Joan Crawford
Who was the spouse of Franchot Tone from 1935 to 1939?
Franchot Tone Stanislaus Pascal Franchot Tone ( February 27 , 1905 – September 18 , 1968 ) was an American actor , producer , and director of stage , film and television . He 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 . His acting crossed many genres including pre-Code romantic leads to noir layered roles and many World War I films . He 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 . Tone was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Midshipman Roger Byam in Mutiny on the Bounty ( 1935 ) , along with his co-stars Clark Gable and Charles Laughton , making it the only film to have three simultaneous Best Actor nominations , and leading to the creation of the Best Supporting Actor category . Early life and education . 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 . His maternal great-grandfather was congressman Richard Franchot . Tone was also a distant relative of Wolfe Tone ( the father of Irish Republicanism ) . Tone was of French Canadian , Irish , and English ancestry . Through his ancestor , the nobleman Gilbert LHomme de Basque , translated to Basque Homme and finally Bascom , he was of French Basque descent . Tone was educated at The Hill School , from which he was dismissed for being a subtle influence for disorder throughout the fall term . He then entered Cornell University , where he was president of the drama club , acting in productions of Shakespeare . He was also elected to the Sphinx Head Society and joined the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity . After graduating in 1927 , he gave up the family business to pursue an acting career in the theater and he moved to Greenwich Village , New York . Career . 1927–1932 : Broadway . Tone was in The Belt ( 1927 ) , Centuries ( 1927–28 ) , The International ( 1928 ) , and a popular adaptation 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 ) , Hotel Universe ( 1930 ) , and Pagan Lady ( 1930–31 ) . He joined the Theatre Guild and played Curly in their production of Green Grow the Lilacs ( 1931 ) , where Tone sang , which later became the basis for the musical Oklahoma ! Robert Benchley of The New Yorker said that Tone made lyrical love to [ co-star ] Walker between the Sammy Lee chorus routines of the play . The Lynn Riggs play received mixed reviews , mostly favorable , and was a popular success lasting 64 performances on Broadway in addition to its road tour . Tone was also a founding member of the Group Theatre , when the Theater Guild disbanded , along with other former guild members Harold Clurman , Cheryl Crawford , Lee Strasberg , Stella Adler , and Clifford Odets . Clifford Odets recalled of Tones acting , The two most talented young actors I have known in the American theater in my time have been Franchot Tone and Marlon Brando , and I think Franchot was the more talented . Strasberg , who was a director in the Group during 1931–1941 and then teacher of The Method in the 1950s , had been a castmate of Tones 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 ) lasting 12 performances , Maxwell Andersons Night Over Taos ( 1932 ) a play in verse that lasted 10 , The House of Connelly ( 1931 ) lasting 91 performances and John Howard Lawsons Success Story ( 1932 ) directed by Lee Strasberg . Outside of Group productions , he was in A Thousand Summers ( 1932 ) . Tone made his film debut with The Wiser Sex ( 1932 ) starring Claudette Colbert , filmed by Paramount at their Astoria Studios . 1933–1939 : The MGM years . Tone was the first of the Group to go to Hollywood when MGM offered him a film contract . In his memoir on the Group Theater , The Fervent Years , Harold Clurman recalls Tone being the most confrontational and egocentric of the group in the beginning . However , Burgess Meredith credits Tone with informing him of the existence of the Method and what was soon to be the Actors Studio under Strasbergs teachings . Nevertheless , he always considered cinema far more invasive to private life and paced differently than theater productions and recalled his stage years with fondness . He later provided financial support to the Group Theater , which often needed it . He returned to stage work