depth and range of which Hackman was capable.

Especially because the role called for Caul to be so unemotional, yet so obsessed and eventually frantic with worry for his safety, meaning Hackman had to contain a lot while simultaneously expressing so much.

It is a masterful job and one that should be remembered.

Gene Hackman is probably regarded as an actor who played mostly serious roles, but he was also a deft comedian.

Robin Williams and Nathan Lane may be remembered for “The Birdcage” (1996), but it is Hackman’s turn as the ultra-conservative French politician resorting to drag to escape from the press I find to be the film’s funniest performance.

I also think of his hilarious stint as the blind hermit who serves Peter Boyle’s “creature” hot soup in Mel Brooks’s “The Young Frankenstein” (1975), the father in Wes Anderson’s “The Royal Tenenbaums” (2001), and the skein of witty portrayals as Superman’s nemesis, Lex Luthor, in three movies ranging from 1978 to 1987.

Never the fan favorite peers like Dustin Hoffman or Jack Nicholson were, Hackman deserves for be one of the most respected actors in Hollywood or on the New York stage where I saw him with Glenn Close and Richard Dreyfuss in “Death of the Maiden” (1992).

I met Hackman twice, interviewing him — and director William Friedkin — at a Philadelphia screening of “The French Connection” in 1971 and at a New York screening of “Hoosiers” in 1986.

Both times the natural guy, unaffected guy you see in his characters came through.

As Hackman was walking up the aisle at Philly’s Top of the Fox to get ready for a luncheon and a round of “French Connection” interviews, I, age 19 at the time, said to him, “Isn’t it great you’ll have a Best Actor nomination of your own for this movie, one you won’t have to share with Warren Beatty or Melvyn Douglas?”

He said, “Don’t go thinking so far ahead, kid. I’m enjoying all of this for what it is.”

Until his death at age 95 the week before the Oscars, Hackman had the distinction of being the living actor who received his Academy Award the earliest in the Best Actor category.

That mantle now goes to Jack Nicholson, for receiving the 1975 Oscar for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

In other acting categories that position is held by Joanne Woodward, also 95, for “Three Faces of Eve” (1957), George Chakiris for playing Bernardo in “West Side Story” (1961), and Eva Marie Saint, age 100, for “On the Waterfront” (1954).”

Hackman was found dead in his Santa Fe home on Feb. 26.

He was judged to have been dead for more than a week before someone discovered his body. His wife of 34 years, concert pianist Betsy Arakawa, was found dead in another room of their house.

A dog that was confined also died.

New Mexico officials continue to piece together what might have happened.

May all rest in piece. Thank you, Mr. Hackman, for epitomizing acting excellence.

Thank you, Ms. Arakawa, for all the lovely music. Your legacies will supersede the mystery of your passings.

Of Oscars and SAGs

I must have been temporarily transported to Jupiter.

I, who can name every Oscar nominee in every acting category throughout the 97-year history of the award, miscalculated the date of this year’s ceremony and never got to post predictions or preferences for nominees in the acting, directing and picture categories.

Too late for predictions.

I saw all of the nominated performances and some skipped over: Jamie Lee Curtis in “The Last Showgirl, for instance.

I think most of my preferences will match the recipients.

They would be Adrien Brody for “The Brutalist” — with a fond nod to Timothée Chalamet in “A Complete Unknown’ — Cynthia Erivo in “Wicked,” Kieran Culkin from “A Real Pain” — even though his “Succession” castmate, Jeremy Strong from “The Apprentice,” made the choice difficult — Zoe Saldaña for “Emilia Pérez”, Brady Corbet for “The Brutalist,” and “The Brutalist” for Best Picture.

The Oscars had a tough act to follow.

The Screen Actors Guild Award ceremony, streamed on Netflix, the week before is the best show business award telecast I’ve seen since the days when Neil Patrick Harris, was host of the Tony Awards.

Kristen Bell was an excellent host. Even the running bit, of male co-stars begging Bell to name them her favorite of all time, worked, never becoming idiotic or corny like most Oscar ploys do.

Except for Fran Drescher’s, even speeches that contained political sentiments were tame compared to what I expected.

Jane Fonda can show Fran how to make partisan remarks palatable.

In general, the show was smooth and clever, exuding the sophistication you hope to see as you share an evening with artists.

Lester Holt joins exodus

First Norah O’Donnell at CBS, then, blessedly, Joy Reid and Alex Wagner at MSNBC, now Lester Holt has announced he is leaving the 6:30 p.m. weekday anchor post at “NBC Nightly News.”

No replacement has been named. Holt will remain at NBC and step into a host position on the network’s news magazine program, “Dateline.”

Holt had the ability to be an objective journalist, but in recent years, he succumbed to the common left-leaning bias that has plagued television news coverage for the past couple of decades.

An open letter

Dear Sutton Foster,

I was one of the 1,100 people who had a ticket to see you at Wilmington’s Playhouse Theatre in the DuPont Hotel this weekend.

I am sorry for your illness. I’ve read about problems you have with anxiety.

I also notice that while this is the first time I had a ticket to see you, one I bought because I thought it unfair to ask for a press comp when your show is selling out and the theater can make needed money, you have canceled performances at the Playhouse three previous times this season.

Some of that time, you would have spent some nights on stage doing your hilarious and supremely entertaining performance in “Once Upon a Mattress.”

Please, Ms. Sutton. I understand you may be ill, but the audience in Wilmington has been waiting for you since the fall.

If you never did a show at the Playhouse, it’s a jewel box of a house with excellent sight lines. Audiences in Delaware are receptive and no doubt, know you from your Broadway success.

Everyone from Rex Harrison to Debbie Reynolds and Lana Turner have played there.

I made the best of a bad situation by going to a trivia night fundraiser for the Chestnut Hill Library in Philadelphia. It was the right tonic. I had fun and met some great people.

Also there were two sisters, ironically sitting at my table and part of my team, who also had tickets to see you at the Playhouse.

We had seats on the same row for your show! They had come from Long Island by train and were staying at an airbnb in Philly.

See how devoted your audience is. I have seen you in everything from “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” “Little Women,” and “The Drowsy Chaperone” to “The Music Man” and “Once Upon a Mattress.”

I know your artistry. Why else would I, who can go to any show I please, buy a ticket to see you in concert?

The new date is April 26, coincidentally the 100th birthday of my late uncle, Samuel “Sonny” Barshay, who was a Playhouse subscriber for more than 50 years!

Get well, please, Sutton.

Wilmington awaits you and hopes to finally get a chance to see your genius live in April.

Fondest regards,Neal Zoren