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Elizabeth Franz
Elizabeth Jean Frankovitch (June 18, 1941 – November 4, 2025), known professionally as Elizabeth Franz, was an American stage and television actress.
Franz was born Elizabeth Jean Frankovitch in Akron, Ohio, on July 18, 1941. Her father, Joseph Frankovitch, worked in a tire factory. Her half Irish, half Native American mother, Harriet, had mental problems that sometimes frightened Franz when she was a child. In childhood she decided to become an actress as a way of releasing emotions that she had to hold in while dealing with her parents. She had two brothers and a sister, and she graduated from Copley High School in Copley Township, Ohio, in 1959.
Although her mother never thought Franz would succeed as an actress, she wanted to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA) and worked as a secretary at Ohio Edison to save enough money to enroll there. An AADA teacher warned her that despite being a good actress, she might not get roles before she reached age 40.
Billed as Betty Frankovitch, Franz acted at the Weathervane Theater in Akron. She acted with The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis 1968–1970.
In 2004–05, she appeared at the Royal National Theatre in London, in the Sam Shepard play Buried Child. She starred in numerous Off-Broadway and regional theater productions, including the American premiere of Frank McGuinness's Bird Sanctuary. She also appeared in Long Day's Journey into Night, The Glass Menagerie, The Comedy of Errors, Madwoman of Chaillot, The Lion in Winter, A View from the Bridge, The Matchmaker, The Wizard of Oz, Great Expectations, The Model Apartment, and Woman in Mind.
Her "subtly layered performance" as Grandma Kurnitz in the 2017 Weston Playhouse Theatre Company production of Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers was duly noted by Rutland Herald critic Jim Lowe, who deemed Franz's portrayal the "dramatic backbone" of the production, "allowing only traces of the octogenarian's love and humanity to seep through."
Franz's Tony-winning performance as Linda Loman in the 50th anniversary production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman proved a revelation to audiences and author alike, as evidenced by Miller's brief but pointed tribute.
She has discovered in the role the basic underlying powerful protectiveness, which comes out as fury, and that in the past, in every performance that I know of, was simply washed out.
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Elizabeth Franz
Elizabeth Jean Frankovitch (June 18, 1941 – November 4, 2025), known professionally as Elizabeth Franz, was an American stage and television actress.
Franz was born Elizabeth Jean Frankovitch in Akron, Ohio, on July 18, 1941. Her father, Joseph Frankovitch, worked in a tire factory. Her half Irish, half Native American mother, Harriet, had mental problems that sometimes frightened Franz when she was a child. In childhood she decided to become an actress as a way of releasing emotions that she had to hold in while dealing with her parents. She had two brothers and a sister, and she graduated from Copley High School in Copley Township, Ohio, in 1959.
Although her mother never thought Franz would succeed as an actress, she wanted to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA) and worked as a secretary at Ohio Edison to save enough money to enroll there. An AADA teacher warned her that despite being a good actress, she might not get roles before she reached age 40.
Billed as Betty Frankovitch, Franz acted at the Weathervane Theater in Akron. She acted with The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis 1968–1970.
In 2004–05, she appeared at the Royal National Theatre in London, in the Sam Shepard play Buried Child. She starred in numerous Off-Broadway and regional theater productions, including the American premiere of Frank McGuinness's Bird Sanctuary. She also appeared in Long Day's Journey into Night, The Glass Menagerie, The Comedy of Errors, Madwoman of Chaillot, The Lion in Winter, A View from the Bridge, The Matchmaker, The Wizard of Oz, Great Expectations, The Model Apartment, and Woman in Mind.
Her "subtly layered performance" as Grandma Kurnitz in the 2017 Weston Playhouse Theatre Company production of Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers was duly noted by Rutland Herald critic Jim Lowe, who deemed Franz's portrayal the "dramatic backbone" of the production, "allowing only traces of the octogenarian's love and humanity to seep through."
Franz's Tony-winning performance as Linda Loman in the 50th anniversary production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman proved a revelation to audiences and author alike, as evidenced by Miller's brief but pointed tribute.
She has discovered in the role the basic underlying powerful protectiveness, which comes out as fury, and that in the past, in every performance that I know of, was simply washed out.