Fran Jeffries
Fran Jeffries was an American singer, dancer, actress, and model.
Early life
Jeffries was born Frances Ann Makris on May 18, 1937, in Palo Alto, California, the daughter of Esther A. and Steven G. Makris, a Greek-immigrant barbershop owner. When she was young, her father moved the family to San Jose to open a restaurant.Career
Jeffries sang with Bob Scobey's orchestra for a year. While she was married to Dick Haymes, they had a nightclub act together. During this time, Haymes asked songwriter-pianist Dave Frishberg to "write something for Fran -- a cute, sexy piece," which became Frishberg's classic song "Peel Me a Grape."Jeffries's film debut came in the 1958 film The Buccaneer. She appeared in the 1963 film The Pink Panther, in which she sang "Meglio Stasera (It Had Better Be Tonight)" while leading a line-dance with Peter Sellers, David Niven, and others. Her supporting role as a professional entertainer in Sex and the Single Girl featured her as a singer-dancer.
Her last film role was in A Talent for Loving, directed by then-husband Richard Quine. On set, "the Quines were constantly quarreling," according to writer Anne Edwards, who was married to one of the producers. "Fran Jeffries was a singer, not an actress, and did not like her role, especially the scarcity of her scenes. By the end of shooting, she had filed for divorce."
Jeffries sang on The Tom Jones Show in 1969 with the host, doing a duet of "You've Got What it Takes," as well as The Smokey Robinson Show the following year, in which she did solo numbers as well as a duet with Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder and the rest of the cast. Jeffries also performed on Bob Hope's final USO tour of Vietnam in December 1972.
She was featured in Playboy in the February 1971 issue at the age of 33 in a pictorial titled "Fran-tastic!" In September 1982 she posed a second time for Playboy, this time at the age of 45. This second pictorial was titled "Still Fran-tastic!"