Franchot Tone

At 63 years old, Franchot Tone has this physical status:

Stanislaus Pascal Franchot Tone (February 27, 1905-1968) was an American stage, film, and television actor.

He was nominated for his role as Midshipman Roger Byam in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935).

Tone was a leading man in the 1930s and early 1940s, and he was known for his gentlemanly, sophisticate work during his time in office, with supporting roles by the 1950s.

His acting ranged from pre-Code romantic leads to Noir layered roles in many WWI films, as well as other WWI films.

He appeared in episodes of many golden age television series, including The Twilight Zone and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, as a guest star, while still working and producing in theater and film in the 1960s.

Early life and education

Stanislaus Franchot Tone was born in Niagara Falls, New York, the youngest son of Dr. Frank Jerome Tone, the Carborundum Company's wealthy president, and his socially prominent wife, Gertrude Van Vranchy Franchot. Tone was also a distant cousin of Wolfe Tone (the "father of Irish Republicanism"). Tone was of French, Irish, and English origins. Gilbert L'Homme de Basque, the nobleman, descended on Basque Homme and then Bascom, he was of French Basque descent.

Tone was educated at The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and was dismissed "for being a subtle agent of instability throughout the fall term." He then attended Cornell University, where he was president of the drama club and performed in Shakespeare's revivals. He was also elected to the Sphinx Head Society and affiliated with the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. He left the family business to pursue an acting career in the theater and moved to Greenwich Village, New York, after graduating in 1927.

Personal life

Tone married actress Joan Crawford in 1935; the couple were divorced in 1939. They made seven films together, including Today We Live (1933), Dancing Lady (1934), No More Ladies (1935), and The Bride Wore Red (1937). Crawford's pregnancies all resulted in miscarriage, despite their ongoing struggle.

Tone and his partner's divorce was difficult, and his recollections of her were cynical — "She's like the old joke about Philadelphia": first prize, four years with Joan, and eighth prize, eight." Joanne was caring for him, paying for medical care, and at one point, Tone suggested they remarry, but she turned down the invitation.

Jean Wallace, a fashion model-turned-actress who appeared with Tone in both Jigsaw and The Man on the Eiffel Tower in 1941, married Tone in 1941. In 1948, the couple had two sons and were divorced. Cornel Wilde married her later in life.

Tone's friendship with actress Barbara Payton became international news when he was left unconscious for 18 hours and sustained multiple facial fractures as a result of a fist fight with actor Tom Neal, a competitor for Payton's attention in 1951. His cracked nose and cheeks were almost completely recovered after plastic surgery. Tone married Payton later in life, but she divorced her in 1952 after obtaining photographic evidence that she had continued her relationship with Neal. With a film called The Postman Always Rings Twice, Payton and Neal capitalized on the controversies of touring.

Tone married Dolores Dorn in 1956, with whom he appeared in a film version of Uncle Vanya (1957), which Tone supervised and produced. In 1959, the couple wed.

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Career

Tone was in The Belt (1927–28), Centuries (1927–28), and The International (1928), a popular interpretation of The Age of Innocence (1928–29) with Katherine Cornell. He followed it with appearances in Uncle Vanya (1929), Cross Roads (1929), Red Rust (1929–30), and Pagan Lady (1930–31).

He joined the Theatre Guild and appeared Curly in their production of Green Grow the Lilacs (1931), which later became the basis for the musical Oklahoma. "Tone made lyrical love to [co-star] Walker" in the Sammy Lee chorus routines of the play, according to Robert Benchley of The New Yorker. The Lynn Riggs play received mixed reviews, mainly favorable, and was a huge success during its Broadway debut in comparison to its road tour.

Tone was a founding member of the Group Theatre when the Guild was disbanded, as well as other Guild members Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, and Clifford Odets. "The two most excellent young actors I have seen in the American theater in my time have been Franchot Tone and Marlon Brando," Clifford Odets recalled of Tone's performance, "I think Franchot Tone and Marlon Brando were the more professional young actors I have encountered in the American theater in my lifetime," Granchot Tone said. Strasberg, a director in the company from 1931 to 1941 and then instructor of "The Method" in the 1950s, was a castmate of Tone's in Green Grow the Lilacs.

These were difficult and fruitful years for him; among the Company's productions were 1931 (1931), Maxwell Anderson's Night Over Taos (1932), a play in verse that lasted 91 years, and John Howard Lawson's Success Story (1932) starring Lee Strasberg. He appeared in A Thousand Summers (1932), which was outside of Group's productions.

Tone made his film debut with The Wiser Sex (1932) starring Claudette Colbert, which At Tone Colbert was shot by Paragraphe Colbert in Astoria Studios.

Tone was the first of the company to move to Hollywood after MGM offered him a film contract. Harold Clurman's book, The Fervent Years, recalls Tone being the most confrontational and egocentric of the company at the time. Burgess Meredith is credited with advising Tone of the existence of "the Method" and what was soon to be the Actors' Studio under Strasberg's instruction. Tone himself found cinema much more invasive to personal life and pacing differing from theater performances. He recalled his stage days with fondness, contributing to the Group Theater in its declining years.