sporadically after the 1940s . Tone summered at Pine Brook Country Club , located in the countryside of Nichols , Connecticut , which was the Group Theaters rehearsal headquarters during the summer of 1936 . MGM immediately gave Tone a series of impressive roles , casting him in six pre-Code film standards , which came out in 1933 . They started him with the WWI romantic war drama Today We Live , written by William Faulkner in collaboration with director Howard Hawks . It was originally meant to be a WWI war buddy script by Faulkner but the studio wanted a vehicle for Joan Crawford , so Faulkner and Hawks got together and worked in the romance between co-stars Gary Cooper and Crawford . Tone was then the romantic male lead in Gabriel Over the White House starring Walter Huston and then co-starred with Loretta Young in Midnight Mary . Tone romanced Miriam Hopkins in King Vidors The Strangers Return and was the male lead in Stage Mother . He also had an excellent role in Bombshell , with Jean Harlow and Lee Tracy . The last of the sequence of films released in 1933 was Dancing Lady , with an on screen love triangle with his future wife Joan Crawford and Clark Gable , which was a lavishly staged spectacle with a solid performance by Tone . Twentieth Century Pictures borrowed Tone to romance Constance Bennett in Moulin Rouge ( 1934 ) as she played dual roles in which she shines as a comedienne and his performance was called equally clever in a role that calls for a serious mein by The New York Times . Back at MGM he was again co-starring with Crawford in Sadie McKee ( 1934 ) , then was borrowed by Fox to co-star commendably with Madeleine Carroll in John Fords French Foreign Legion picture , The World Moves On ( 1934 ) . After The Girl from Missouri ( 1934 ) with Harlow , MGM finally gave Tone top billing in Straight Is the Way ( 1934 ) , although it was considered a B film , one which didnt have a high publicity or production cost . Warners then borrowed him for Gentlemen Are Born ( 1934 ) . At Paramount , Tone co-starred in the Academy Award nominated hit movie , The Lives of a Bengal Lancer ( 1935 ) with Gary Cooper . He was top billed in One New York Night ( 1935 ) but billed underneath Harlow and William Powell in Reckless ( 1935 ) . He supported Crawford and Robert Montgomery in No More Ladies ( 1935 ) 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 . Warner Bros borrowed him again , this time to play Bette Davis leading man in Dangerous ( 1935 ) . Davis has stated this is the picture where she fell in love with Tone , although unreturned , which began difficulties between her and Crawford . He then had the lead in Exclusive Story ( 1935 ) , and again was paired with friend Loretta Young in The Unguarded Hour ( 1936 ) and also starred with Grace Moore in Columbias The King Steps Out ( 1936 ) , notable for the debut of an eleven-year-old Gwen Verdon . Tone and Harlow co-starred again in Suzy ( 1936 ) with then up and comer Cary Grant , who was billed third . The film was popular with audiences , but reviews were less than kind with The New York Times negatively comparing it to other recent WWI movies calling it balderdash , but thanked Mr . Tone for the few honest moments of drama that the film possesses . His young Irishman is about the only convincing and natural character in the piece . He then filmed The Gorgeous Hussy ( 1936 ) with Crawford , Robert Taylor and Lionel Barrymore with co-star Beulah Bondi earning an Academy award nomination for the Andrew Jackson period piece . A Crawford and Gable film capitalizing on It Happened One Night by casting the pair in roles as fast talking journalists in Love on the Run ( 1936 ) , found Tone in a supporting role . RKO borrowed him to appear opposite Katharine Hepburn in Quality Street ( 1937 ) , a costume drama that lost $248,000 at the box office . Back at MGM he supported Spencer Tracy and Gladys George in They Gave Him a Gun ( 1937 ) . He had the lead in Between Two Women ( 1937 ) and co-starred for the final time with Crawford in The Bride Wore Red ( 1937 ) , then joined Myrna Loy in Man-Proof ( 1938 ) and Gladys George in Love Is a Headache ( 1938 ) . In Three Comrades ( 1938 ) 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 ( 1938 ) with Janet Gaynor and Robert Montgomery and co-starred with Franciska Gaal in The Girl Downstairs ( 1938 ) , a Cinderella type story . He then starred in a B picture with Ann Sothern in Fast and Furious ( 1939 ) 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 . After his contract ended , Tone left MGM in 1939 to act on Broadway in a return to his stage roots , often working with the Groups members of its formative years , and playwrights such as Eugene ONeill . He returned to Broadway for Irwin Shaws The Gentle People ( 1939 ) and an adaptation of Ernest Hemingways The Fifth Column ( 1940 ) , which only had a short run . 1940–1949 : The Universal , Columbia & Paramount combination . Tone signed a contract with Universal , starring in his first Western there , Trail of the Vigilantes ( 1940 ) , where he more than earns his spurs alongside the likes of Broderick Crawford and Andy Devine . He was soon back supporting female stars though , making Nice Girl ? ( 1941 ) with Deanna Durbin . Tone also signed a multi-picture deal with Columbia , where he made two films with Joan Bennett , She Knew All the Answers ( 1941 ) and The Wife Takes a Flyer ( 1942 ) . Back at Universal he was top billed in This Woman Is Mine ( 1941 ) . Tone went to Paramount to star in Five Graves to Cairo ( 1942 ) , a World War II espionage story directed by Billy Wilder . He also returned to MGM to star in Pilot No . 5 ( 1943 ) then it was back to Universal for His Butlers Sister ( 1943 ) with Durbin . 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 best roles in Universals Phantom Lady ( 1944 ) directed by Robert Siodmak , an early film noir picture and a villainous part for Tone . Also impressive was his performance in Dark Waters ( 1944 ) with Merle Oberon for Benedict Bogeaus . He continued his stage career by performing on Broadway in Hope for the Best ( 1945 ) with Jane Wyatt ; the production ran for a little more than three months . At Universal Tone did That Night with You ( 1945 ) with Susanna Foster and Because of Him ( 1946 ) with Durbin . Tone made Lost Honeymoon ( 1947 ) at Eagle Lion Studios and Honeymoon ( 1947 ) with Shirley Temple . While at Columbia he had roles in Her Husbands Affairs ( 1947 ) with Lucille Ball , and I Love Trouble ( 1947 ) , then Every Girl Should Be Married ( 1948 ) reteamed with Grant at RKO . He had the lead as an assistant D.A . looking for the murderer of a journalist while being distracted by a beauty played by then wife Jean Wallace in the film noir thriller , Jigsaw ( 1949 ) . He then had a supporting part as a murder victim in Without Honor ( 1949 ) , a noir film co-starring Laraine Day . 1949 : Producer . Tone produced and starred in The Man on the Eiffel Tower ( 1949 ) , a troubled production suffering from filming delays on location , creative wrangling and the pictures hard to transfer single-strip technicolor film stock . It has benefited from restorations in the 2000s that have coincided with theatrical showings and vastly improved DVD releases . Tones tour de force role as a manic depressive sociopath included performing many of his own stunts on the Paris landmark . Burgess Meredith and Charles Laughton star with Tone . Meredith is credited as director , although Tone took over duties when Meredeth was in front of the camera with Laughton sometimes directing himself . The film has some of the best cinematic pictures of the Eiffel Tower according to French director Jean Renior . 1950–1959 : Live theater television . 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 . He returned to Hollywood to appear in Here Comes the Groom ( 1951 ) . Back on the small screen , Tone was in Lights Out , Tales of Tomorrow , Hollywood Opening Night , The Revlon Mirror Theater , and The Philip Morris Playhouse . But he soon returned to Broadway , appearing in a big hit with Oh , Men ! Oh , Women ! ( 1953–54 ) , which ran for 400 performances , a revival of The Time of Your Life ( 1955 ) and Eugene ONeills A Moon for the Misbegotten with Wendy Hiller and Cyril Cusack in 1957 . During this time he continued to appear on TV adaptations of Broadway plays , in such original productions as Twelve Angry Men , as well as The Elgin Hour , The Ford Television Theatre , and