Franchot Tone's theatrical origins, with Joan Crawford in Hollywood

"In 1935, when I was twelve, I saw Franchot Tone in the earliest version of the film 'Mutiny on the Bounty.' I sat in a dark movie house, my knees pressed up against the unoccupied seat in front of me. Tone played one of the officers who mutinied against the cruel Captain Bligh (Charles Laughton) whom they put overboard into a small lifeboat and abandoned to the open sea. The crew and officers returned to Tahiti. It was an exuberant story. The great ship moved through the waves, the masts creaked, the sails billowed as crew members shouted across the decks to one another amid ocean spray.

Then they were in Tahiti, and Franchot Tone, wearing a sarong, a wreath of large, white-petaled blossoms hanging from around his neck, stood close to a beautiful, young Tahitian woman.

Another fleshy fellow in the cast was the star of the movie, Clark Gable, a large man whose acting I found severely limited. I paid him no attention. My knees slipped down from seatback to floor.

I leaned forward, enraptured by Tone, his delicate features, his narrow-lipped mouth, the irony I thought implicit in his remote smile that assured me “I’m superior to all this play-acting...” and above all, by what I perceived as his nature, quixotic and spiritual. I had been struck a great blow by the force of movie love.

Later, in 1939, on spring vacation from a Montreal boarding school, I saw Tone in a Group Theatre production of 'The Gentle People.' My father, a screenwriter at the time, knew the business manager of the Group, Walter Fried, whom he called “Cousin Wally.” Fried arranged for me to see the play. On the evening I attended the play, Cousin Wally told me through the box office grill that he had arranged for the cast to meet for drinks in a small frowzy bar across the street from the theatre. Would I like to join them there? After the final curtain fell, I walked over to the bar, uneasy yet exalted. But Tone didn’t turn up, although the rest of the cast were there.

A few days later, I bought a book, Trivia, by an English writer, Logan Pearsall Smith, and along with a letter, sent it via Cousin Wally to Tone. As I think back now, it seems to me that Fried was highly amused by the entire incident. I hardly recall my letter. It was probably an effort to differentiate myself from his other admirers, and to praise the book for qualities that would attest to my own sensibilities. Cousin Wally told me later that Franchot had assembled the cast and read my letter aloud to them. Yet he answered it. Joy leapt into me when I saw the envelope. His reply was cordial, intimate, I judged. But I was faintly distressed by what I sensed was a distancing sardonic note it had. I kept his reply in a file cabinet in the cellar. One morning a local water main burst. A flood resulted and it took many hours for firemen to pump out the six feet of water. Tone’s letter was ruined along with other correspondence and some book contracts.

One rainy afternoon in Hollywood, where we lived, I drove in the rain to a local drugstore to get a prescription. As I hastened back to where I had parked, on tiptoe to avoid the deeper puddles of water, a voice from a parked car inquired, “Where are your ballet slippers?” It was Franchot Tone. My heart raced as I smiled in his direction but I hurried to my car through the rain which had gotten suddenly heavier.

A few years later, back in New York city, I went to see a movie of his, 'Five Graves to Cairo,' at the Paramount Theatre in the Broadway district. The sidewalk was crawling with adolescent girls, agitated, some crying, others laughing, as they left their places in the line to dance a few steps on the street. The girls had all come to see and hear Frank Sinatra. The name meant nothing to me. The last time I saw Tone was in a small shop on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. The optician who owned it was an old friend, and I had joined him for a brown-bag lunch. We were sitting at the rear of the narrow store, eating sandwiches when Tone, wearing a beret, opened the door and leaned in. In that first moment of my recognition of him, though like me he had grown much older —I lost my breath.

He smiled at me and it was such a lovely smile! All his old charm for me was in it. He asked Lou, my friend, when his eyeglasses would be ready. What I felt at that moment was beyond words. My hearing returned in time to hear Tone’s thanks and goodbye to Lou. Upon first seeing him years earlier, I had been astonished by the emotions his screen presence had brought to life in me. I had loved him, in a make-believe way —the way most emotion begins— for years. That intensity of feeling prepared me, in some fashion, for love itself, its contrarieties, its defeats, its beauty." -“Franchot Tone at the Paramount” from "News from the World: Stories and Essays" (2012) by Paula Fox

