NEW YORK — Bonnie Franklin — the pert, redheaded actress with whom millions came to identify for her role as divorced mom Ann Romano on the long-running sitcom ‘‘One Day at a Time’’ — has died....
Developed by Norman Lear and cocreated by Whitney Blake — a former sitcom star and single mother raising future actress Meredith Baxter — the series was groundbreaking for its focus on a divorced mother seeking independence from a suffocating marriage.
It premiered on CBS in December 1975....
On her own in Indianapolis, Ann Romano was raising two teenage girls, played by Mackenzie Phillips, already famous for the film ‘‘American Graffiti,’’ and a previously unknown Valerie Bertinelli. ‘‘One Day At a Time’’ ran on CBS until 1984, by which time both daughters had grown and married, while Romano had remarried and become a grandmother. During the first seven of its nine seasons, the show was a Top 20 hit....
Like other Lear productions such as ‘‘All in the Family’’ and ‘‘Good Times,’’ “One Day at a Time’’ dealt with contemporary issues once absent from television comedies such as premarital sex, birth control, suicide, and sexual harassment, issues that had been overlooked by television comedies....
Meanwhile, the series weathered crises as Phillips was twice written out of it to deal with her drug abuse and other personal problems....
--more--"
Also see: Bonnie Franklin, reality mom
Yeah, what would mom do?
