Franchot Tone

Stanislaus Pascal Franchot Tone was born on February 27, 1905, in Niagara Falls, New York, the youngest son of Dr. Frank Jerome Tone, president of the Carborundum Company, and his wife, Gertrude Van Vrancken Franchot. Of French Canadian, Irish, Dutch, and English ancestry, Tone was also a distant relative of Wolfe Tone, regarded as the father of Irish Republicanism. Through his ancestor Gilbert L'Homme de Basque, he carried French Basque lineage as well. He attended The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, from which he was dismissed, before completing his secondary education at Niagara Falls High School. He then enrolled at Cornell University, where he served as president of the drama club, performed in Shakespeare productions, was elected to the Sphinx Head Society, and joined the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. Upon graduating in 1927, he abandoned the family business to pursue acting, relocating to Greenwich Village, New York.

Tone's Broadway career spanned from 1927 to 1963. His early stage work included appearances in The Belt and Centuries in 1927, followed by The International and an adaptation of The Age of Innocence with Katharine Cornell in 1928. He continued with Uncle Vanya, Cross Roads, and Red Rust in 1929, then Hotel Universe and Pagan Lady in 1930 and 1931. He joined the Theatre Guild and played Curly in their production of Green Grow the Lilacs in 1931, a Lynn Riggs play that ran 64 performances and later served as the basis for the musical Oklahoma. Robert Benchley of The New Yorker noted that Tone made lyrical love to his co-star Walker between the Sammy Lee chorus routines. Clifford Odets, who worked alongside Tone in the Group Theatre, ranked him among the two most talented young actors he had encountered in the American theater, alongside Marlon Brando.

Tone subsequently joined the Group Theatre, whose membership included Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford, Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, and Clifford Odets. Among the Group productions he appeared in were 1931, which ran 12 performances, Maxwell Anderson's verse play Night Over Taos, which lasted 10 performances, The House of Connelly, which ran 91 performances, and John Howard Lawson's Success Story, directed by Lee Strasberg. Outside of Group productions, he appeared in A Thousand Summers in 1932. Burgess Meredith credited Tone with introducing him to the existence of the Method and the emerging Actors Studio under Strasberg. Tone himself viewed cinema as more invasive to private life than theater and recalled his stage years with fondness, at one point financially supporting the Group Theatre during its declining years.

Tone made his film debut in The Wiser Sex in 1932, shot by Paramount at their Astoria Studios and starring Claudette Colbert. He was the first Group Theatre member to depart for Hollywood after MGM offered him a contract. MGM cast him in a series of pre-Code films beginning in 1933, including Today We Live, written by William Faulkner in collaboration with director Howard Hawks, Gabriel Over the White House opposite Walter Huston, Midnight Mary with Loretta Young, King Vidor's The Stranger's Return with Miriam Hopkins, and Dancing Lady, which featured an on-screen love triangle with Joan Crawford and Clark Gable. Twentieth Century Pictures borrowed him for Moulin Rouge in 1934 opposite Constance Bennett, and Fox borrowed him for John Ford's The World Moves On the same year. He co-starred with Gary Cooper in the Academy Award-nominated The Lives of a Bengal Lancer at Paramount in 1935, and appeared in Mutiny on the Bounty that same year, earning a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Midshipman Roger Byam. His co-stars Clark Gable and Charles Laughton received nominations in the same category simultaneously, making Mutiny on the Bounty the only film to generate three concurrent Best Actor nominations and contributing to the eventual creation of the Best Supporting Actor category. Warner Bros. borrowed him to play opposite Bette Davis in Dangerous in 1935.

By the 1950s, Tone had transitioned from leading man roles to supporting parts, while continuing to work across stage, film, and television. He appeared as a guest star in episodes of golden age television series including The Twilight Zone and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. His Broadway credits from the later portion of his career included Strange Interlude, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Oh, Men! Oh, Women!, Bicycle Ride to Nevada, and Mandingo. He continued acting and producing in theater and film throughout the 1960s. For his contributions to the motion picture industry, Tone received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, placed on February 8, 1960, at 6558 Hollywood Boulevard. He died on September 18, 1968.