Editing Arlene Francis (section)

== Early life ==
Francis was born on October 20, 1907, in [[Boston]], Massachusetts,<ref name="independent" /> the daughter of Leah (née Davis) and Aram Kazanjian.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.filmreference.com/film/10/Arlene-Francis.html| title=Arlene Francis profile | publisher=FilmReference.com}}</ref> Her Armenian father was studying art in Paris at the age of 16 when he learned that both his parents had died in one of the [[massacre]]s perpetrated by the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman government]] in Turkey between 1894 and 1896, known as the [[Hamidian Massacres]].<ref>Francis, Arlene, with Florence Rome, pp. 4–5.</ref> He emigrated to the United States and became a portrait photographer,<ref name="independent" /> opening his own studio in [[Boston]] in the early 20th century. Later in life, Kazanjian painted canvases of [[dogwood]]s, "rabbits in flight", and other nature scenes, selling them at auction in New York.<ref>Francis, Arlene, with Florence Rome, pp. 11–13.</ref>

When Francis was seven years old, her father decided that opportunities were greater in New York and moved the family to a flat in [[Washington Heights, Manhattan]].<ref>Francis, Arlene, with Florence Rome (1978), p. 14.</ref> She remained a New York resident until she entered a San Francisco nursing home in 1993.<ref name="nytobit" />