MGM's "Sadie McKee" (1934) -part of the Joan Crawford DVD collection vol. 2- marked the beginning of a serious relationship to her co-star, Franchot Tone. It is a superb example of how the "committee" system of moviemaking in the 1930s could sometimes yield unexpected delights. Sadie's former boss Michael (Franchot Tone), the one true love of her life, waits and waits and waits to see what's really on the girl's mind! And as a bonus, this is the film that introduced the peppy ditty "All I Do Is Dream of You". The labyrinth plotline of Sadie McKee is proof enough that more than one screenwriter had a hand in its creation: but instead of chaos, the film is irresistibly watchable, full of unexpected plot twists and marvelous little surprises. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sadie is 'adopted' by a streetwise woman – Opal (Jean Dixon) – that works in a nightclub (where Akim Tamiroff is the headwaiter). When one of the club’s patrons gets fresh with now cigarette girl hostess Sadie, a kindly drunken multimillionaire named Jack Brennan 'rescues' her. Sadie is surprised to learn that Michael is Jack’s lawyer, and is so upset when he tries to protect his client from her – as if she’s a gold-digger – that she decides to become one. A short time after marrying Jack, Sadie learns that her husband is dying; this comes right after she’d gone to see Dolly’s show to see Tommy, who’d sung his signature song "All I Do Is Dream Of You", which stirred up past emotions for both of them.

But it’s Michael, feeling guilty for his prior meddling in their lives, that finds Tommy first and puts him in a sanitarium where he might recover, but he doesn’t. After Jack’s deathbed scene with Sadie, she returns to New York to live in an apartment with her mother and Opal. They are visited by Michael, who celebrates his birthday with Sadie. As they blow out the candles, it appears all has been forgiven and that her mother’s wish of them being together is in their future. Source: www.classicfilmguide.com

-Franchot Tone? “Everybody asks me that,” Joan says with cryptic amusement. “I give them an answer they can’t print. Here it is for you, too. ‘I really don’t know whether Mr. Tone will make an honest woman of me.’” -Los Angeles Times (1933)

Franchot Tone can always fall back on the Carborundum Company in a pinch. The Carborundum Company is really Frank J. Tone, Sr. (Franchot calls him) — and carborundum is really an artificial compound of carbon and silicon.

Franchot is an entity in his own right, a player of stage and screen who is distinguished from other players by a decisive speaking voice and a smile that hovers somewhat between cynicism and what Heywood Broun once described as "wist." It is the masculine counterpart, that smile, of the Mona Lisa's -and quite as provoking.

Cast as 'Gentleman': Because he is stiffly erect, well mannered and usually unruffled, Hollywood is wont to cast him as a "gentleman” (slightly caddish). He doesn't mind this role especially, although he would prefer to be given parts in which he would be allowed to work with his hands, as he expresses it. He never wore a dress suit in all his seasons with the New Playwrights' Theater in Greenwich Village, the Theater Guild or the Group Theater, which last he helped organize—financially and otherwise.

He found working alongside Charles Laughton inspiring, in "Mutiny on the Bounty;" it enabled him to give what many will assay as his finest performance, although he himself singles out his lead in “Lives of a Bengal Lancer."

He most enjoyed playing with Joan in such films as "Today We Live," "Dancing Lady" and "Sadie McKee"—even though, he adds with a twinkle, he generally lost her to some luckier fellow. Tone objects to Hollywood on the grounds that it is either "all social or all work” with no happy medium. He is fond of music, and collects books on acting, some dating back to 1850. He smiled his quizzical smile at the mention, in his studio biography, that "he loves to study philosophy" and is partial to golf and riding. "I don't believe I've played golf or read a book in ten years. As for riding, they should have seen me falling off horses in ‘Bengal Lancers,’" he remarked facetiously.

"The House of Connelly" by Paul Green. Martin Beck Theater, September 28, 1931. It was the first production of the Group Theater, directed by Lee Strasberg. Cast: Morris Carnovsky, Mary Morris, Eunice Stoddard, Stella Adler and Franchot Tone.

