54 Facts About Franchot Tone

Stanislaus Pascal Franchot Tone was an American actor, producer, and director of stage, film and television.

Franchot Tone was a leading man in the 1930s and early 1940s, and at the height of his career was known for his gentlemanly sophisticate roles, with supporting roles by the 1950s.

Franchot Tone's acting crossed many genres including pre-Code romantic leads to noir layered roles and World War I films.

Franchot Tone appeared as a guest star in episodes of several golden age television series, including The Twilight Zone and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour while continuing to act and produce in the theater and movies throughout the 1960s.

Stanislaus Pascal Franchot Tone was born 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.

Franchot Tone was a distant relative of Wolfe Franchot Tone.

Franchot Tone was of French Canadian, Irish, Dutch and English ancestry.

Franchot Tone was educated at The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, from which he was dismissed and Niagara Falls High School.

Franchot Tone entered Cornell University, where he was president of the drama club, acting in productions of Shakespeare.

Franchot Tone was elected to the Sphinx Head Society and joined the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity.

Franchot Tone was in The Belt, Centuries, The International, and a popular adaptation of The Age of Innocence with Katherine Cornell.

Franchot Tone followed it with appearances in Uncle Vanya, Cross Roads, Red Rust, Hotel Universe, and Pagan Lady.

Franchot Tone was the first of the Group to go to Hollywood when MGM offered him a film contract.

Franchot Tone himself considered cinema far more invasive to private life and paced differently from theater productions.

Franchot Tone recalled his stage years with fondness, financially supporting the Group Theater in its declining years.

Franchot Tone was then the romantic male lead in Gabriel Over the White House starring Walter Huston, followed by a lead role with Loretta Young in Midnight Mary.

Franchot Tone romanced Miriam Hopkins in King Vidor's The Stranger's Return and was the male lead in Stage Mother.

Franchot Tone had a role in Bombshell, with Jean Harlow and Lee Tracy.

At Paramount, Franchot Tone co-starred in the Academy Award nominated hit movie, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer with Gary Cooper.

Franchot Tone was top billed in One New York Night but billed underneath Harlow and William Powell in Reckless.

Franchot Tone supported Crawford and Robert Montgomery in No More Ladies and had another box-office success with Mutiny on the Bounty, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, along with co-stars Clark Gable and Charles Laughton.

Franchot Tone had the lead in Between Two Women and co-starred for the final time with Crawford in The Bride Wore Red, then joined Myrna Loy in Man-Proof and Gladys George in Love Is a Headache.

In Three Comrades Tone was teamed with Robert Taylor and Margaret Sullavan in a film about disillusioned soldiers returning to Germany after World War I He made Three Loves Has Nancy with Janet Gaynor and Robert Montgomery and co-starred with Franciska Gaal in The Girl Downstairs, a Cinderella type story.

Franchot Tone then starred in a "B" picture with Ann Sothern in Fast and Furious as married crime sleuths, the third movie in a series with different sets of actors in each, that were marketed towards the Thin Man films audiences.

Franchot Tone returned to Broadway for Irwin Shaw's The Gentle People and an adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's The Fifth Column, which only had a short run.

Franchot Tone signed a contract with Universal, starring in his first Western there, Trail of the Vigilantes, where he more than earns his spurs alongside the likes of Broderick Crawford and Andy Devine.

Franchot Tone signed a multi-picture deal with Columbia, where he made two films with Joan Bennett, She Knew All the Answers and The Wife Takes a Flyer.

Franchot Tone went to Paramount to star in Five Graves to Cairo, a World War II espionage story directed by Billy Wilder.

Franchot Tone returned to MGM to star in Pilot No 5 then it was back to Universal for His Butler's Sister with Durbin.

Franchot Tone made two more films at Paramount, True to Life with Mary Martin and The Hour Before the Dawn with Veronica Lake.

Franchot Tone had one of his best roles in Universal's Phantom Lady directed by Robert Siodmak, an early film noir picture and a villainous part for Tone.

Franchot Tone continued his stage career by performing on Broadway in Hope for the Best with Jane Wyatt; the production ran for a little more than three months.

At Universal Franchot Tone did That Night with You with Susanna Foster and Because of Him with Durbin.

Franchot Tone made Lost Honeymoon at Eagle-Lion Studios and Honeymoon with Shirley Temple.

Franchot Tone then had a supporting part as a murder victim in Without Honor, a noir film co-starring Laraine Day.

Franchot Tone produced and starred in The Man on the Eiffel Tower, a troubled production suffering from filming delays on location, creative wrangling and the picture's hard-to-transfer single-strip technicolor film stock.

Meredith is credited as director, although Franchot Tone took over duties when Meredith was in front of the camera with Laughton sometimes directing himself.

Franchot Tone relocated to New York and began appearing in New York City-based live theater television, including The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse, Lux Video Theatre, Danger, Suspense and Starlight Theatre.

Franchot Tone returned to Hollywood to appear in Here Comes the Groom.

Back on the small screen, Franchot Tone was in Lights Out, Tales of Tomorrow, Hollywood Opening Night, The Revlon Mirror Theater, and The Philip Morris Playhouse.

Franchot Tone did a TV adaptation of The Little Foxes with Greer Garson and played Frank James in Bitter Heritage.

In 1957 Franchot Tone co-produced, co-directed, and starred in an adaptation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, which was filmed concurrently with an off-Broadway revival.

Franchot Tone was cast in TV shows such as The Eleventh Hour, Dupont Show of the Week, The Reporter, Festival, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and The Virginian.

Franchot Tone appeared in what is possibly the first TV movie, See How They Run.

Franchot Tone co-starred in the Ben Casey medical series from 1965 to 1966 as Casey's supervisor, Dr Daniel Niles Freeland.

Franchot Tone had roles in Otto Preminger's film In Harm's Way in which he portrayed Admiral Husband E Kimmel and Arthur Penn's Mickey One, and an episode of Run for Your Life.

Franchot Tone appeared off-Broadway in Beyond Desire and his last roles were in Shadow Over Elveron and Nobody Runs Forever, a British film originally titled The High Commissioner.

In 1935, Franchot Tone married actress Joan Crawford; the couple were divorced in 1939.

Many years later when Franchot Tone was dying of lung cancer, Joan often cared for him, paying for medical treatments.

In 1941, Franchot Tone married fashion model-turned-actress Jean Wallace, who appeared with Franchot Tone in both Jigsaw and The Man on the Eiffel Tower.

Franchot Tone subsequently married Payton, but divorced her in 1952, after obtaining photographic evidence she had continued her relationship with Neal.

In 1956, Franchot Tone married Dolores Dorn, with whom he appeared in a film version of Uncle Vanya which Franchot Tone directed and produced.

Franchot Tone was cremated and his ashes kept on a shelf in his son's library, surrounded by the works of Shakespeare, until July 24,2022, when they were interred in the Point Comfort Cemetery of Quebec, Canada.

On February 8,1960, Franchot Tone received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contribution to the motion picture industry, located at 6558 Hollywood Blvd, on the south side of the 6500 block.