Life With Bonnie

In recent years, Bonnie Franklin, best known for playing single mother Ann Romano on the CBS sitcom "One Day At a Time," seemed to get much less press than her former co-stars Mackenzie Phillips and Valerie Bertinelli, quite possibly because she didn't have any associations with rock stars of questionable character. Yet there was no question about how influential Ms. Franklin, who died yesterday of pancreatic cancer at 69, was on American television. A divorced mother who reverted to her maiden name and moved to an Indianapolis apartment with her daughters, Ann Romano was a different kind of sitcom mom. The show dealt with a woman trying to raise two girls while pursuing a career in advertising. In the course of the show, Ann went from dealing with a deadbeat ex-husband to get child support to grappling with her younger daughter's sexual curiosities. She took over the finances of her older daughter Julie (Phillips) and son-in-law to teach them fiscal discipline while standing behind her younger daughter Barbara (Bertinelli) when she had to deal with sexual harassment from her teacher. Ann quit her ad agency job to start her own agency, endured her business partner's death in a car crash, and then took on the responsibility of raising his son.

Ann ultimately married the man of her dreams, her daughter Barbara's divorced father-in-law (played by the great Howard Hesseman), but Bonnie Franklin knew that single mothers don't always get to live happily ever after. She herself pushed for "One Day At a Time" - produced by Norman Lear, incidentally - to be as realistic and as socially relevant as possible. The result was a show that cast single mothers and all women determined to succeed and live on their own terms in a positive light. At a time when there's a "war on women," it's worth remembering that Bonnie Franklin, on camera and off, was a woman who fought back and won. R.I.P. :-(