Bill Meikle; as Ben Franklin, he found a future in our past

Bill Meikle so inhabited the character of Benjamin Franklin that even when he wasn't in costume, strangers would look at his bald pate, wispy white hair, and wire-rimmed glasses and see history made flesh.

"We'd be on the T and someone would say, 'Don't I know you from somewhere?' Finally, when he had studied Franklin and became Franklin we realized that what people had been seeing all those years was their history book image," said Mr. Meikle's wife, Barbara.

And when Mr. Meikle made impersonating Franklin his life's work, he looked the part strolling down the street in Bermuda shorts, before he had time to change into colonial-style breeches and meet with a tour group.

"He would be walking from the Park Street T stop to Old South Meeting House and construction workers on scaffolding would call down, 'Yo, Ben!' And this was when he was dressed as himself," his wife said. "People just saw Ben Franklin in him."

Mr. Meikle, who won two New England Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Franklin, died of liver cancer on Dec. 19 in Lahey Clinic Medical Center in Burlington. The Arlington resident was 71.

As Franklin, he delighted everyone from schoolchildren to adults on walking tours through historic Boston for nearly a quarter century. Like many performers, Mr. Meikle was able to shed parts of himself when he donned the cloak of his character, and that was fine by him.

"When I was a kid and had to do an oral report, I wished the bus would run over me," he told the Globe in 1995. "Look what I do now. In a sense, Ben Franklin is my whole body puppet."

William M. Meikle was born in Cambridge. He grew up in Medford and graduated from Medford High School. Initially called to ministry, he went to Maine and studied at the Bangor Theological Seminary.

"He said, 'Well, after two years I flunked loaves and fishes,' " his wife said.

Three years in the Army followed, including a stint in South Korea. Attracted by a co-op approach that would allow him to work his way through school, he attended Antioch College in Ohio. Among his co-op assignments was Frontier College in Canada, which sent him to work in gold mines during the day and teach English and Canadian civics to miners in the evening.

At Antioch he met Barbara Abrams in a basic theater course. They were assigned to a small group that worked together for the semester.

"He was so creative and kind, and just such an interesting person because he had had so many experiences different than mine, growing up in a New York suburb," she said.

Older than most students, his hair already graying, Mr. Meikle felt welcome in the theater, filling character roles in nearly 60 productions. To him, performance became a calling to replace the one he left behind in seminary.

"He always called the theater his secular ministry," his wife said. "He said he was communicating with people in a similar way -- a way of reaching out to people."

After graduating from Antioch, he moved to New York City and performed with an Off Broadway company until he had the chance to work in community theater management. Before moving to Midland, Texas, in 1963, he and Abrams married.

Five years later, they moved north and Mr. Meikle finished everything but a dissertation for his doctorate at the University of Kansas. In 1974, the Meikles moved to Arlington to be closer to his family and still be near a city with a strong theater community.

A few years later, he played Franklin for the first time in a film on the history of fire prevention.

"They pulled open their fat, bald guy drawer and I was the only one in it," he told the Globe in 1989.

Seeing his image in the film on screen was a revelation.

"He said, 'Oh my God, is that an annuity or is that an annuity?' " his wife said.

In the Globe interview, he recalled thinking: "There's the rest of my life."

And so it was. Mr. Meikle immersed himself in Franklin, reading his letters, his papers, his autobiography. In the process, their identities occasionally blended.

"Franklin said he never had an enemy, and that's had an effect on me," Mr. Meikle told the Globe in 1985. "I'm not as volatile as I used to be. Actually, Franklin's the kind of guy I would have loved to have met in a colonial tavern and drank yards of ale with."

As his audiences grew, Mr. Meikle and his wife created a company to work with other performers who impersonated historical characters. He kept performing as Franklin through this year, helping the Town of Franklin mark Benjamin Franklin's 300th birthday.

"For me, the best part was Bill's humor," his wife said. "Every morning we read the paper at breakfast. He would find something that would touch his fancy and I would get a belly laugh -- every morning."

Mr. Meikle often said he hoped to live as long as Franklin, who died at 83, and wanted to be performing in character when his time came. Two years ago he was diagnosed with cancer.

"In nature, things are not wasted. I'll be back," he told a group of students in 1988 while performing as Franklin. "If I do come back, I hope it's thin."

After pausing for their laughter, he added: "I shouldn't mind a lifetime of being handsome, but I've been useful. That's just as good."

In addition to his wife, Mr. Meikle leaves a daughter, Alizon of Shirley; a sister, Janet Marzilli of Marstons Mills; and four granddaughters.

A service will be announced.