Ex-brother-in-law of Hal Le Sueur.
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.
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.
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.
He is related to Theobald Wolfe Tone, a famous Irish patriot.
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).
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.
His two sons with Jean Wallace are Pascal Franchot Tone and Thomas Jefferson Tone.
Is portrayed by Robert Hawkins in Will There Really Be a Morning? (1983) (TV).
Personal favorite of the films he starred in was The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935).
Spent most of his summer vacations at an old family home in Point Comfort, Quebec, where he would hunt and fish.