The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • D3

By Frank Fitzpatrick STAFF WRITER rances Upton Bell was aleggy, blue-eyed actress, aZiegfeld Girl who beforemarrying into a distin- guished Philadelphia family starred in Hollywood films and on Broadway alongside Bob Hope, Fanny Brice, and Eddie Cantor. But her greatest role took place offstage. And today, 86 years lat- er, that repercus- sions continue to be enjoyed and appreciated here in the city that became her home. In 2019, as the NFL continues to push for more female coaches, scouts, officials, and executives, Frances significant contribu- tions to most popular sport have been nearly forgotten. According to a son, she provided the money when husband DeBen- nevile Bell pulled the de- funct Frankford Yellow Jackets out of bankruptcy and created from the ruins of that defunct franchise a new team, one the couple would call the Philadelphia Eagles.

During the black heart of the Great Depression, when profession- al football was far less popular than the college game and her husband was struggling to find himself, Frances Bell had cash and an idea. father had no money at all then to invest in an NFL Upton Bell, the youngest of their two sons and the onetime general manager of the New England Patriots, said in a recent interview. everybody else then, he was interested in college football. My mother was the one who urged him to get involved in professional football. And she gave him the money to do Philadelphia is a major market and the NFL eventually was going to land here.

Without Frances Bell, though, that might not have happened as soon as 1933 and the Eagles, like so many other teams in the young and cash-strapped league, might never have endured. Born Frances Upton, the daughter of a New York City detective, she was working at perfume counter in the early 1920s when a talent agent, impressed by her looks, urged her to consider a stage career. When she met her future husband at a Manhattan cocktail party, she was already a successful actress and engaged to the son of Wall Street financier Bernard Baruch. Bert Bell, who eventually won her, had been a football star at Penn. He was, as he roared through the Roaring Twenties, social his son said, one trying to find his place in the world.

Bell, whose lawyer father owned Center City hotels and whose brother would be- come governor, tried stock- broking, but lost $50,000 in the market crash. His father bailed him out and found him a place to live and work at his Broad and Chestnut hotel, the Ritz-Carlton. Bell was born rich and did his best to become said Upton Bell. worked his way down the His passion for football never ebbed, however, and he took assistant-coaching jobs at his alma mater as well as Temple. Smitten by Upton, he asked her to marry him.

She said that going to happen unless he stopped drinking. he threw a party in Atlantic City, invited her, and announced there that never drink Upton Bell said. he never They were secretly wed in Chicago in 1933. And as they pon- dered life together, Bert Bell made it clear he wanted a future in football. Frances, whose career had taken her to cities across the country, had developed an interest in the pro game.

She told her husband of the excitement the profession- al Bears, with star halfback Red Grange, were creating in Chicago. father was only thinking college football, but my mother convinced him that there might be opportunities in pro- fessional said Upton Bell. Frances took her husband to his first pro game. He was hooked. The Yellow Jackets had folded in 1931 and Philadelphia was without an NFL team.

So the Bells walked to City Hall and initiated the process of getting the Yellow Jackets out of bankruptcy and getting a new team for what then was third-largest city. Lud Wray, old Penn teammate, put up some money. Frances, stopped acting but had cash in the bank, supplied her share, $2,500. she never would have given up her career. But those were different Upton Bell said, she said, and para- phrasing, we need money, go After leaving City Hall, Bell spotted a National Recovery Act placard on a Cen- ter City window.

The blue eagle at its center, symbolizing the na- resolve to overcome the Depression, struck him as an apt name for a new football team. asked my mother what she said Upton Bell. said, Following the 1933 sea- son, the Bells had a proper church wedding at St Madeleine Sophie Catholic Church in Mount Airy. They hon- eymooned in a rented house in Ventnor, where Eagles players sometimes worked out on its front lawn. The Eagles failed on the field and at the box office, losing $85,000 in their first four sea- sons.

Bell put his debt-ridden team on the auction block, then repurchased it for $4,500. Frances again provided capital. His wealth help. John C. Bell had stopped subsidiz- ing his son and when he died in 1935, his estate was placed in trust for his grandchildren.

loved my father, but we got it Upton Bell said of himself, Bert Jr. and sister Jane. we blew It was then that their father, real- izing he long compete with Chicago, New York, even Green Bay, urged fellow owners to insti- tute a draft of college players to eliminate costly bidding wars. getting any money from his father and this was the Depres- sion. He was Upton Bell said.

even own a home and they buy one until after he became NFL commissioner in 1946. They lived in rental properties all Bert Bell would sell the Eagles when named commissioner. In that job, he would start transitioning the NFL into a sporting and cultural behemoth. He died of a heart attack at Franklin Field during a 1959 Eagles game. Frances survived until 1975 when, not long after climbing that same grandstands to watch a game involving son World Football League team, the Charlotte Hornets, she suffered a heart attack.

She died in Lankenau Hospi- tal on Thanksgiving Day at 71. Recently, a documentary produced by a Massachusetts cable-TV system, ACMi, focused on Frances hidden contri- bution to NFL history. Bert Bell, the narrator states, the game from but it was Frances Bell saved Bell from And out of that salvation, a Phila- delphia sporting obsession emerged. "philafitz Frances Upton Bell Bert Bell Bert Bell had little interest in pro ball, but his actress wife saw its future The woman behind the birth INQUIRER.COM SUNDAY, OCT. 13, 2019 THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER D3.