in The Best of Broadway series in a production of The Guardsman with Claudette Colbert . Tone then 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 Kaiser Aluminum Hour , The Alcoa Hour , Climax! , Armchair Theatre , Pursuit , Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse , Alfred Hitchcock Presents , Goodyear Theatre , Playhouse 90 , and The DuPont Show of the Month . He did a TV adaptation of The Little Foxes ( 1956 ) with Greer Garson and played Frank James in Bitter Heritage ( 1958 ) . In 1957 Tone co-produced , co-directed , and starred in an adaptation of Chekhovs Uncle Vanya , which was filmed concurrently with an off-Broadway revival . His performance as the Russian country doctor with ennui was praised and the preserving of the stage production to film only varied by the addition of then wife Dolores Dorn . 1960–1968 : Final films and television . In the early 1960s Tone was in an episodes of Bonanza and The Twilight Zone ( The Silence ) and appeared on Broadway in an adaptation of Mandingo ( 1961 ) . He then played the charismatic , dying president in the screen adaptation of the Pulitzer prize winning novel Advise & Consent ( 1962 ) , an Otto Preminger film that the director had unsuccessfully lobbied Martin Luther King to portray a senator in , while many U.S . senators played extras on Capitol Hill locations previously used for Mr . Smith goes to Washington . On stage in 1963 he acted in a revival of ONeills Strange Interlude , with Ben Gazzarra and Jane Fonda , and Bicycle Ride to Nevada . The next year he appeared in Lewis John Carlinos Double Talk . He 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 . He appeared in what is possibly the first TV movie , See How They Run ( 1964 ) . In Europe , Tone made La bonne soupe ( 1965 ) . He co-starred in the Ben Casey medical series from 1965 to 1966 as Caseys supervisor , Dr . Daniel Niles Freeland . He had roles in Otto Premingers film In Harms Way ( 1965 ) in which he portrayed Admiral Husband E . Kimmel and Arthur Penns Mickey One ( 1965 ) , and an episode of Run for Your Life . He appeared off-Broadway in Beyond Desire ( 1967 ) and his last roles were in Shadow Over Elveron ( 1968 ) and Nobody Runs Forever ( 1968 ) a British film originally titled The High Commissioner . Personal life . In 1935 , Tone married actress Joan Crawford ; the couple 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 ) . Their union produced no children , despite considerable effort , Crawfords pregnancies all ended in miscarriage . Tone took their divorce hard , and his recollections of her were cynical — Shes like that old joke about Philadelphia : first prize , four years with Joan ; second prize , eight . Many years later , however , when Tone was dying of lung cancer , Joan often cared for him , paying for medical treatments and at one point , Tone suggested they remarry , but she declined the offer . In 1941 , Tone married fashion model-turned-actress Jean Wallace , who appeared with Tone in both Jigsaw and The Man on the Eiffel Tower . The couple had two sons and were divorced in 1948 . She later married actor Cornel Wilde . In 1951 , Tones relationship with actress Barbara Payton made headlines when he was rendered unconscious for 18 hours and sustained numerous facial injuries following a fistfight with actor Tom Neal , a rival for Paytons attention . Plastic surgery nearly fully restored his broken nose and cheek . Tone subsequently married Payton , but divorced her in 1952 , after obtaining photographic evidence she had continued her relationship with Neal . Payton and Neal capitalized on the scandal touring with a production of The Postman Always Rings Twice . In 1956 , Tone married Dolores Dorn , with whom he appeared in a film version of Uncle Vanya ( 1957 ) which Tone directed and produced . The couple divorced in 1959 . Death . Tone , a chain smoker , 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 . However , Ferncliff Cemetery has no record of this and Tones ashes are reportedly on a shelf in his sons library , surrounded by the works of Shakespeare . 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 . External links . - Pronunciation of Franchot Tone - Al Hirschfeld illustration of Franchot Tone