Fred Franz stories

lawrence

Need some help... does anyone here have stories about the former "Prophet" of the WTS? I want to do a 1 person play about Fred Franz and call it 'Jehovah's Genius Prophet.' I would like to incorporate some stories about him, personality traits, mannerisms, etc. This play I would like to perform in the future at Apostatefests. I have done 1 person plays about Guerrero (Spanish Conquistador turned Maya warrior) and am completing one about Jack Kerouac (in later years). Fred Franz and his madness catches my interest this season.

Any stories? Hearsay? Anecdotes? Convention times? Bethel times? K.H. times? Glazed eyes times?

Thanks in advance.

VM44

I recall reading here at JWD that Fred Franz liked to use the phrase "dilly dallied" and would even use it in the books and Watchtower articles he wrote.

You can listen to Fred Franz give a talk at this Freeminds.org webpage. Might be hard to mimic Franz's speaking pattern though!

http://www.freeminds.org/history/franztalk.htm

--VM44

kwintestal

Sounds like a good story Lawrence. Wish I knew some stories. Make sure you're wearing your plaid shirt with a tie though. And big thick framed glasses.

Kwin

joelbear

probably the two big moments were his trial on whether he could speak Greek and 1975

lawrence

Thanks for the comments. Sean - I have on a green plaid shirt and a yellow and blue wide striped tie (grease stained), white sox, and a pair of industrial steel toe brown tie shoes on, a pair of cuffed wrinkled khakis, big framed glasses, 6 pens in my pocket protractor, and a goofy smile on my face - "I must be dilly dallying." Thanks all.

zen nudist

I will bet words like Behooved and Happifying can be traced to him (^_^)

proplog2

I remember sitting at a convention at Yankee Stadium 1953. This short man in a floppy suit walked out to the speakers platform carrying a large brief case in one hand and a large camera in the other. While he sat in the middle of the field waiting his turn to talk he was taking flash pictures of the audience. Weird!

Has anyone ever seen the Franz eye-view photos he took? They must be around somewhere.

kid-A

I once met Franz backstage at the Norval assembly hall in Ontario, Canada. I was 9 years old and was waiting to go onstage for one of those "happy JW family" routines with a couple other kids and their parents. Franz was giving a special talk right before this. By this time, he was almost totally blind, he gave his talk completely by memory, and had that classic, old-school bombastic speaking style. He came backstage after the applause and I guess somebody directed him towards us because he approached us. Someone explained to him we were on next. Then we each shook his hand, he didnt make eye contact because he was blind by that point, but as he was leaving he said "have fun out there kids" and hobbled off. He seemed pretty shy and withdrawn in person, but maybe he was just so exhausted from the talk.

That was my "big" Fred Franz moment.....pretty anti-climactic!!

RunningMan

I too, heard Franz speak totally from memory. It was in the early 80's (the date, not Franz - he must have been about a thousand), and it was a special talk. People marvelled that he gave the whole talk from memory. It was about the history of the organization. I didn't marvel about the memory, because the talk itself rambled. It was sort of coherent, but totally unorganized - much like the ramblings of an old man reminiscing. He also went way overtime, in spite of the fact that he was scheduled for a full two hours.

Leolaia

I think there was some funny stuff on him in Dave's (seven006) Bethel experiences thread. Something about him talking to his shoes?

There might be good stuff in the trial transcripts (Walsh and Moyle), or the Four Presidents book.

Fred Franz stories

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