Today, the woman we remember most fondly as the apple-cheeked Ann Romano in the 1975-84 sitcom One Day At A Time is celebrating her birthday — she’s a mere 65. As Ann — the divorced mother of daughters Julie (Mackenzie Phillips) and Barbara (Valerie Bertinelli) — Franklin always exuded pluckiness, intelligence, wryness, and common sense, qualities she needed in abundance while dealing not only with her fractious teenage girls but also in fending off the ludicrous romantic delusions of her apartment-building super, Dwayne Schneider (the wily Pat Harrington, Jr.).
Let’s keep things in perspective: One Day At A Time isn’t by any stretch a classic sitcom, but it was a thoroughly engaging, charming one in its early seasons, and that’s largely due to Franklin, who managed a winsome sexiness in the initial seasons that never detracted from her character’s firm authority as a mom. An independent woman, our Ann Romano was.
And so on this day, when prime-time is offering a new episode of (gag) The Real Housewives of Orange County, I salute a much more convincing ex-wife and mother in Ann Romano. On a day when we’ll be asked to believe the increasingly ludicrous decadence in new episodes of (rip, stitch) Nip/Tuck, I reach out to Bonnie Franklin and thank her for embodying a character who now seems a lot more vividly realistic, and fun, than so many of the miserable, grasping characters that fill prime time. If I could play matchmaker for Ann Romano with any fictional figure now, I’d fix her up with tonight’s other hero, Simon Baker’s Patrick Jane, of The Mentalist. His smooth charm and her brainy pluck would make a good match, don’t you think? And together they might have been able to keep Julie/Mackenzie and Barbara/Valerie out of trouble, on camera and off.
Happy birthday, Bonnie.
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The beauty that was Norman Lear was that the characters were ultimately real and not always in positive ways. My mother screamed and had sex without being married. Ann Romano screamed at her kids and had sex while being unmarried. Maude had an abortion. Archie Bunker was a bigot. They were all funny and human and flawed and real and it was amazing. Ann definitely reminded me of my mom and an entire show centered on a divorced woman, who seemed to have NO interest in getting remarried and was a sexual being at the same time, was groundbreaking, shocking and just what America needed. I read the other day that Schneider, in real life, has a masters in Political Philosophy. Crazy!!!
Loved this show back in the day. Ann Romano always looked like she probably had BO in her velour bathrobes. Simon Baker deserves better.
One of the funniest TV episodes ever was a ODAT episode in which the secret service thinks that Ann was a threat when President Ford was in town for a parade. Julie was going to sneak away for a weekend in what she called Operation T-Bird, Schneider went to get binocoles to watch the parade and comes back with a gun sight. So while a classic sitcom, it could be extremely funny.
EEEWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!! Run Patrick Jane RUN!!!!!!!!!!! That woman is so gross!!!! If she is soooooo wonderful, then where is she now?
ONDAT reminds us what is incredible about women. RHOC reminds me of what I hate about women. They all need to do something better with their lives. Just once, could they concentrate on doing something constructive. I guess that would be too real
Now I cant get that One Day at a Time Theme song out of my head.
“This is it, this is it….”
I was born on this day too!! Thought I would just throw that out there! Would love to meet Simon Baker. He was yummy & adorable in Something New and delicious in Devil Wears Prada. I’m so happy he finally found a series that has not been canceled within 10 episodes!
Happy Birthday Bonnie I never missed one episode of one day at a time. You were a strong single mom
is the series.
Robert St. John Detroit