FRANKLIN, SIDNEY

FRANKLIN, SIDNEY (Frumkin; 1903–1976), U.S. bull-fighter. Born in Brooklyn, New York, to Russian Jewish immigrants, Franklin was the fifth of nine children. He graduated from Commercial High School and then attended Columbia University, where he studied commercial art. He opened a silk-screen poster business, but one day, after an argument with his father, he decided to go to Mexico to study Mayan history, setting sail on June 8, 1922, for Veracruz. There he opened another poster business, but after seeing his first bullfight, he was drawn to the sport and found his life's calling. Franklin debuted on September 23, 1923, losing his balance twice but killing the bull. The American was not given much of a chance in the Latin sport, but he became an admired matador, first in Mexico and then in Spain, where he moved in 1929 to become he first American ever to fight in that country. He later befriended Ernest Hemingway, who wrote in Death in the Afternoon, "Franklin is brave with a cold, serene and intelligent valor but instead of being awkward and ignorant he is one of the most skillful, graceful and slow manipulators of a cape fighting today … He is a better, more scientific, more intelligent, and more finished matador than all but about six of the full matadors in Spain today (1932) and the bullfighters know it and have the utmost respect for him…. You will find no Spaniard who ever saw him fight who will deny his artistry with a cape." In his autobiography, Bullfighter from Brooklyn: An Autobiography of Sidney Franklin (1952), he wrote: "I have often been asked how I came to be a bullfighter; what there was in my background that led me into such a unique profession. Frankly, when I try to review my early life I am puzzled to find an answer to that riddle. To me, at the time, the journey from Jackson Place in Brooklyn to the Plaza de Toros Monumental in Madrid was an entirely natural though exciting one. One thing followed another and, instead of selling insurance or filling someone's teeth, I fought bulls." (Elli Wohlgelernter (2nd ed.)