In 1929, she took dancing lessons at the Theatre Girls Club in Soho in London's West End and she later became a tap dancer and founder member of a quartet known as Four Brilliant Blondes.

Franklin toured in variety with the comedians Syd and Max Harrison and on the Gracie Fields Show, and performed with another dance group, The Three Girlies, before making a gradual switch to straight dramatic roles.

Franklin's break came during the Second World War when she was cast in Sweet and Low, the first of a series of highly successful West End revues.

Franklin was acting on stage in the West End in Spring and Port Wine in 1965 when she was cast as the first Mrs Alf Garnett in a pilot episode of Till Death Us Do Part, with Warren Mitchell.

She appeared with Eartha Kitt in an episode of the British espionage series The Protectors ("A Pocket Full of Posies", 1974) performing a song and dance routine.

EastEnders creators Julia Smith and Tony Holland spent a long time trawling around pubs and street markets in the East End of London, soaking up the atmosphere and making mental notes for when they were to actually create the characters for their show.

Franklin was less than pleased to find out that Willy the pug was being chauffeur-driven to the BBC's Elstree Studios where EastEnders is made, yet she had to travel by bus.

Returning to her earlier skills as a Tiller Girl, when Pat Wicks (Pam St Clement) married Frank Butcher (Mike Reid), Franklin provided the high-kicks at the wedding reception – even though she was 78 at the time.

Franklin returned in July 2000, when her character re-appeared in the show and informed her close friends that she was terminally ill with cancer.

Ethel had learned that she was terminally ill, and asked Dot Cotton (June Brown) to assist her in taking her own life by an overdose of her morphine tablets.

[7] Franklin was married to writer John Caswell Garth, who was also business manager of the Wilson Barrett acting company and himself an occasional actor,[8][9] from 1934 until his death from cancer in 1953 at the age of 50.