Stephen Robert Franken (May 27, 1932 – August 24, 2012)[1] was an American actor who worked in film and television for over fifty years.

from Cornell University, and returned to New York to pursue acting rather than realize his parents' dreams for a medical career.

Producer Rod Amateau saw him in a Los Angeles stage production of Say, Darling and cast him as playboy dilettante Chatsworth Osborne Jr. on the sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, starring Dwayne Hickman.

[4] He played other military roles, such as a decorated U.S. flier turned arms-dealer and traitor in "The Gun Runner Raid" episode of The Rat Patrol and as a P.O.W.

[3] Franken appeared as the drunken waiter Levinson in the 1968 Blake Edwards film The Party, alongside Peter Sellers.

One journalist, writing on the fortieth anniversary of the film, stated: Rivaling Sellers with one of The Party's stand-out performances: Steve Franken as the increasingly inebriated butler, slathering on a layer of slapstick to the proceedings with his incontinent antics.

Franken's interaction with his vexed supervisor, his drunken stroll through the shallow indoor pool, his struggle to rescue the roast chicken perched precariously atop a bewigged socialite's bouffant hairdo: all comedy gold.

[7] Franken died on August 24, 2012, at a nursing and rehabilitation center in Canoga Park, California, of complications from cancer, aged 80.