Franchot Tone (February 27, 1905 – September 18, 1968) was an American stage, film, and television actor, star of Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and many other 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 best known for his role as Roger Byam in Mutiny on the Bounty, starring alongside Clark Gable.
Mutiny on the Bounty, Dancing Lady, Five Graves to Cairo, Phantom Lady, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, Sadie McKee, The Bride Wore Red, Advise & Consent, Today We Live, The Man on the Eiffel Tower, Three Comrades, Quality Street, The Girl from Missouri, In Harm's Way, The Wiser Sex, Dangerous, Lost H...
TV Shows
Ben Casey
Star Sign
Pisces
#
Quote
1
Actors suffer from being half narcissistic and half self-critical.
2
[of Phantom Lady (1944)] I may have gotten the star billing but it was truly Ella's film.
3
[on his ex-wife, Joan Crawford] "She's like that old joke about Philadelphia: First prize, 4 years with Joan. Second prize, 8 years with her."
#
Fact
1
Franchot Tone has the distinction of co-starring (with Ann Sothern) in the first American film to play in newly-liberated Copenhagen (May, 1945), following Denmark's five-year German occupation in World War II; the film is 1939's "Fast and furious".
2
In his later years, he was plagued by illness, and his ex-wife, Joan Crawford, helped care for him. The pair had remained friends long after their divorce. When he died, and in accordance with his wishes, Crawford arranged to have his ashes scattered over Muskoka Lake in Canada, close to his beloved home.
3
In an interview congratulating Joan Crawford on having three of her four husbands simultaneously join her for lunch, Tone's name was pronounced with a silent T.
4
Personal favorite of the films he starred in was The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935).
5
Spent most of his summer vacations at an old family home in Point Comfort, Quebec, where he would hunt and fish.
6
Franchot Tone was one of the original members of the Group Theater (1931-1940), the first acting company in America to bring Stanislavski's revolutionary acting techniques to America. He was also the first to leave the company for a Hollywood contract. A few years later another company member, Julie Garfinkle (John Garfield), followed Tone to Hollywood. Both movie stars considered their days at the Group the most satisfying years of their lives, and both continued to subsidize the theater's productions until the Group Theater's demise.
7
Following his Sept. 13, 1951, beating at the hands of Tom Neal over the affections of starlet Barbara Payton, Tone was hospitalized for almost a week and needed plastic surgery to repair his badly damaged face.
He attended The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania; Cornell University (where he graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1927); and Rennes University in France.
10
He is related to Theobald Wolfe Tone, a famous Irish patriot.
11
His father was Dr. Frank Jerome (J.) Tone, a pioneer in the electrochemistry field. He was once the president of the Carborundum Company of America. Franchot's brother, Frank Jerome "Jerry" Tone, Jr., also worked for Carborundum. His mother was Gertrude Van Vrancken Franchot Tone, who was of Dutch American, Scottish and French ancestry.
12
He is responsible for the establishment of the Best Supporting Actor/Actress categories in the Academy Awards, owing to his supporting performance (and subsequent Best Actor nomination) in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935).
13
His two sons with Jean Wallace are Pascal Franchot Tone and Thomas Jefferson Tone.
$1.5 Million