Tone's eyes gleamed with enthusiasm as he spoke of "the Stanislavsky system.” It is to this system, which he calls "a substitute for genius,” that he owes all practical knowledge of his profession, he declared—barring an apprenticeship as president of the Cornell Dramatic Club and a period of stock in Buffalo. “I came upon it in 1928," he explained, "in New York. We used it in the Group Theater. Its leading exponents were Ouspenskaya and Boleslawski. Boley is directing here at M.-G.-M. "We were taught to 'act' mentally working inside rather than out. It was not merely enough, of course to be 'filled up' inside; one needed the will to make one's feeling known. As a method it was opposed to the Comedie Françoise school, which advocates imitativeness—the “put the sob in it, boys!” sort of thing. As Boley said last week, “the ideal lies somewhere between the two.”

More than any single factor, one suspects, the Stanislavsky system has imprinted itself on Franchot Tone's nature, personally as well as professionally; he stepped into a technique ready made to his measure. He is of Irish descent, the French-sounding Franchot (Fran-sho) having been inherited from his mother's line. It's the Irish part that may furnish a key to the wist in his smile. -"Franchot Tone, Distinguished by Decisive Voice and 'Mona Lisa' Smile" (1935) by Philip K. Scheuer for Los Angeles Times

On Hollywood: “Certain types of artists can’t handle it. In some ways, it killed Odets. It certainly killed Franchot Tone. He couldn’t live with that divided spirit. He couldn’t live with that — or Joan Crawford.” -Stella Adler on America's Master Playwrights (2013) Source: www.nytimes.com

Franchot Tone: "Joan has had problems of her own in the past few months. Not only did she suffer from an unhappy marriage, but she was tortured by untrue gossip and unfair reports in the public prints. You would think that she had enough on her mind with her own problems... But, no! She has to fret about the problems of a dozen or so other people. She is," he added, very solemnly, "a great woman. And that is not an adjective that I use often or carelessly. I think that about Joan." -"Joan Crawford: The Most Remarkable Girl in Hollywood" (1934) by Helen Louise Walker (Silver Screen magazine)

At college Franchot was preeminent in dramatics and scholarship, being president of the dramatic club and a Phi Beta Kappa. To his staid parents' astonishment he accepted a job as the juvenile in a Buffalo stock company as soon as he had graduated. "I made forty a week -- while it lasted!" he recounts. "I headed for Broadway and fame when that 'tryout' was over. Only -- fame kept at a respectful distance from me. For weeks I pounded the pavements! At last I persuaded a little theatre organization in Greenwich Village to allow me to illustrate how well I could enact the lead in the first production. I read the part with profound confidence. They rewarded me with a supporting role. It was a hectic but stimulating existence from then on. Good plays and bad ones, strong parts and poor ones. Finally I got into Katharine Cornell's 'The Age of Innocence.'" That brought the Hollywood bid.

"I felt that posing for portraits and autographing books for fans was a form of exhibitionism. At premieres I used to blush violently when noticed and I'd scribble my name in the fans' books so fast I scarcely knew what I was doing. Joan showed me how wrong I was. She convinced me that a picture player is not making a fool of himself when he acknowledges the public's curiosity. She believes one should be very grateful to the fans for their approval. I agree now that I've reasoned it out."

The lessons in showmanship have modulated his reserve. He still lacks the spectacular quality which big stars have, but it can be developed since he is no longer inhibited by self-consciousness. He is endeavoring to discover just what kind of publicity is best. "When I see how writers have badgered Joan, particularly when she announced her separation from Doug, I shudder at the dangers one can encounter by being too kind to the press!"

There are many details of the actual camera work which he has had to master, and on which Joan helped him. "My gestures were quicker than they should be for the screen and Joan slowed me down. Then the speed with which scenes are taken confused me. It is difficult to rise to a climax with no preliminaries, as we have on the stage." "From all appearances Franchot is the most indifferent person in the world," Joan began as we sat in her portable dressing room on the "Dancing Lady" set. "Then you begin your scene with him and are astounded to find you are working with the keenest of actors. Technically, he is perfect. He knows how to express every kind of feeling instantly!"

"I have no technique at all for myself. I'm all emotion and when I cry, for instance, I keep on until I'm cried out. I'd give anything to be as skilled in acting as he is. But he learned his technique on the stage and you can't develop any in films." And speaking of analyzing reminded Joan that Franchot is the most logical man she has ever known.

