The AV Club wrote a good obituary for the New York-born film and television actress who in 1965 starred as the title character in Honey West, the first TV show to feature a female private detective in the lead role.
Francis was 80 years old when she died Jan 2, 2011.
Her comic-book girlfriend looks likely helped her land the role of Altaira, the romantic lead in the classic 1956 science fiction film Forbidden Planet. Loosely based on Shakespeare's The Tempest, Francis and Leslie Nielsen played Miranda and Ferdinand to Walter Pidgeon's Prospero. (Nielsen's character is called Cmdr. J . J. Adams, Pidgeon is Dr. Morbius and one of the most iconic robots in all cinema, Robby the Robot, stands in for Caliban.)
Kids, if you have to read The Tempest for school, and think you'll take the shortcut by watching that dreadful looking Julie Taymor film, watch Forbidden Plaent instead and you'll do better on the quiz. It has Anne Francis plus bettter sets and effects.
