Frances Upton

Who was Frances Upton?

Frances Upton was a Broadway actress and comedienne. She starred with Eddie Cantor in Whoopee! and the Ziegfeld Follies of 1927. She also had a featured role in the early talkie Night Work. In 1929, she performed on a network shortwave radio program specially broadcast to Richard Byrd's expedition to the South Pole. In 1931, she starred in one of the first experimental television broadcasts in New York City, appearing with Gertrude Lawrence, Lionel Atwill, and boxer Primo Carnera.

Her father, Francis, was a World War I veteran and decorated New York City detective who apprehended the accomplices of Charles Becker in the 1912 murder of Herman Rosenthal. Her grandfather, William C. Upton, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._Upton was a noted member of Ireland's Fenian movement of the late 19th century, and wrote a controversial novel, Uncle Pat's Cabin, about life under English rule.

In 1934 she married Philadelphia Eagles owner Bert Bell, later commissioner of the National Football League. They had three children, sons Bert, Jr. and Upton, and daughter Jane.