Franchot Tone

Franchot Tone
From the film trailer for the 1935 film Mutiny on the Bounty
Born	Stanislaus Pascal Franchot Tone (1905-02-27)February 27, 1905 Niagara Falls, New York, U.S.
Died	New York City, U.S.
Cause of death	Lung cancer
Education	The Hill School
Alma mater	Cornell University
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1926–68
Spouse(s)	Joan Crawford (m. 1935; div. 1939) Jean Wallace (m. 1941; div. 1948) Barbara Payton (m. 1951; div. 1952) Dolores Dorn (m. 1956; div. 1959)
Children	2

Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6558 Hollywood Blvd.

Franchot Tone (February 27, 1905 – September 18, 1968) was an American stage, film, and television actor, star of many successful films and television series throughout his career, such as Bonanza, Wagon Train, The Twilight Zone, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and The Lives of a Bengal Lancer. He is perhaps best known for his role as Midshipman Roger Byam in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), starring alongside Clark Gable and Charles Laughton.

Family and early life

He was born as Stanislaus Pascal Franchot Tone in Niagara Falls, New York, the youngest son of Dr. Frank Jerome Tone, the wealthy president of the Carborundum Company, and his socially-prominent wife, Gertrude Van Vrancken Franchot. His maternal great-grandfather was congressman Richard Franchot. Tone was a distant relative of Wolfe Tone (the "father of Irish Republicanism"): his great-great-great-great-grandfather John was a first cousin of Peter Tone, whose eldest son was Wolfe Tone. Tone was of French Canadian, Irish, English, and Basque ancestry.

Tone attended The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania and Cornell University, where he was President of the drama club and was elected to the Sphinx Head Society. He also joined Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. He gave up the family business to pursue an acting career in the theatre. After graduating, he moved to Greenwich Village, New York and got his first major Broadway role in the 1929 Katharine Cornell production of The Age of Innocence.

Career

The following year, he joined the Theatre Guild and played Curly in their production of Green Grow the Lilacs (later to become the famous musical Oklahoma!). He later became a founding member of the famed Group Theatre, together with Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford, Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Clifford Odets, and others, many of whom had worked with the Theatre Guild. Strasberg had been a castmate of Tone's in Green Grow the Lilacs. These were intense and productive years for him: among the productions of the Group he acted in were 1931 (1931) and Success Story (1932).

The same year, however, Tone was the first of the Group to turn his back on the theatre and go to Hollywood when MGM offered him a film contract. In his memoir on the Group Theatre, The Fervent Years, Harold Clurman recalls Tone as the most confrontational and egocentric of the group in the beginning. Nevertheless, he always considered cinema far inferior to the theatre and recalled his stage years with longing. He often sent financial support to the Group Theatre, which often needed it. He eventually returned to sporadic stage work after the 1940s.

Tone summered at Pine Brook Country Club, located in the countryside of Nichols, Connecticut, which became the Group Theatre summer rehearsal headquarters during the 1930s.

Tone's screen debut was in the 1932 movie The Wiser Sex. He achieved fame in 1933, when he made seven movies that year, including Today We Live, written by William Faulkner, Bombshell, with Jean Harlow (with whom he co-starred in three other movies), and the smash hit Dancing Lady, again with then-wife Joan Crawford and Clark Gable. In 1935, he starred in Mutiny on the Bounty (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor), The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, and Dangerous opposite Bette Davis.

Tone worked steadily through the 1940s, but he often played second leads or love interests in films that focused on a major female star. Frequently typecast as the wealthy cafe-society playboy, he notably played against type in films like Five Graves to Cairo, a World War II espionage story directed by Billy Wilder, and Phantom Lady, a film noir thriller. He played the heroic lead in the 1940 Western comedy Trail of the Vigilantes featuring Warren William, Broderick Crawford and Andy Devine.

Tone with Charles Laughton in The Man on the Eiffel Tower (1949)

In 1949 he produced and starred in The Man on the Eiffel Tower, a troubled production whose reputation has benefited from restorations in the 2000s that have coincided with theatrical showings and vastly improved DVD releases. Tone's tour de force role as a manic depressive sociopath included performing many of his own stunts on the Paris landmark.

