Still Frantastic!

Fran Jeffries, singer/dancer/actress, was pumped up. She was in Los Angeles, preparing for her opening at Marty's, a New York jazz club. Fran had worked out that morning, as she does every morning, and you could have lit a city block with her energy. This day, however, was special. It was her birthday, but not just any birthday. As Fran put it, it was ''the big four-five.''

The remarkable thing is not that she's 45 but that she's been able to jam so much into those years. Name a top bistro; she's played it. Name a major male performer; she's worked with or known him. Name any area of the entertainment business--stage, movies, television, recording--at one time or another, Fran has had major billing.

Fran was 12 when she began her odyssey, winning an amateur contest that garnered her ''a Bulova watch and something like a month's worth of groceries at the local Safeway.'' By the age of 16, she was singing professionally at a North Beach club in San Francisco. Soon after, she was touring with Bob Scobey's Dixieland Band, setting a heady pace for herself that has not let up to this day.

She was still in her teens when she met and married her eventual singing partner and mentor, Dick Haymes. It was, for a lot of reasons, the most significant occurrence in her life.

''I was young when I married him,'' she remembered. ''I was 19 and he was 20 years my senior. I grew up fast.''

Haymes taught her an appreciation for good, ''tasty'' music. ''All the classy, sophisticated things I did,'' she said, ''were really a result of his influence. Our professional relationship was based on getting the best music. We always had the finest tunes by the finest writers. Cy Coleman, ''Younger men?'' mused Fran. ''I don't find them a turn-on at all. I like to play the little girl; you can't do that with younger men. On the other hand, I can't imagine myself going out with somebody who's 70 years old. That's like dating your dad. Guys that age need a lot of sleep!''

Matt Dennis, Joe McCarthy, Mel Tormé, they were supplying us with material.''

Fran was with Haymes for five years, working together for three and a half. Along the way, they produced a daughter, Stephanie, Musically, the union was a success, but it was not to last.

''Dick had a problem,'' Fran recalled, ''a drinking problem. And I really couldn't cope with it as maybe I could today. I didn't want his problem to affect the relationship with our daughter. I just didn't want her to see all that. I had opportunities to work on different shows--Jonathan Winters, Perry Como--and they wanted me alone. That caused some friction. Then I decided I wanted to move from New York to L.A. and Dick wanted to stay there. So we split.''

It was an amicable split and they remained friends until Haymes's death. ''With all his hang-ups, I still considered him my friend. He called me when he was dying and I was there. It was nice--that he chose to call me out of all his seven wives!''

After her divorce from Haymes, Fran married a (concluded on page 183). Still Fran tastic! (continued from page 101) mutual friend of theirs, director Richard Quine, setting up house in a mansion on Benedict Canyon Road. That, too, became a magical period for Fran: this time, she juggled careers as an entertainer and a Hollywood hostess. ''I mean, there were stars dropping in every day. It was wonderful. I'm going back 15 years, but when everybody would gather for Sunday brunch, you'd get Orry-Kelly, a great designer, you'd get Jennifer Jones, you'd get Jack Lemmon. Bill Holden used to come in from Africa and want to talk about what he was doing. Natalie Wood used to come over with Warren Beatty to swim in the pool. Leslie Caron, who was also a date of Warren's, would come and Warren would play the piano for her. Barbra Streisand stopped in when she was auditioning for Funny Girl. Billy Wilder and Audrey Wilder. George and Joanie Axelrod, who wrote all the Marilyn Monroe things. ... I mean, there were fabulous people.''

In the Sixties, Fran's movie career took off. She did Sex and the Single Girl with Tony Curtis and recorded the sound-track album. She co-starred with Richard Widmark in the Quine-directed A Talent for Loving. Blake Edwards chose her to sing the Henry Mancini hit It Had Better Be Tonight when she starred with Peter Sellers in the original Pink Panther. Fran remembers Sellers as ''very intelligent, a good actor and a good musician; he played the drums and he loved to sing. He never spoke any foreign languages, but he had the best dialects going. A very, very sensitive man who was a little crazy at times.''

Co-starring in the movie Harum Scarum, Fran and Elvis Presley got to be great friends. ''He was shy but very warm. He'd say, 'Come on, Fran, let's talk karate,' because he knew I was always interested in anything physical. At the time, his body was so together. He really did know his cralt, always knew his lines. He wanted to be sure he was the best at whatever he did. He'd be at the MGM in Las Vegas when I was performing at the Riviera. I'd call and say, 'I'm here with my daughter, Stephanie,' and he'd say, 'Come see the show.' Then he'd ask me, 'How did I sound? How did I sing?' I'd laugh and say, 'Does it really matter?' I mean, he'd have thousands of people out there to see him.''

When she wasn't making movies, Fran was singing. She did ''a lot'' of Ed Sullivan shows. She was a featured performer on the Playboy After Dark television series. And, in February of 1971, she appeared in her own Playboy pictorial, which we called Fran-tastic! After her appearance early this year at the Playboy Club in Los Angeles, we decided that a reprise was in order. Fran, as always, was game.

''I think I look better now than I did ten years ago,'' she told us. ''I'm a big fan of older women, anyway. There's depth there. There's something to say. The Dyan Cannons, the Diahann Carrolls, Barbara McNair . . . she should do Playboy again; she's a beautiful lady.''

Now. following a brief marriage to a businessman, Fran is alone again, and she's ecstatic. Things are once more starting to happen for her and she can call her own shots.

''I'm free now,'' she asserted; ''have been for three years, and I love it. I'm sorry that I didn't spend more time being free, because I am very independent. If I hadn't gotten married so many times. I might have had a bigger success with my career. But I lent my time and energy to my husbands.

''I was the wife, and I was a good one, and I am a good mother and I'm also a good entertainer: so it was hard for me to divide it all up. For a few years, I forgot about Fran and what she could do. That's OK. I'm doing it now. I have lots of boyfriends, but I don't want anyone staying with me now. I mean, out! I like my privacy and my independence. I'm not at all sorry about the things I've done, because they made me the person I am now, This person, today, is the best person she could ever be, and it has to be from all those experiences.

''These are the best days of my life; between the ages of 35 and, oh, 55 are the best, I think. After that, I'm gonna go plant flowers! No, that's not true, I'm going to look better when I get older. Women over 40 are looking real good nowadays. They're keeping it together and I think men like that. I work on my body and I'm proud of it. I think it looks pretty damned good. I'll come back to Playboy when I'm 60!'' And until then? ''Well, I've been free for only three years. I wanna play. I'm having a good time in my playpen now.''

'"I work on my body and I'm proud of it. I think it looks pretty damned good."'