IT’S not every day that you interview a living Liverpool legend deserving of his reputation, yet who has had minimal publicity in his birthplace.
Some 10 days ago, I was greatly privileged to travel to London to meet the ballet dancer and choreographer Frederic Franklin, aged 94.
From first sticking his four-year-old head into the horn of his parents’ wind-up gramophone above their Cocoa Rooms restaurant at 141, Wavertree Road, on Armistice Night, 1918, to performing at the London Coliseum last week, Freddie has never stopped dancing.
So how has his home city celebrated his life-long success?
After all, this is a man who trained at the Sheila Elliott Clarke School of Dance and Drama for a career which took to him Paris, working with Josephine Baker while only 16, surviving daily up-close exposure to naked showgirls and French food, instead of bangers and mash. He was later premier danseur with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, from 1938 to 1952, and is a founding father of American ballet.
Well, the answer regarding official recognition in his home city is zero.
Looking very dapper, spry and energetic with hearing which is, I swear, better than my failing faculties, he joked about his great age and agility.
“Years ago, I was very good friends with Margot Fonteyn and we taught classes. She said: ‘Here we are and we don’t have to do all these terrible exercises any more.’!”
His mother, Florence, lived to 93, possibly giving him her good genes.
But nothing goes on forever. As he recalled when a bank clerk recently suggested a five- year investment, replying: “I think, dear, we’d better forget the five years hence!”
Taking our cue from the man himself, we must all act now. Freddie Franklin must be given the Freedom of the City of Liverpool pronto.
What better way for the new Lord Mayor, Cllr Mike Storey, a cultured man who appreciates the arts, to mark the start of his tenure with the announcement of just such an honour?
Not only does Freddie’s CV read like a Who’s Who of the 20th-century dance world, but he lived through remarkable times. From the late 1930s, the Ballet Russe toured the US in their own private train.
“We reached Hollywood and met all the top stars. I played tennis with Charlie Chaplin.
“I became great chums with Ginger Rogers, who had a very difficult mother, Lela.”
Another close friend was British actress Greer Garson, who became MGM’s top star after Greta Garbo opted to be permanently alone.
“Greer and her multi-millionaire husband, Buddy Fogelson, owned a ranch on which everything was white, including the cattle.
“She suggested that my mother move to Hollywood as a companion to her mother. Although they got on well, my mother preferred to go back to Liverpool.
“I had a screen test and was offered a film contract, but I was already contracted to Ballet Russe.”
While rehearsing in Paris near Gare St Nazaire when war broke out, he saw people streaming out ahead of the German invasion. He escaped via Rotterdam, where his former dance partner, Wendy Toye, sent him £10 to get home.
In latter years, he has been resident in the US and was founder director of the National Ballet, in Washington DC. His current role in Romeo and Juliet is for the American Ballet Theatre.
From 1989 onwards, Freddie served as artistic advisor to the Dance Theatre of Harlem, the first black dance company invited to South Africa after the end of apartheid, by President Nelson Mandela.
“I’ve been very ambitious, but always felt spiritually that someone looked out for me.”
But we should now look out for him, too. Anyone wishing to nominate Freddie for Freedom of the City, should write, like me, to Danny Clare, Committee Section, Liverpool City Council, Municipal Buildings, Dale Street, Liverpool, L2 2DH.
peter.elson