Tone was cast in six pre-Code film standards, which were released in 1933. MGM immediately gave him a string of outstanding performances, casting him in six pre-Code film standards, which were not available in 1933. Today We Live, William Faulkner's book in collaboration with director Howard Hawks, starts with the romantic WWI romance Today We Live. The script was created as a WWI buddy film by Faulkner, but Faulkner and Hawks wanted a way for their well-known leading lady Joan Crawford, causing Faulkner and Hawks to reunite and perform in the romance between co-star Gary Cooper and Crawford. In Gabriel Over the White House starring Walter Huston, Tone was then the romantic male lead in the film, followed by Loretta Young in Midnight Mary.

In King Vidor's Return to Miriam Hopkins, Tone Romanced him as the male lead in Stage Mother. He appeared in Bombshell, alongside Jean Harlow and Lee Tracy. Dancing Lady, with an on-screen love triangle starring his future wife Joan Crawford and Clark Gable, was the last of the series of films released in 1933, and Tone did a good job.

Tone Bennett was borrowed by Twentieth Century Pictures to romance Constance Bennett in Moulin Rouge (1934) in which "she shines as a comedienne" in a role that calls for a serious mein," The New York Times described him as "equally sharp in a role that calls for a serious wieldiness." He was back at MGM (1934), and was co-starring Crawford in Sadie McKee (1934) before being borrowed by Fox to co-star "commendably" with Madeleine Carroll in John Ford's French Foreign Legion film, The World Moves On (1934).

MGM finally gave Tone top billing in Straight Is the Way (1934), but it wasn't for the money or production cost, as it didn't have a lot of buzz or production cost. Gentlemen Are Born (1934) Warner Bros.

Tone appeared in the Academy Award nominated hit film The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), alongside Gary Cooper, at Paramount. In One New York Night (1935), he was top billed, but he was billed after Harlow and William Powell in Reckless (1935). Crawford and Robert Montgomery appeared in No More Ladies (1935) and had another box-office hit with Mutiny on the Bounty, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, as well as co-star Clark Gable and Charles Laughton.

Warner Bros. borrowed him again, this time to play Betty Davis, Dangerous (1935). Davis has claimed that this is the picture she fell in love with Tone, but that she has returned to her old homeland, which has caused challenges for her and Crawford. He took the lead in Exclusive Story (1935), later worked with Loretta Young (1936) and also appeared in Columbia's The King Steps Out (1936), which was also notable for an eleven-year-old Gwen Verdon's debut in 1966.

Tone and Harlow co-starred in Suzy (1936), followed by up and comer Cary Grant, who was billed third. The film was well-received by audiences, but critics were less complimentary with The New York Times' call it "balderdash" in comparison to other recent WWI films, although the latter thanked "Mr. Tone for the few moments of realness in the film. The young Irishman is about the only convincing and natural character in the story. Crawford, Robert Taylor, and Lionel Barrymore co-starred Beulah Bondi, who received an Academy award nomination for the Andrew Jackson period piece. On It Happened One Night (1936), a Crawford and Gable film capitalizing on It Happened One Night, casting the two actors as fast talking journalists. In Love on the Run (1936), Tone was cast as a supporting journalist.

In Quality Street (1937), a costume drama that lost $248,000 at the box office, RKO borrowed him to appear opposite Katharine Hepburn (1937). Spencer Tracy and Gladys George were favored by MGM in They Gave Him a Gun (1937).

He was leading between Two Women (1937), co-starred for the final time with Crawford in The Bride Wore Red (1937), and then joined Myrna Loy (1938) and Love Is a Headache (1938).

Tone was teamed with Robert Taylor and Margaret Sullavan in a film about disillusioned soldiers returning to Germany after World War I. In The Girl Downstairs (1938), a Cinderella type tale, he produced Three Loves Has Nancy (1938) with Janet Gaynor and Robert Montgomery and co-starred with Franciska Gaal. In a "B" film directed to Thin Man fans, he appeared as married crime sleuths (1939) as the third movie in a series of three separate sets of actors in each story.

Tone left MGM in 1939 to perform on Broadway in a return to his stage roots, as well as playwrights such as Eugene O'Neill. He returned to Broadway for Irwin Shaw's The Gentle People (1939) and an adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's The Fifth Column (1940), which only had a short run.

Tone has signed a Universal film, playing in his first Western, Trail of the Vigilantes (1940), where he more than doubles his income alongside Broderick Crawford and Andy Devine. However, he was right back to female actors, with Nice Girl. (1941) with Deanna Durbin.

Tone has since signed a multi-picture contract with Columbia, where he made two films with Joan Bennett, "She Knew All the Answers (1941) and The Wife Takes a Flyer (1942).

In This Woman Is Mine (1941), he was top billed. Tone went to Paramount to be in Five Graves to Cairo (1942), a World War II spy story starring Billy Wilder.

He also appeared in Pilot No. 61, which was also returned to MGM. It was back to Universal for His Butler's Sister (1943) with Durbin (1943).

