ABOUT FRANK

Bainbridge Island's own Frank Buxton was an actor, television writer, author, and television director. Buxton grew up in Larchmont, New York. He was a graduate of Northwestern University (B.S.) and Syracuse University (M.S.) and served in the U.S. Army in Korea.

After a long career (see following), Frank and his beloved Cynthia Sears moved to Bainbridge Island at the end of the '80s, where he was fond of saying he found his playground at Bainbridge Performing Arts.

At an age where most slow down, Frank stayed very active, acting in the roles of a lifetime; The stage manager in Our Town, Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady, Sheldon Whiteside in The Man Who Came to Dinner, Grandpa in You Can't Take it With You, and Jaques in As You Like It. For Island Theatre, he mounted several live recreations of Radio plays, including his own adaptation of War of the Worlds, placing Welles 1938 shocker on Bainbridge.

Frank's acting career extends from summer theatre in Three Men on a Horse with the legendary Buster Keaton at age 19. He worked as a producer-director in early television at WGN-TV in Chicago, as well as Buffalo stations WGR-TV and WBUF-TV. Turning to performing, Buxton performed his own stand-up comedy act at comedy clubs from coast to coast. He toured Australia for a year as Albert in Bye Bye Birdie. His first TV credit was as host and producer of the ABC television documentary series, Discovery co-hosted by actress/singer Virginia Gibson from 1962 to 1966. Buxton also did the narration, as well as all of the voices, for the "Silly Record" LP (1962 on Harmony Records).

In 1966, Buxton teamed up with Hal Seeger in the animated cartoon series Batfink, providing the voice for the title character in all 100 episodes, as well as its recurring villain Hugo A-Go-Go. As a writer, Buxton co-authored with Bill Owen, two books covering the golden age of radio - The Big Broadcast and The Golden Age. Owen succeeded Buxton as host of Discovery from 1966 to 1971. Buxton also hosted the game show Get the Message for ABC in 1964, later to be replaced by Robert Q. Lewis.

For much of the 1970s, Buxton worked as a writer, producer, and director for Paramount Television. He served as a story editor for the comedy anthology series Love, American Style, and writing and directing episodes of The Odd Couple, Happy Days, and Mork & Mindy. Buxton also created, wrote, produced, and directed the television series Hot Dog for NBC, which starred Tom Smothers, Jonathan Winters, and Joanne Worley. The series won a Peabody Award in 1970. Buxton played roles in numerous TV series, movies, and commercials such as Xerox and Safeway Markets, to name a few.

After moving to Bainbridge, he continued to work in films and commercials shot locally both in front of the camera, and on microphone doing voice work. He was a regular with Jim French's Imagination Theatre creating original radio plays, and was a regular cast member of Cookus Interuptus.

But he was probably most known locally for being a founding member of The Edge Comedy Improv troupe, delighting full houses once a month at the BPA for 25 years. Frank was on stage with his troupe a little over a month before his passing in early January 2018.

We were so blessed by this Islander.