"He has taught me to curb relying upon my intuition. If someone hurts him he doesn't lose his temper. He sits in a corner quietly and reasons out why. When people have said sarcastic things to or about me I've cried. But he has shown me that they must have had a motive for being mean. And when you search for it you recognize their purpose and aren't hurt." Doug Jr. thrilled her when she was impressed with superficial glory. Franchot stands for maturity, conservative achievement. "I have learned peace of mind from Franchot," Joan concluded. "He has taught me to have faith in my own judgement. And, oh yes -he reads aloud to me! All the grandest plays and 'Alice in Wonderland.' I'd never read it!" -"Joan Unmasks Hollywood for Franchot Tone" (Screenland magazine, December 1933)

Siodmak's "Phantom Lady": 70th Anniversary

"When she appeared at the dining room entrance presently, she was hatless, and he was surprised at how much the hat had been able to do for her. There was something flat about her. The light had gone out; the impact of her personality was soggy, limp. She was just some woman in black, with dark brown hair; something that blocked the background, that was all. Not homely, not pretty, not tall, not small, not chic, not dowdy... just colorless, just a common denominator of all feminine figures everywhere. A cipher. A composite. It was only in the foyer that she finally put her hat on again. And at once she came alive, she was something, somebody, again." -Phantom Lady (1942) by Cornell Woolrich

Siodmak's breakthrough in Hollywood, Phantom Lady (1944) would also represent one of Cornell Woolrich's most identifying and defining writings in his homonymous novel (penned in 1942 under the pseudonym "William Irish"). Translated through an uneven screenplay by Bernard C. Schoenfeld (co-writer of The Dark Corner and Caged), Woolrich's story revolved around a beautiful and loyal secretary (Carol 'Kansas' Richman, played by Ella Raines) trying to absolve her boss of the charge of his wife's murder brought against him. The first part of the film narrates how Scott Henderson (an engineer played by Alan Curtis) fails to reconnect with his only alibi: a mysterious lady (Ann Terry, played by Fay Helm) with whom he had spent the night after a bitter argument with his wife. The film's explicit working title was Condemned to Hang and was released in USA on January 28, 1944 (just two months before another noir masterpiece sourced in crime fiction: Double Indemnity).

The most impressive similarity with Woolrich's novel was the emphasis on Carol (encouraged by producer Joan Harrison, a former assistant of Hitchcock who defined herself as a 'twarthed writer'), and her multiple transformations throughout the tense and turbulent plot. She oscillates between the dutiful stenographer (secretly in love with her boss), a vengeaful Gorgoneia and a 'hep kitten' floozie. Ella Raines becomes the absolute moral center, mesmerizing us and the rest of the characters with her resplendent orbs and sharp sleuthing skills. Despite not having received great appraisal at the time, Ella Raines renders the most interesting portrayal of her underrated career by becoming an unassailable noir heroine.

A remarkable departure from the novel is the dandified figure of the villain, Jack Marlow (played by Franchot Tone), who wouldn't appear for the first 45 minutes. Tone approached this "psychopatic intellectual" by documenting his role attending sessions with a psychiatrist in Beverly Hills. His is one of the most memorable maniacs on film, due to the exquisitely amoral performance elicited by Tone, specially harrowing during his last scene with Raines. Tone's character feels that the sense of stable hierarchy has become increasingly exhausted in the Big City, without clear rules to abide by.

This polluted urban honeycomb and their inhabitants' scattered emotions lead Marlow to suffer migraines, nervous tics and eventually rabid madness, although he will deny suffering from any mental disorder, since he is utterly incapable of recognizing a madman when he's looking at his reflection in the mirror. Henderson's wife "was not in love with anyone but herself. She was the type that likes to flirt and string people along. She let him arrange his whole future around her, knowing darn well she wasn't going to be there to share it with him. She let him sign on for five years with this oil company in South America."

Marlow discloses to Carol his clandestine love affair with his best friend's wife : "I never liked cities. The noise, confusion, the dirt. They hate me because I'm different from them. I don't belong here. Neither do you. You should have never come to New York. Never met Scott. The world's full of men like him! You can buy nice stupid people a dime a dozen! Never allowed myself to love anybody before. I was always naïve about women."

The filthy aspects from the city's underground are faithfully captured in the drum solo scene, brillianty delivered by Elisha Cook Jr. (Cliff), his syncopated lust for Carol/Jeannie projecting a radical antagonism to Marlow's brainy sublimity. In the novel, Carol briefly escapes the intoxicating jazz dive: "the open air made her almost light-headed, it was so cool and rare and crystal clear after that fever chamber. She thought she'd never breathed anything so sweet and pure before. She leaned there against the side of the building, drinking it in, her cheek pressed to the wall like someone prostrated."

