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Frank Heffley is the serious, overactive, and occasionally psychotic father of Rodrick, Greg, and Manny Heffley. He is the husband of Susan Heffley and the elder brother of Joe Heffley and Gary Heffley. As Greg Heffley's father, he appears as a major character throughout the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and the online book, and he also plays the main antagonist in The Last Straw and the film adaptation of Dog Days.

In the first three Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies, Frank is played by Steve Zahn, with that role being filled in by Tom Everett Scott in the film adaptation for The Long Haul. In the animated movie for Disney+, he is voiced by Chris Diamantopoulos.

Personality

Frank is a father with both positive and negative traits. On the one hand, he is caring, delighted, and well-meaning, always encouraging his children to be strong and well-rounded. For instance, he supports his son Greg's interest in weight lifting. On the other hand, Frank can be over-possessed, critical, and easily bothered, becoming irritable and emotional over small matters like his son Rodrick's typing skills or Greg's minor mistakes. He is particularly sensitive about how his family appears in front of his boss, and this can cause him to become overly worked up. Unfortunately, this insecurity can overshadow his good heart.

Frank's behavior can have severe consequences when it comes to his children's well-being. For example, during a soccer game in dangerously cold weather, he refused to let Greg wear his coat even though he was sitting out, showing a lack of concern for his son's health. Additionally, when his sons do something that irritates him even slightly (such as video games), Frank can become excessively serious, critical, and vituperative, potentially damaging their self-esteem.

He is a hard worker, but has a poor relationship with all of his sons, since the three cannot relate to each other at all in any way possible, nor can they relate to Frank himself. Frank has a very strong interest in American history, proven by the fact that he builds a miniature Civil War battlefield diorama in his spare time. He does not let anybody into the furnace room where the Civil War battlefield is housed, as he is extremely cautious and attentive about what people will do to his battlefield and he thinks it can be easily ruined by accident. While he and Greg are very different, they share a mutual dislike in Li'l Cutie but still read the comic to make fun of it. He can also rarely connect with Rodrick as well. Such as in the Deep End, he and Rodrick work together to play a trick on the others, making Greg's heart stop from fear. Frank has a bad habit of jumping to conclusions without listening to what others have to say. Like in Double Down, Greg tries to explain why he was not on stage, but he doesn't listen.

Greg also explains that his father can't buy anything without his mother's permission stated in Dog Days.

According to Greg in The Long Haul, he hates bridges, as he gets extremely nervous whenever he has to drive over one; implying that he has gephyrophobia.

Biography

Childhood

Frank Heffley was born in Plainview to Grandpa and Nana. He had two younger brothers Joe Heffley and Gary Heffley. He also had a dog named Nutty as a child until one-day Grandpa ran over Nutty by accident with his car, so he made up a story that he went to a butterfly farm. During his childhood, Frank went to a class field trip to Hardscrabble Farms, he often collected firewood in the maintenance shack and made up the legend of Silas Scratch to scare away people from coming to the shack.

Teenage Years

Frank Heffley attended Larry Mack Junior Middle School (Westmore Middle School in the movies, presumably) During that time, he was often bullied by Billy Staples who was often known to pin kids' arms behind their backs until every kid in the neighborhood, including Frank, told their parents about it, causing them to get angry about it and then yell at Billy Staples (Sam Sharman), making him cry also. He was best friends with Giles back then. Sometimes after school, they often roamed around everyone and did not bother to tell his parents. They also used to bury stuff all over town so they could fight their way if they are trapped. They had to raid the kitchen drawer for silverware until Giles' Mother realized her forks and knives were missing. She asked Frank and Giles to dig them all up and bring them back in the kitchen. Then they got their hands on the plastic utensils and got into an argument whenever the spork could be used for self-defense after that things got ugly as Frank would poke him with a spork on his butt, making Giles's Mother spank Frank. He also ran for school secretary and won.

He may have begun dating Susan Heffley around this time, as Greg was able to fit into the same leather jacket Frank wore when he was dating Susan.

After leaving Larry Mack Junior Middle School (Westmore Middle School in the movies, presumably) he went onto Crossland High School and graduated there.

Adulthood

He married Susan Heffley and went to Isla de Corales with her for their honeymoon. A few years after, they had children, Rodrick, Greg, and Manny, over the span of around 13 years. He had Greg at around the age of 30, as Greg has suggested on various occasions that his father is approximately 30 years older than him.

Appearance

Book

The book's illustrations depict Frank with an elliptical face, wearing a tie and suit with a few strands of curled hair. Sometimes, Greg illustrates his father as wearing boxer shorts and a vest, but this is only when his father goes to bed. In the first book he is seen wearing a cap on his head. Usually, at home, he doesn't wear a tie and suit.