In the 1950s, facing subtle blacklisting in Hollywood, he found parts in New York City-based live television, including the original production of Twelve Angry Men. He also returned to Broadway, notably appearing in A Moon for the Misbegotten with Wendy Hiller in 1957. Also that year he co-produced, co-directed, and starred in an adaptation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, which was filmed concurrently with an off-Broadway revival.

In the early 1960s, Tone returned to Hollywood and, appearing aged beyond his years, essayed many showcase character roles on popular TV dramas like Bonanza, Wagon Train, The Twilight Zone, and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. He also co-starred in the Ben Casey medical series from 1965 to 1966 as Casey's supervisor, Dr. Daniel Niles Freeland.

On film, he received acclaim as the charismatic, dying president in Otto Preminger's 1962 film version of Advise & Consent. His final movie appearances were cameos in Preminger's 1965 film In Harm's Way (in which he portrayed Admiral Husband E. Kimmel) and Nobody Runs Forever (1968).

Personal life

In 1935, Tone married actress Joan Crawford. They were divorced in 1939. They made seven films together: Today We Live (1933), Dancing Lady (1933), Sadie McKee (1934), No More Ladies (1935), The Gorgeous Hussy (1936), Love on the Run (1936), and The Bride Wore Red (1937). They also experienced seven miscarriages, a fact highlighted in Mommie Dearest. Tone took their split hard, and his recollections of her were cynical — "She's like that old joke about Philadelphia: first prize, four years with Joan; second prize, eight."

In 1941, Tone married fashion model-turned-actress Jean Wallace, with whom he had two sons and who appeared with Tone in both Jigsaw and The Man on the Eiffel Tower. They were divorced in 1948.

In 1951, Tone's relationship with actress Barbara Payton made headlines when he suffered numerous facial injuries and became unconscious for 18 hours following a fistfight with actor Tom Neal, a rival for Payton's attention. Plastic surgery nearly restored his broken nose and cheek. Tone subsequently married Payton, divorcing her in 1952, after obtaining incriminating photographs proving she had continued her relationship with Neal.

In 1956, Tone married Dolores Dorn with whom he appeared in Uncle Vanya. They were divorced in 1959.

Death

Tone died of lung cancer in New York City on September 18, 1968. Crawford arranged for him to be cremated and his ashes scattered at Muskoka Lakes, Canada

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Franchot Tone has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6558 Hollywood Blvd.

