Ann Blake Frost : 1922-2006
POINT LOMA ” In the 1950s when television was in its infancy and color TV still in the womb, the country was captivated by the first small screen stars appearing in their living rooms.
Radio comedy and adventure had risen to an entirely new level with the advent of television. And on the cutting edge of that new horizon was Ann Blake Frost who, during and after college, was a radio announcer and became one of the first women television pioneers.
She was assistant television producer of the Dennis Day Show and the Cisco Kid Show from 1950-1952. The Dennis Day Show was a popular spin-off from the Jack Benny Show centering on the Hollywood bachelor life of Jack’s underpaid house tenor.
This was in the day of truly live broadcasting ” there was no “tape delay.” Production timing was critical and unforgiving, but this was Frost’s specialty.
The daughter of William H. and Gertrude B. Taylor, Ann was born on Nov. 12, 1922, in Los Angeles. She attended Holmby College and the University of Southern California.
As a young woman during the war, she worked as a USO volunteer dancer entertaining servicemen in Southern California before answering the call of the entertainment industry.
It wasn’t long before she met her husband, Jack Frost. They discovered a new love ” sailing and the sea ” while raising two sons, before moving to San Diego in 1978.
The Frosts are long-time members of the San Diego Yacht Club, the Ancient Mariner’s Sailing Society and the San Diego Maritime Museum.
Her favorite pastimes were gardening, gourmet cooking and collecting antiques. But the new focus in her life, as it was for her husband of 52 years and their two sons, was a large wooden sailing yacht named Pacifica.
The Sparkman and Stephens-designed yawl has become legendary throughout the Pacific Rim as an elegantly maintained and highly respected racing yawl, and the pride of the Frost family.
The luxurious wooden sailboat competed in two Ancient Mariner Trans Pacific races, won the San Diego Yacht Club’s Best Maintained Yacht Award for three years running, and collected trophies from numerous races won up and down the West Coast.
Frost and her family loved owning, restoring and sailing classic yachts, and were founding donors and supporters of the building of the tall ship Californian at Spanish Landing.
Frost is preceded in death by her husband of 52 years. They are survived by their two sons Christopher and Lance.
Son Chris owns Downwind Marine Ship Chandlery on Shelter Island and cruises the world on exotic sailing yachts. He is vice-president of the San Diego Maritime Museum and part of Star of India’s permanent sailing crew (the museum now owns the Californian).
Daughter-in-law Dale (Chris’ wife) became the official photographer of the Port of San Diego and is the pictorial keeper of San Diego’s waterfront history over the past 25 years.
There will be a celebration of the lives of both Ann and Jack Frost pool side at the Le Rondelet, 1150 Anchorage Lane in Shelter Island, Saturday, April 22, noon to 4 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations are encouraged to the San Diego Maritime Museum, 1492 N. Harbor Dr., San Diego, CA 92101, in memory of Ann Blake Frost.