Woolrich's poetic lines ("An up and down intersection glided by beneath him like a slightly depressed asphalt stream bed") were matched or even surpassed by Siodmak's translucent lighting and spectral atmosphere.

The coveted orange hat featuring a sequined double bird appliqué (an exclusive design which is copied by the titular Phantom Lady) is equally transfixing in the film context as it was conjured on page, symbolizing a vain attempt to control our vagrant fates. Siodmak, who came from the Weimar cinema and had been censored in Germany for his occasionally racy mise en scène, wisely juxtaposed his masterly angled compositions (helped by cinematographer Woody Bredell) to Nietzschean paranoid ideas permeating Marlow's speech, creating a disconcertingly frightening effect in the viewer as a result.

This is one of the most delightfully perturbing entries from Siodmak's genial ouvre, available in DVD since last year. Highly recommended, not only for the fans of the noir genre, also for those admirers of German expressionism and inspired literary adaptations.

Article first published as 'Phantom Lady's’ Sixtieth Anniversary on Blogcritics.

Restoration of "Detour" (The Film Chest) - Tom Neal's fall from grace

Detour Is The Latest Film Restoration From The Film Chest As It Heads To DVD On July 22: The latest film restoration project from the Film Chest was announced this past week and it is none other than director Edgar G. Ulmer’s perfectly-pitched 1945 film noir masterpiece, Detour. It will be available for collectors to savor on July 22.

Although a “poverty row” production, Detour magically rose above its humble roots over the years to be revered as one of the great film noirs… with Ann Savage gaining cult status as the predatory Vera. Tom Neal, well, his star burned brightly during this period until the famous altercation with Franchot Tone over their mutual love affairs with actress Barbara Payton. Source: dvdandblu-rayreleasereport.blogspot.com

"Detour": haunting and creepy, an embodiment of the guilty soul of film noir. No one who has seen it has easily forgotten it. Most critics of “Detour” have taken Al's story at face value: He was unlucky in love, he lost the good girl and was savaged by the bad girl, he was an innocent bystander who looked guilty even to himself. But the critic Andrew Britton argues a more intriguing theory in Ian Cameron's Book of Film Noir. He emphasizes that the narration is addressed directly to us: We're not hearing what happened, but what Al Roberts wants us to believe happened. It's a “spurious but flattering account,” he writes, pointing out that Sue the singer hardly fits Al's description of her, that Al is less in love than in need of her paycheck, and that his cover-up of Haskell's death is a rationalization for an easy theft. For Britton, Al's version illustrates Freud's theory that traumatic experiences can be reworked into fantasies that are easier to live with. Maybe that's why “Detour” insinuates itself so well -why audiences respond so strongly. The jumps and inconsistencies of the narrative are nightmare psychology; Al's not telling a story, but scurrying through the raw materials, assembling an alibi. Source: www.rogerebert.com

Actor Tom Neal wanted to be a star in Hollywood. He hardly came close. Although he was featured in at least 180 Hollywood productions, starting with Out West With the Hardys in 1938, he never really emerged from B-movies. Indeed, he spent virtually all of his career playing macho character roles in films such as Flying Tigers, Behind the Rising Sun and First Yank Into Tokyo.

The closest he got to bigtime fame was his role as the unlucky, star-crossed piano player Al Roberts in the cheapie 1945 noir classic Detour. In that film Neal's character hitches a ride to California to be with his girlfriend, accidentally kills two people and ends up destitute and on the lam. In the last reel, as he is being shoveled into the back of a police car, he intones the classic line: "Fate or some mysterious force can put the finger on you or me for no reason at all." He had no idea at the time how prophetic that line would be. Or that he would be replaying that very same scene 19 years later.

Tom Neal's film career arc began its abrupt slide in 1951. That's when he got into a fist fight with actor Franchot Tone over the affections of sexy, upcoming star Barbara Payton on the front lawn of Payton's Hollywood home. After this scandal Neal and Payton found they couldn't buy a job in Hollywood, which at that time was much more sensitive to the public's opinions about the stars than today. (Ironically, in one of the last pictures either of them made, the 1953 Robert I. Lippert epic The Great Jesse James Raid, Neal and Payton starred together.)

