Don Harvey Francks was born on February 28th, 1932 in Vancouver, British Columbia. He grew up there with the wilderness at his doorstep, playing marbles, soccer, rugby and even the Native American sport, Lacrosse. He was a hard worker from early on and worked in vaudeville, worked in a foundry, played music, while doing some summer stock and became an all-round showman.
He moved to Toronto and continued his showman's life. He had appeared in theatre already at the age of eleven, he later went to Broadway, sang on the radio and was even referred to as "DonFrancksinatra".
He started his career in television in 1954, in dramas and variety shows and was even a documentary and television show writer in Canada. He seemed to have success in 1966 in a hit tv show called "Jericho", but soon after, Batman came out and the stole the show, ratings fell and his show was cancelled.
Don has had a very long -lasting film career, including "Finian's Rainbow", where he was cast as Petula Clark's husband and Fred Astaire's son -in-law.
He most famously was cast as Walter, the Section's technical and arms expert, on the hit television series "La Femme Nikita" from 1997-2001. Recently he was in" Johnny Mnemonic" with Keanu Reeves," Love of the Land" with Peter Strauss and "The Minion" with Dolph Lundgren, his filmography is developed in depth elsewhere on this site.
Don Francks is a multi talented man, and is widely-known as a great jazz musician, singer-songwriter, besides actor, voice artist, poet and artist.
He was the father of Cree Summer, whom he took to live on the Red Pheasant, Plains Cree Reserve in Sasketchawan, where she spent her first 8 years. Cree Summer is a phenomenal musician and a well-known voice artist, mostly working in cartoons.
Don married Lili Red Eagle of the Cree Nation, his wife of 30 years with whom he had another child, Rainbow Sun and they lived in Toronto. Don was also an honorary Cree, called Iron Buffalo. Besides creating jazz albums -M.(latest is from Fall 2002-"Jazzsong") when he was not writing, acting, filming, directing and recording or doing voice work, his hobbies were motorcycle riding and collecting antique automobiles (he has a dozen Model -T's) and writing, in what he called "a book of think and things". He loved cats and craftsmen of all types ans kids especially.
Don felt deeply about the situation of the Tibetan people, he partook in charity for "The Canada Tibet Committee" and was just as involved in Native American people's rights and activism, and causes such as regarding Leonard Pelletier.
There is an e-mail address set up by fans for his fan-mail which was sent to him periodically: friends@donfrancks.com at the "Official Don Francks Website".
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