Online book

In the online version, he looks nearly the same, except that there are many little strands of hair on the back of his head.

Film

In the movie, like everybody else in his family, Frank has rough brown hair and light skin. He usually wears business outfits, just like he does in the books and the online version except short sleeve.

Family

• Parents: Grandpa Heffley and Nana Heffley
• Wife: Susan Heffley
• Sons: Rodrick Heffley, Greg Heffley, and Manny Heffley
• Sisters-in-Law: Aunt Cakey, Aunt Audra, Aunt Gretchen, Aunt Veronica
• Brothers: Joe Heffley and Gary Heffley
• Grandparents: Gammie and Chester Heffley
• Cousins: Uncle John, Lawrence Heffley, Byron Heffley, and Terrence Heffley

Trivia

• Given estimations made based off of illustrations of him, Frank Heffley is most likely between 5'10" (177.8 cm) and 5'11" (180.34 cm) tall. However, this is only conjecture, as his height has never been definitively stated within the series.
• Greg has suggested on many occasions that his dad is in proximity of 30 years older than him. While this is likely an approximation, if this is true, it would make Frank around 42 years old.
  • In The Ugly Truth, where Greg and his male classmates are watching a video about puberty, Greg figures that the video itself must be at least thirty years old and figures that his dad probably watched it when he was in middle school.
  • In Old School, Greg claims that his dad had Mrs. Graziano as a teacher when he was a student at Westmore, and that she had been teaching at the school for at least thirty years.
• Frank is probably a similar age to Susan, as Greg was able to at least adequately fit into the jacket he had when Frank and Susan were dating, and age gaps in dating are small at that age.
• He confirms in Wrecking Ball that he had grown up in the town of Plainview.
• While his exact job is never revealed, Frank appears to have some kind of office job, as he's shown to be working in an office in several books (most notably The Third Wheel). He does have the ability to work-from-home as long as he has a computer (such as a laptop) handy.
• Frank is a junk-food addict, therefore implying that he may have a high cholesterol level, as seen in The Last Straw. This is considered rather ironic as Frank is not depicted as being overweight. Although he may have a high metabolism, just like Greg.
• Frank shows deep hate for heavy metal music and strongly disapproves of Rodrick's ambition to becoming a professional rock musician.
  • Despite this, it's implied that Frank secretly hopes that Rodrick's band, Löded Diper would get a record contract so they could go on tour and be out of the house for good.
• Despite spoiling their youngest son just as much as Susan, Frank seems frustrated with babying Manny so much, thus proving that he does have his limits with his youngest son.
  • As depicted in Rodrick Rules how Manny is too stubborn to be potty trained.
  • Also in The Last Straw, when Manny refused to give up his pacifier, Frank threw away Manny's pacifiers, forcing him to go cold turkey.
• He is implied to suffer from gephyrophobia (fear of bridges) in The Long Haul. He also gets dizzy when he drives over them, but it is unknown whether the dizziness is a response to fear or if he's afraid because he's anticipating the dizziness.
• In addition to his interest in assembling toy Civil Wars battlefields, Frank also likes Civil War stuff, as depicted in the third movie. He's shown to take the reenacting very seriously, wanting it to be as historically accurate as possible. He also wants to take great care of his figurines going so much as wrapping each one with tons of bubble wrap.
• In The Meltdown, it's revealed he used to play with Greg and Rodrick all the time when it snowed until one time when Rodrick dumped a shovel load of snow down his back.
• Just like Greg and his brothers, Frank himself comes from a family with three sons -- Frank's the oldest like Rodrick is.
• Throughout the series, Frank has a bad habit of jumping to conclusions without giving anyone time to explain what actually happened.
  • An example of this would be in Double Down when Greg explained why Rowley was drawing on his underwear, Frank didn't want to hear it and assumed that Greg was goofing off.
• It's shown that Frank was supposed to be bald with tiny little strands of hair at the back of his head, as shown in the sketches in The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary.
• Frank generally dislikes teenagers. For example, in the first book, he is shown to enjoy spilling water on teenagers who come by his house on Halloween night.
• The Long Haul reveals that Frank had a pet chameleon as a kid.
• In Diper Överlöde, Bill Walter pretends to be Greg's father in order to get the drumsticks from the animatronic monkey at Hipp 'O' Henry's. Ironically, Frank has shown throughout the series to have a negative view of Bill Walter.

Gallery

See Frank Heffley/Gallery

References