Cathedral City auto dealer Glenn Austin kicked things off by taking out an ad in a local paper soliciting contributions for the Neal defense fund. Local friends of Neal began to send in checks and soon Hollywood, the town that had turned its back on him years before, responded, with celebrities like Mickey Rooney and Blake Edwards, columnist Dorothy Manners and Harrison Carroll, and, ironically, Franchot Tone, the man responsible for Neal's fall from grace, all contributing to the fund. Throughout the trial Barbara Payton had been in the gallery and she and Neal waved to each other. That was the last time they would ever see each other again. Neal was paroled from prison on December 6, 1971, after serving seven years. He moved to Hollywood, the scene of his rise and fall, and died there of natural causes a year later at the age of 59. The famous line from Detour resonates: Fate or some mysterious force had put the finger on Tom Neal for no good reason at all. Source: www.palmspringslife.com

Franchot Tone: the complete package

Joan Crawford had pleasant memories of "Today We Live", chiefly because of her costars and director. The man who made the biggest impression on her, of course, was her future husband, Franchot Tone. Franchot Tone, as of 1933, represented everything positive to Joan, everything she aspired to, everything she felt would give her life ultimate meaning and purpose: fulfillment and a kind of peace she had never known. And here was Franchot, handsome, sexy, accomplished, cultivated and a far finer actor than she. She loved Tone’s theatrical bona fides, his impeccable manners, and his distinguished collegiate background. And, of course, that she found his famous voice romantic and sexy and masculine was the proverbial icing on the cake.

Deep down, Joan knew that her wild fling with Gable would lose its raw, tempestuous quality if they were to get married. Marriage had seemed to dampen her feelings for Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and she was afraid that it would happen again if she were to marry Gable. Hawks had conceived of 'Today We Live' as a “man’s movie,” but the two agreed to make the best of it and got along very well.

Tone was a completely different type than either Doug Jr. or Gable. Doug had tried to be a mentor to Joan, but he was too young to carry that off, and he was certainly not as sophisticated as she was. Joan loved Gable, but she couldn’t look up to him because he came from a background similar to hers and was too rough-hewn and uncultured. Franchot Tone was the mentor/father figure she had been seeking in Doug Jr., but at the same time he was the experienced lover and adult that Gable was. In other words, the complete package. Two years passed; they did well together before the cameras, and the chemistry was right. They became lovers, and the chemistry was eminently right there as well. Finally she decided to take the plunge. On October 11, 1935, they were married.

Later there was speculation that she had stepped up the marriage plans because she feared competition from Bette Davis, who costarred with Tone when he was on loan to Warner Brothers for a picture aptly titled 'Dangerous.' She was not blind to the chemistry between them that raged during the Dangerous shoot —in spite of Davis’s marriage to Ham Nelson— nor was she (or anyone else) unaware of the great crush Davis had on Tone. She and Tone tied the knot before Dangerous was released.

In Dancing Lady (1933), she was teamed with Gable and Tone. She plays Janie Barlow, a burlesque performer who is torn between wealthy paramour Tod Newton (Tone), who starts a romance with her after he bails her out when her club is raided, and Broadway dance director Patch Gallagher (Gable), who, as expected, can’t stand rich, entitled fellows like Newton. Joan gave a snappy, mostly excellent performance, vividly conveying Janie’s vulnerability, her resentment over her lot in life, and her anger at Newton’s condescension.

Newton’s fascination with Janie reflected Tone’s true feelings toward Joan at the time. Franchot never got past supporting-actor status, at least in Joan’s films. On loanout he did slightly better, even qualifying as leading man at times, as in the 1936 The King Steps Out. Louis B. Mayer simply did not consider him to be major star material. He was not conventionally handsome in the Robert Montgomery style, or sexily charismatic in the raffish Gable mold.

Tone became acutely aware that his Hollywood career would always have certain built-in limitations. This dawning frustration eventually grew into resentment. She made excuses for Tone. He hit her because he drank, she rationalized, and he drank because he felt like “Mr. Joan Crawford,” a role he detested. Even many years later, she continued to defend Tone, writing in her memoirs, “I don’t believe Franchot ever for a moment resented the fact that I was a star. Possibly he resented Hollywood’s refusal to let him forget it.” Unlike her feelings for Doug Fairbanks Jr., Joan still felt at this time that Franchot was the one and only man for her, her true soul mate.

