Leo Franklyn

In the years between the First and Second World Wars, Franklyn was a well-known performer in musical comedies, appearing in both British and American shows.

[1] He served in the army in the first years of the First World War, and made his stage debut in Sunderland in August 1916 in the chorus of The Belle of New York.

"[2] In 1923, Franklyn undertook a tour of the northern provinces, appearing in Scotland in the musical comedy Kissing Time in which he played Bibi St.

[1] During the Second World War he performed for ENSA, entertaining the troops[6] and appeared in A Waltz Dream (1942) alongside Nita Croft and Leslie Hatton.

[1] He appeared as pantomime dames in various English cities, and in 1956 he joined the Brian Rix company, in which he achieved his widest fame, in Whitehall farce.

[9] For Rix, Franklyn succeeded John Slater as the crooked bookie Alf Tubbs in the farce Dry Rot.

[11] In 1967 Rix moved across Trafalgar Square from the Whitehall Theatre to the larger Garrick,[12] presenting a repertory of three different farces in which he starred with Franklyn in Stand by your Bedouin, Uproar in the House, and Let Sleeping Wives Lie.