Gary Franklin

Who was Gary Franklin?

Gary Franklin was a well-known German American broadcast film critic based in Los Angeles, California. Gary Franklin was born to a Jewish family in Leipzig, Germany on September 22, 1928. His family moved to the United States in 1938 to escape persecution by the Nazis. Franklin earned a bachelor's degree in film at the City College of New York. He worked as a cameraman for the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He began creating documentaries in New York and Canada following his return for the war.

Franklin began his broadcasting career in 1954 in Virginia. He worked for several radio and television stations throughout the United States before his career led him to Los Angeles in 1972 where he became a roving night-side news reporter for all-news radio station KFWB. While at KFWB, Franklin occasionally contributed film reviews and in 1981 he was hired by KNXT as a full-time film critic. Franklin's career as a film critic was most associated with KABC-TV where he was employed from 1986 to 1991. While at KABC-TV, he used a 1-to-10 ratings scale calling it "The Franklin Scale" for his movie reviews.

Gary Franklin suffered four separate strokes in the final years of his life.