'One Day at a Time' Star Bonnie Franklin Dead at 69
Bonnie Franklin, best known for her role as a single mom on the '70s-'80s sitcom "One Day at a Time," died at her Los Angeles home Friday morning of complications from pancreatic cancer. She was 69 years old, and died surrounded by family and friends, confirmed her agent, Robert Malcolm.
The cancer was diagnosed last August, and the actress revealed shortly after that she was undergoing treatment.
On "One Day at a Time," which was developed by Norman Lear and aired from 1975 to 1984 on CBS, Franklin was groundbreaking as Ann Romano, the single mother of two daughters, who were played by Valerie Bertinelli and Mackenzie Phillips. The show was an anthem for a generation grappling with difficult issues never portrayed before on a sitcom. When the show was in its prime, millions tuned in to watch what was regarded as TV's first realistic portrayal of a divorced mother struggling to raise her teenage daughters.
"The truth of the matter was ... we were reflecting what was out there. It just hadn't been on television before," Franklin told "Good Morning America" in 2012 when the cast reunited. "You can do all these heavyweight subjects that are important, but you have got to do it with humor."
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On TV, the dynamic between Franklin's character, Ann, rang true for many. Behind the scenes, the women said, their relations were just as natural as they appeared on TV, although, at first, Franklin admitted, she was skeptical about the castings.
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