Joe Franklin has Passed Away

It is reported the Joe Franklin a local New York personality has passed away at the age of 88.  He was noted for his talk show for the various people he had on his show. One of them was the man on left Mr. Kier.

This is my remembrance of the one time I met Joe Franklin at least five years ago.

The above photo is of Mr. Kier and Joe Franklin.  Mr. Kier was a gentleman who I used to buy movie photos from when my family & I went to New York City. He was a very interesting person who had his store on sixth avenue, which was piled with movie stills that were of great quality.  My father and Mr. Kier  hit it off the first time that they met and over the years Mr. Kier helped my family with suggestions of some good restaurants and access to a wholesale business so my mother could buy prizes for her card party. 

Mr. Kier appeared once on the Joe Franklin show back on October 25, 1966. The Franklin show was a local talk show on channel nine in New York City. Joe Franklin had the various interesting people on his talk show including Mr. Kier. A photo was taken of the two men on the show and Kier had copies made. I got the photo shortly after the show, which Mr. Kier autographed to me.

Kier’s store closed sometime in the 1970’s. The above photo was a memory of a very pleasant time.  I had the photo in one of my photo books when I found it about three months ago.  I had decided that this photo would stay in the collection. When we went to Chiller last month, our very good friend Marcus Boas told us about a collectible show in May in New York City. The show would have various guests including Will Hutchins, William Smith and Henry Darrow.  The big surprise was that one of the guests would be Joe Franklin. I was surprised to hear he would be there as I thought he had passed away or retired to Florida. I decided to complete the picture and have Joe Franklin sign it as well. We got to the show and had a great time (more on that another time including how Will Hutchins wanted a picture of Laurie’s nails). Joe Franklin was there and I showed him the photo. I explained to him briefly who Mr. Kier was but he could not remember the show.  I cannot blame him not remembering it because this particular show was almost 44 years ago.  Joe was happy to sign the photo only asking for a Xerox copy of the photo.  I replied that I was happy to do that for him.  The photo will go back into the collection as a remembrance of a time long ago.