Q: There was a children's TV show on in the 1950s called "Fun With Fran." Do you have any information on this show, including names of the people who were on it and how long it was on? I was on the show on my fifth birthday and have a picture of everybody with Fran that day. I was told years ago that Dick Van Dyke was on that show, but I can’t find any info to back this up.
—Kathy Ellington, Fayetteville
A: Fran Kearton, who grew up in Ansley Park and was a model in the 1940s, hosted a show called "Fun with Fran," which was a birthday party for kids that was televised from 9-10 a.m. every weekday on WLWA (now WXIA) in Atlanta sometime around 1953. Kearton must know something about birthdays, because she is 91 now and living in Menlo Park, Calif. "I loved that show," Kearton told me recently. "It was a wonderful show. I thought I'd still be there doing it and it would be called 'Fun with Granny Fanny.' " She said she already was doing a show on WLWA in the early '50s when the station hired a young performer named Dick Van Dyke. She was 31 years old and Van Dyke was 26 when they teamed up to do "The Fran and Dick Show" (which also was called "The Music Shop"). They wrote skits, performed in them, sang and danced in the show "an hour a day for five days a week for almost three years," she said. After Van Dyke left, she began to host "Fun with Fran." It wasn't always fun. She said on days when the station's antenna wasn't working, the birthday party would be canceled. "It's a wonder I didn't get killed by an avalanche of unhappy mothers," Kearton told The Almanac, a newspaper serving communities south of San Francisco, last year. Van Dyke, who went on to star in movies, TV and on Broadway, wrote in his recent memoir that Kearton was his first leading lady. Kearton and her family later moved to California, and she became a housewife, painter and author of two memoirs.
Q: Were any Revolutionary War battles fought in Georgia?
A: If you have a streak of independence, head toward Savannah, where most of the Revolutionary War action in Georgia took place. The biggest battle in Georgia occurred Oct. 9, 1779, when the French and Americans attacked British defenses around the city. Unfortunately for the Allies, they suffered 752 casualties and the battle was a British victory. There were also smaller battles in Augusta and in Burke and Wilkes counties. There isn't much left to see at most of the sites other than historical markers and cemeteries.
What do you want to know about Georgia?
If you’re new in town or have questions about this special place we call home, ask us! E-mail Andy Johnston at q&a@ajc.com.
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