Francis Charles ‘Frank’ Cicero, former co-owner of Globe Poster Printing, dies

Francis Charles “Frank” Cicero, co-owner of his family’s poster printing concern that created a amusement concern buzz with bold achromatic benignant and fluorescent color, died of bosom illness March 7 astatine his Mays Chapel home. He was 80.

His firm, Globe Poster Printing, produced the placards for generations of R&B artists. Its enactment for the Motown Revue packed the names of the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Martha and the Vandellas and the Four Tops connected sheets of cardboard that recovered their mode onto telephone poles and vacant buildings, creating an effective, but cheap, word-of-mouth income run for the performers.

“Tina Turner utilized to telephone successful her orders each the time,” said his brother, Robert J. Cicero Sr. “Our posters were a cheaper mode of advertising, particularly for artists connected their mode up.”

Born successful Baltimore and raised successful Parkville, helium was the lad of Joseph J. Cicero, who bought the poster concern successful 1975, and his woman Marie. He attended St. Ambrose and Immaculate Heart of Mary schools earlier graduating from Towson Catholic High School successful 1962. He earned a science grade from the University of Baltimore.

Mr. Cicero worked concisely successful his father’s poster printing concern successful the aboriginal 1960s but became a idiosyncratic successful the Baltimore City Department of Social Services. There helium met his aboriginal wife, Debra “Debbie” Rice. They joined successful 1975.

That year, helium joined his begetter and brothers astatine Globe Poster, an aged Baltimore steadfast that moved from South Hanover Street to the Candler Building, Byrd Street successful South Baltimore and past to Highlandtown.

“Frank worked the beforehand antagonistic and was the epitome of cordiality and helpfulness,” said Milton A. Dugger Jr., a customer. “In the Black community, his posters spoke loudly. If you didn’t person a poster, cipher knew your lawsuit would happen. His posters brought beingness to your affair.”

It was not each amusement business. Over the years Globe Poster announced candidates for metropolis assembly and summertime thoroughfare carnivals. The precocious Baltimore Orioles proprietor Peter G. Angelos utilized Globe for his 1960s City Council campaign, arsenic did Spiro T. Agnew for his assorted electoral ambitions.

But they were champion known for the fluorescent colour down the typefaces for James Brown, Aretha Franklin, B.B. King and Bobby “Blue” Bland.

“We really did astir of our enactment for customers retired of Baltimore,” said his brother, Robert. “We worked intimately with the clubs successful D.C. for the “Go-Go” funk dependable and hip-hop artists. We besides worked for bushed and blues artists successful Kansas City, Saint Louis, Louisiana and Texas. We were simply the cheapest signifier of advertising.”

The steadfast had a minimum bid of 50 posters; for a ample traveling show, specified arsenic the Motown Revue, Globe would nutrient 5,000 posters, with the sanction of the performing venue near blank, truthful that it would beryllium added later. The steadfast erstwhile had 8 presses moving 4 hours a day.

The posters recovered their mode into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

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His woman said Mr. Cicero designed galore of the posters from the mid-1970s to 2010, erstwhile Globe closed its doors. The household past donated Globe’s printing materials to the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Mr. Cicero was a pupil of Baltimore past and a Baltimore Streetcar Museum member. He besides cultivated a emotion for Italian cooking and made meatballs, pasta, and Italian cookies.

“His puerility was afloat of laughter,” said his daughter, Sarah Cicero. “He loved to tease. He developed galore friendships successful younker which stay beardown to this day.”

Survivors see his woman of much than 49 years, Debra “Debbie” Rice Cicero, a erstwhile societal idiosyncratic who besides worked successful the household business; 3 daughters, Sarah Cicero, Julia Cicero and Mary Cicero, each of Baltimore County; a brother, Robert J. Cicero Sr., of Cockeysville; and six grandchildren.

A Mass was held March 15 astatine the Church of the Immaculate Conception successful Towson.