Bonnie Franklin died on Friday at her home in Los Angeles

Bonnie Franklin dies at 69. The cause was complications of pancreatic cancer, family members said. They had announced the diagnosis in September.

Ms. Franklin also acted on the stage and in movies and for years sang and danced in a nightclub act. But she was most widely known in the role of Ann Romano, one of the first independent women to be portrayed on TV wrestling with issues like sexual harassment, rape and menopause. Ms. Franklin — green-eyed, red-haired, button-nosed and 5-foot-3 — brought a buoyant comic touch to the part.

Some saw the show as helping feminism enter the mainstream.


“I know it’s just a tv display, and I do not think that I am modifying the way the planet is organized,” Ms. Franklin informed The California Publish in 1980, but she permitted that “sometimes we attack notes that do get individuals to think a bit.”

“One Day at a Time” ran from Dec 1975 to May 1984, and its scores rated in the top 20 in eight of those periods and in the top 10 in four. Ms. Franklin was selected for an Emmy Prize and twice for a Fantastic World.

The show’s topicality dropped directly in the custom of its designer, Gary Lear, who had obtained famous for presenting governmental and public comments to scenario funny with “All in the Family” and other reveals. Its co-creator was Whitney Blake, a former show celebrity who, as only one mom, had reared the long run celebrity Meredith Baxter.

Like Archie and Edith Sand in “All in the Close relatives,” Ann and her children, Jules and Ann Cooper (Mackenzie Phillips and Valerie Bertinelli), used funny in the assistance of wrestling with serious and thorny real-world problems.

As a separated mom who had reverted to her first name and moved to Indiana, Ann battled her deadbeat ex-husband for your kids, for example. Or she handled a little girl determining whether to stay a virgin mobile.

Some tale collections ongoing for up to four several weeks, as when Jules, to Ann’s consternation, old a man more than twice her age. In one tale perspective Ann’s fiancĂ© is murdered by a intoxicated car owner. Later she marries her son-in-law’s separated dad.

Comic comfort came from the regular trips of the developing superintendent, Dwayne Schneider (Pat Harrington). But Ms. Franklin was said to have pressed the manufacturers toward higher authenticity, encouraging them to take on problems like young maternity and prevent allowing the display slip up into comedian shtick.