Tone made two more films at Paramount, True to Life (1943) with Mary Martin, and The Hour Before the Dawn (1944) with Veronica Lake. He had one of his finest appearances in Universal's Phantom Lady (1944), directed by Robert Siodmak, an early film noir film and a villainous part for Tone. Benedict Bogeaus' appearance in Dark Waters (1944) was equally impressive.

He continued his stage career by appearing in Hope for the Best (1945) with Jane Wyatt; the production lasted for fewer than three months.

With Susanna Foster and Because of Him (1946) with Durbin, was That Night with You (1945).

Tone made Lost Honeymoon (1947) at Eagle-Lion Studios and Honeymoon (1947), with Shirley Temple. Although he appeared in Her Husband's Affairs (1947) with Lucille Ball (1947) and I Love Trouble (1947), He returned to RKO with Every Girl Should Be Married (1948). As an assistant D.A., he took the lead. In the film noir thriller Jigsaw (1949), looking for the murderer of a journalist while being distracted by a beauty portrayed by then wife Jean Wallace. In Without Honor (1949), a noir film co-starring Laraine Day, he had a supporting role as a murder victim.

Tone produced and starred in The Man on the Eiffel Tower (1949), a difficult film that was delayed due to filming delays, creative wrangling, and the fact that one-strip technicolor film stock could not be transferred to single-strip technicolor film stock. It has profited from renovations in the 2000s that have coincided with dramatic performances and greatly improved DVD sales. Tone's tour de force position as a manic sociopath involved performing several of his own stunts on the Paris landmark.

Tone's Burgess Meredith and Charles Laughton appear as Burgess. Meredith is listed as the director, but Tone took over duties when Meredeth was on camera with Laughton often directing himself. According to French director Jean Renior, the film has some of the best cinematic pictures of the Eiffel Tower.

Tone migrated to New York City and began performing in New York City-based live theater television, including The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse, Lux Video Theatre, Danger, Suspense, and Starlight Theatre. He went back to Hollywood to appear in Here Comes the Bride (1951).

Tone appeared on Lights Out, Tales of Tomorrow, Hollywood Opening Night, The Revlon Mirror Theater, and The Philip Morris Playhouse. But he soon returned to Broadway, playing in a big hit with Oh, Men!

Oh, Women!

(1953-1954), which spanned 400 performances, a revival of The Time of Your Life (1955) and Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten starred Wendy Hiller and Cyril Cusack in 1957.

During this time, he appeared on television adaptations of Broadway plays, including Twelve Angry Men, The Elgin Hour, The Ford Television Theatre, and The Best of Broadway production starring Claudette Colbert. Tone continued in Four Star Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, a Playwrights '56 production of The Sound and the Fury, Omnibus, General Electric Theater, The United States Steel Hour, The Alcoa Hour, Climax!, Armchair Theatre, Pursuit, Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, Goodyear Theatre, Playhouse 90, and The DuPont Show of the Month, as the actor continues in his role in The Sound and the Fury, The United States Steel Hour, Robert Montgomery Theatre, Tone in The Sound and the Acting in Robert Montgomery, Robert Montgomery Production, The King of the Sound and the Playhouse, The Voice, The Alcoa, General Electric Theater, The Alcoa, The Alcoa Hour, Clibus, The Alcoa Hour, Armchair Theatre, Playhouse, DuPont &The Unman...

In Bitter Heritage (1958), he produced a television version of The Little Foxes (1956) with Greer Garson and played Frank James. Tone co-produced, co-directed, and appeared in a Chekhov's Uncle Vanya version, which was shot simultaneously with an off-Broadway revival in 1957. His role as the Russian country doctor with "ennui" was lauded, but the stage production was only limited by his choice of then wife Dolores Dorn.

Tone appeared in Bonanza and The Silence ("The Silence") in the early 1960s and appeared on Broadway in an adaptation of Mandingo (1961). In the film version of Advise & Consent (1962), a Pulitzer Prize-winning film in which the director unsuccessfully lobbied Martin Luther King to appear as a senator in, two senators in Washington played extras, while two Senators in Abu Dhabi were previously used to portray a senator.

He appeared on stage in 1963 as part of O'Neill's Strange Interlude, starring Ben Gazzarra and Jane Fonda, as well as a Bicycle Ride to Nevada. In Lewis John Carlino's Double Talk next year, he appeared in his first appearance.

He appeared in television shows such as The Eleventh Hour, The Reporter, Festival, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and The Virginian. He appeared in What Is Probably the first television film, See How They Run (1964).

Tone made La bonne soupe (1965) in Europe. Dr. Daniel Niles Freeland, a former Casey medical director, appeared in the Ben Casey medical series from 1965 to 1966.

He appeared in In Harm's Way (1965), in which he portrayed Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and Arthur Penn's Mickey One (1965), and an episode of Run for Your Life. He appeared on Broadway in Beyond Desire (1967), and his last roles were in Shadow Over Elveron (1968) and Nobody Runs Forever (1968), a British film that was originally named The High Commissioner.

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