Selected filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1932	The Wiser Sex	Phil Long
1933	Bombshell	Gifford Middleton
1933	Today We Live	Ronnie
1933	Gabriel Over the White House	Hartley "Beek" Beekman
1933	Midnight Mary	Thomas "Tom" Mannering, Jr.
1933	Dancing Lady	Tod Newton
1933	Stage Mother	Warren Foster
1934	Moulin Rouge	Douglas Hall
1934	Sadie McKee	Michael Alderson
1934	The World Moves On	Richard Girard
1934	The Girl from Missouri	T.R. Paige, Jr.	Alternative titles: 100 Per Cent Pure Born to Be Kissed
1934	Gentlemen Are Born	Bob Bailey
1935	The Lives of a Bengal Lancer	Lieutenant Forsythe
1935	Reckless	Robert "Bob" Harrison, Jr.
1935	No More Ladies	Jim "Jimsy Boysie" Salston
1935	Mutiny on the Bounty	Midshipman Roger Byam	Nominated: Academy Award for Best Actor
1935	Dangerous	Don Bellows
1936	The Unguarded Hour	Sir Alan Dearden
1936	The King Steps Out	Emperor Franz Josef
1936	Suzy	Terry
1936	The Gorgeous Hussy	John Eaton
1936	Love on the Run	Barnabus W. "Barney" Pells
1937	Quality Street	Dr. Valentine Brown
1937	The Bride Wore Red	Giulio
1937	They Gave Him a Gun
1938	The Girl Downstairs	Paul / Mr. Wagner
1938	Three Comrades	Otto Koster
1938	Three Loves Has Nancy	Robert "Bob" Hanson
1939	Fast and Furious	Joel Sloane
1941	Nice Girl?	Richard Calvert
1943	His Butler's Sister	Charles Gerard
1943	Five Graves to Cairo	Cpl. John J. Bramble/Paul Davos
1943	Pilot No. 5	George Braynor Collins
1944	Phantom Lady	Jack Marlow
1944	Dark Waters	Dr. George Grover
1947	Lost Honeymoon	John Gray
1947	Her Husband's Affairs	William "Bill" Weldon
1947	Honeymoon	David Flanner
1948	I Love Trouble	Stuart Bailey
1948	Every Girl Should Be Married	Roger Sanford
1949	Jigsaw	Howard Malloy	Alternative title: Gun Moll
1949	Without Honor	Dennis Williams	Alternative title: Woman Accused
1950	The Man on the Eiffel Tower	Johann Radek	Co-producer
1951	Here Comes the Groom	Wilbur Stanley
1955	Four Star Playhouse	Ben Chaney	Episode: "Award"
1956	General Electric Theater	Charles Proteus Steinmetz	Episode: "Steinmetz"
1957	The Kaiser Aluminum Hour	Arthur Baldwin	Episode: "Throw Me a Rope"
1957	Uncle Vanya	Dr. Astroff	Co-producer, co-director
1958	Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse	Candy Lombe	Episode: "The Crazy Hunter"
1959	Alfred Hitchcock Presents	Oliver Mathews	Episode: "The Impossible Dream"
1960	Bonanza	Denver McKee	Episode: "Denver McKee"
1961	The Twilight Zone	Col. Archie Taylor	Episode: "The Silence"
1962	Advise & Consent	The President
1962–1967	Ben Casey	Dr. Daniel Niles Freeland	27 episodes
1964	See How They Run	Baron Frood	Television movie
1964	The Alfred Hitchcock Hour	The Great Rudolph	Episode: "The Final Performance"
1965	In Harm's Way	Admiral Kimmel
1965	Mickey One	Rudy Lapp	Directed by Arthur Penn
1965	The Virginian	Murdock	Episode: "Old Cowboy"
1967	Run for Your Life	Judge Taliaferro Wilson	Episode: "Tell It Like It Is"
1968	Nobody Runs Forever	Ambassador Townsend	Alternative title: The High Commissioner

Theater appearances

Date	Production	Role
October 19 – November 1927	The Belt	Bunner
November 29 – 1928	Centuries	Yankel
January 12 – February 1928	The International	David Fitch
November 27, 1928 – May 1929	The Age of Innocence	Newland Archer, Jr.
May 24 – 1929	Uncle Vanya	Mikhail lvovich Astrov
November 11 – December 1929	Cross Roads	Duke
December 17, 1929 – February 1930	Red Rust	Fedor
April 14 – June 1930	Hotel Universe	Tom Ames
October 20, 1930 – March 1931	Pagan Lady	Ernest Todd
January 26 – March 21, 1931	Green Grow the Lilacs	Curly McClain
September 28 – December 1931	The House of Connelly	Will Connelly
December 10, 1931 – December 1931	1931
March 9, 1932 – March 1932	Night Over Taos	Federico
May 24 – June 1932	A Thousand Summers	Neil Barton
September 26, 1932 – January 1933	Success Story	Raymond Merritt
January 5 – May 1939	The Gentle People	Harold Goff
March 6 – May 18, 1940	The Fifth Column	Philip Rawlings
February 7 – May 19, 1945	Hope for the Best	Michael Jordan
December 17, 1953 – November 13, 1954	Oh, Men! Oh, Women!	Alan Coles
January 19–30, 1955	The Time of Your Life	Joe
May 2 – June 29, 1957	A Moon for the Misbegotten	James Tyrone, Jr.
May 22–27, 1961	Mandingo	Warren Maxwell
March 11 – June 29, 1963	Strange Interlude	Professor Henry Leeds
September 24, 1963	Bicycle Ride to Nevada	Winston Sawyer

Radio appearances

Year	Program	Episode/source
1952	Theatre Guild on the Air	The House of Mirth
1953	Broadway Playhouse	His Brother's Keeper

External links

• Franchot Tone at the Internet Movie Database
• Franchot Tone at the Internet Broadway Database
• Franchot Tone at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Urbane Rebel: The Franchot Tone Story
• Franchot Tone at Classic Movie Favorites
• Interview with Franchot Tone biographer
• Franchot Tone at Find a Grave