A lovely and gracious presence amid a couple of scene-stealing puppets,
Fran Allison was a shining star of radio and early TV, and enjoyed
immense popularity with children for decades as the sole human element
of the
Kukla, Fran and Ollie (1947)
show.
The open-faced blonde singer, actress and comedienne was born on
November 20, 1907, in La Porte City, Iowa and graduated in the late
1920s from Coe College in Cedar Rapids with a teaching degree. After
spending a couple of years as a rural school instructor, she left her
position after her brother, who was a musician, put together an
orchestra and hired her on as a singer. By 1934 she had moved into
radio singing work in Cedar Rapids and later in 1937 became a staff
singer for NBC in Chicago. Her talents as a comedienne were also
discovered and utilized. Most notably, she originated a gossipy radio
character called "Aunt Fanny" that was a hit with audiences.
Fran met puppeteer Burr Tillstrom during
WWII when they toured together in hospitals and orphanages on the same
bill. Tillstrom thought Fran would be ideal as a genteel, prettified
and sensible foil for his Kuklapolitan puppets, and on October 13,
1947, she made her series debut with
Kukla, Fran and Ollie (1947).
The shows were, for the most part, done live and Fran was a charming
and glamorous delight opposite Kukla, the bald, arch-browed, bulb-nosed
leader of the troupe and Ollie, the droll, single-toothed dragon.
Nominated for an Emmy in 1949 as "Most Outstanding Personality", the
show received frequent Emmy nominations during its 1950s run. In 1953
it won as the "Best Children's Program". The syndicated version of the
puppet show went off the air in 1976. The threesome also served as
hosts for The CBS Children's Film Festival, which introduced
international children's films, from 1967-1977. In addition, Fran also
was the official pitchwoman for Whirlpool appliances in the years to
come.
Married to music publisher Archie Levington, the couple had no children
and eventually settled in Los Angeles. In her own mind, Fran felt like
she was the mother to the millions of children who tuned in religiously
to the show. Her husband died in 1978. In later life, Allison lived in
Van Nuys, California, and died in 1989 from myelodysplasia, a bone
marrow disease, at the age of 81 in Sherman Oaks. She was buried back
in her home state of Iowa, at Mount Calvary Cemetery in Cedar Rapids.
