Frankovich was the adopted son of actor
Joe E. Brown and his wife, Kathryn. Frankovich attended
Belmont High School in
Downtown Los Angeles. He played football for
UCLA and was inducted into UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame in 1986. Frankovich began his motion picture career in 1935, as an actor. He usually played radio announcers or masters of ceremonies; today's audiences probably know him from
Abbott and Costello's
Buck Privates (1941), in which "Mike Frankovich" reports the army war games to the radio audience. He was working at
Republic Pictures when his career was interrupted by service in the Army Air Corps during World War II. After the war, he returned to Republic and became a film producer. He supervised four adventure
serials in 1947–48.
Columbia Pictures in London He moved to Europe with his wife, British actress
Binnie Barnes. He became managing director of
Columbia Pictures in Britain in 1955. Frankovich moved back to Los Angeles in 1963. In 1968 he gave up his position as vice president and became an independent producer at Columbia. In 1969 Frankovich put Goldie Hawn under a four-picture contract starting with
Cactus Flower. He served as president of the
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission in the early 1980s, and helped to bring the
Los Angeles Raiders football team and
1984 Summer Olympics to Los Angeles. He received the Academy Awards'
Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1983. ==Family==