FRANTASTIC

 I lost a great mentor and friend last week.  Her name is Fran Bascom.  I'll always think of Fran as an "is" never a "was".  I was shocked by the news.  Not that she had passed.  We all have an end game.  Fran was 87 and probably wasn't going to be casting too many more pilots.
 What shocked me was that it was reported that Fran died in her sleep.  That was not the Fran I knew.  I always thought that she would have passed at the Colony, the Odyssey, the Zephyr, or maybe at the Matrix.  Never in her sleep.  Why would Fran sleep? She had an equity waiver production of Balm and Gilead in Burbank that she needed to see.
 I have wonderful memories of Fran.  I have wonderful memories of Fran's hairstyle.  Whenever she got her hair done, for the first three days she always looked like Paul Revere.  She did.
 I always thought that I had first met Fran when I started in casting.  I later found out that she and daughter Cheryl used to live in a duplex on Camarillo.  The same duplex that my best friend from junior high lived in.  I had probably waved at Fran when I visited my ninth grade buddy.  Never knowing how important she would become later in my life.
 She helped me get my job as an online casting director for Columbia television.  She had the office right next to mine.  She was casting classy stuff like The First Olympics and a MOW on Robert Kennedy.  I, on the other hand, was casting the critically acclaimed T.J. Hooker.
 She would come into my office and show me an 8 by 10 of this actress she saw in a production of Much Ado About Nothing.  She would say that I had to meet her.  I would remind her that I was working on T.J. Hooker.  That I had a better chance of finding someone right for my show by walking into the 80's equivalent of Hooters than attending Shakespeare in the Park.  She would still insist that I meet her.  She would say that I wouldn't be casting that fluff forever.  That is how I met some wonderful actresses back then even though they weren't right for my co-ed skateboarding victim in my next episode.
 Fran and I went to a few theater productions together.  Once you committed to Fran you could never back away from that obligation.  No matter what else came up.  It would be like taking a donation back from Mother Teresa.
 This is an example of what might have happened back then.  I would get a call from a friend saying that he had just gotten two courtside seats to tonight's Laker game.  He wanted me to join him.  I mumbled something to him that he couldn't understand.  He asked me again.  Once more I mumbled.  He was getting annoyed.  Finally I blurted out, "I can't go to the game because I'm going with Fran Bascom to see The Owl and the Pussycat" in La Crescenta."  No wonder people were rolling their eyes when I finally got married.
  I mentioned the other day on facebook that Fran was the most supportive person ever to be in show business.  That when she got in your corner there was not a better fighter for you on this planet.  One of those folks that Fran was over the moon about was Jean Smart.  She kept yelling at me to bring in Jean for T.J. Hooker.  I would tell Fran that if she really cared about Jean's career she shouldn't be pushing for me to bring her in.
 She felt so strongly about Jean, that if you were casting the Jackie Robinson Story, Fran would be adamant about you getting in Jean.  Not for the role of Rachel Robinson, but for the role of Jackie Robinson.  That was Fran.
 Her casting career has not ended.  Right now she is up in heaven with her agent buddy Dick Lovell.  He is pitching his clients to play the saints in an upcoming pearly gate production.  As usual, Fran is telling Dick who is right and who is wrong.  She did that in a nice way as she always did.
 I have always been asked as to what was the best thing about my 30 year casting career.  I always respond that it was meeting my wife.  My wife usually responds that the best part of her casting career was casting 21 Jump Street.  If I had a #2 best thing that happened to me in casting, without a doubt it would be knowing Fran Bascom.
 She was a Mom to many of us.  The counseling.  The encouragement.  All natural tools for Fran.  We supported our "Mom" when she tragically lost her daughter.  We will support her again this Friday at her services.  Fran would have been there but she is seeing a high school production of The Producers in Chatsworth.
 Finally, if you looked up casting director in the dictionary it would read see Fran Bascom.  RIP.