Tone did his best to smooth things over, he said it was only hurt male pride that made him lash out at her and have affairs, but Joan wasn’t having any of it. The physical blows, the tongue-lashings, the
drunken beratings, and the infidelities had finally combined to make Joan fall completely and irrevocably out of love with Tone. Joan was becoming convinced that she and marriage just didn’t mix. Through no fault of his own, [Joan's third husband] Phillip Terry lacked Fairbanks Jr.’s outgoing, gregarious, showoffy nature, couldn’t hold a candle to Gable’s charisma, and was absolutely no good in a fight the way Tone was. “I think it got to a point where Joan would have welcomed those knock-down, drag-out fights with Franchot Tone over Phillip’s bovine-like nature,” said Jerry Asher. Franchot may have beaten her, but he never bored her. About Phillip Terry, Joan would later write, “I realized I had never loved him.”

Reminiscing about the young Barbara Payton, legendary film producer A.C. Lyles remembers meeting her for the first time at Ciro’s. “When I first saw her, I was naturally struck by how lovely Barbara was,” he says. “I thought she had the most beautiful eyes. The best way I can describe them is that they were both sexy and innocent.”

A.C. recalls dining with Joan Crawford one night at Ciro’s, just a few weeks after he met Barbara. He says that Crawford, who didn’t know Barbara at the time, seemed spellbound by her beauty when Barbara came over to their table to say hello to them. “After I introduced them and Barbara left, Joan turned to me and said, ‘That is a very lovely, very sweet girl. Who is she? Where is she from? If her acting is as good as her looks, she is going to be big in this town!’”

Although he lost out on his bid for an Oscar as best supporting actor, Franchot’s performance in Mutiny on the Bounty brought him a ton of film work, and insured his place as one of Hollywood’s most popular and promising actors of the day. As a result, he temporarily put his theater objectives on hold and dove into his movie career.

Tone was an architect hopelessly in love with Bette Davis in 1935’s Dangerous, and appeared as a wealthy industrialist who commits suicide over Jean Harlow in Reckless. After a staggering 29 motion pictures in six years, Franchot left MGM after Fast and Furious (1939), a Busby Berkeley directed mystery/comedy, costarring Ann Sothern.

He returned to the New York stage, and to the Group Theater, to co-star with Sylvia Sidney in The Gentle People, a fine production that nonetheless flopped. The following year, he received excellent notices in New York City for his role in Ernest Hemingway’s The Fifth Column, and continued his Hollywood career in 1940, freelancing in a string of moderately enjoyable comedies and dramatic efforts for Universal, Columbia, Warner Brothers and Paramount Studios, the best of these being the war-themed Five Graves to Cairo (1943) and The Hour Before the Dawn (1944), and the moody film noir Phantom Lady (1944).

Publicity-wise, Barbara Payton scored a major accolade when The Foreign Press Association deemed her “The Most Beautiful Girl in Pictures” and ran her photo in dozens of newspapers around the world. Franchot’s associates, including ex-wife Crawford (who had been so impressed with Barbara at their initial meeting, but had changed her mind about her once she had learned of her lifestyle), did their best to dissuade the actor from consorting with the vampy starlet. Tom Neal later told Newsweek, “Barbara asked me to marry her. She was engaged to Tone when I met her, but she told me she wanted me because he was too dull. She said I was exciting."

Lisa says that Franchot’s sons, Pascal (a.k.a. Pat) and the late Thomas Jefferson (a.k.a. Jeff) did have vague recollections of the house on Foothill Drive, and of seeing Barbara there, but that it was difficult for them to be sure as they were both very young at the time and were officially living with their mother, Jean Wallace, and her new husband Cornel Wilde, at their home on Hillcrest Drive.

Franchot's biographer Lisa Burks, says, “Whether Franchot ever forgave Barbara or not remains a mystery because he rarely, if ever, spoke of her after their divorce. Because of this, I’m led to believe that he did forgive her, in his own quiet way. I do know that he felt sorry for her and was saddened by the way her life had turned out, but he also knew from experience that there was nothing he could do to help her, because she seemed unwilling or unable to help herself."

Sources: "Joan Crawford: The Essential Biography" (2002) by Lawrence J. Quirk & William Schoell and "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye - The Barbara Payton Story" (2013) by John O'Dowd