Childhood Photos and Memories

Tiny Franchot Tone. Source: Photoplay, May 1937.

In May 1937, Walter Ramsey published his authorized biography of Franchot within the pages of Photoplay Magazine. The May issue focused on Franchot's childhood through his high school years. The second volume detailed Franchot's collegiate years and entry into an acting career. Franchot provided some of his favorite memories as well as a joyful abundance of childhood photographs. In the lengthy articles, Franchot recalled a happy, close family life, a home in which he was encouraged to have interests and embrace adventures and causes. His father became more successful with each year. Franchot said:

We started out modestly enough but each time Father was promoted, we moved up the street a notch. We approached the Falls as father approached the presidency of his Carborundum Company of America.

I've noticed these changes in addresses, from 328 Buffalo Avenue to 131 Buffalo Avenue, on census reports and always wondered about that, so now it makes sense!

Franchot was the youngest child of Frank and Gertrude. When Franchot was born, older brother Jerry said the baby's squealing was "something terrible. Bet my cat's caught his tail under the pantry door again."

Tiny Franchot in the snow. Source: Photoplay, May 1937.

Franchot's first taste of being a star came at the age of three. Although Jerry had been practicing a Christmas poem for weeks, he forgot the lines when it came time to recite them at a Christmas party. Franchot, having listened to his brother's practice, recited all the lines by heart for the family and friends gathered there.

Tiny Franchot among the trees. Source: Photoplay, May 1937.

Franchot was a thin, small child with a penchant for mischief. After fishing in the family's goldfish bowl, Franchot received a spanking from his mother. Franchot remembered thinking this punishment was ridiculous and irrational. He's successfully caught a goldfish so why all the fuss?

When Franchot's dad traveled to observe factories in Europe, the whole family went along. Franchot lived in Paris, Cannes, and on the Riviera. It was in France that little Franchot saw his first film, a "flickering, green sort of affair" about cowboys, playing in the hotel lobby and viewed by a little boy peeking from the banister.

Jerry Tone (left) and Franchot Tone (right) with their burro in Arizona.
Source: Photoplay, May 1937.

When Frank came down with a serious illness, the family moved to a more restorative climate in Tucson, Arizona. In Arizona, Jerry and Franchot had a burro, pictured above with Franchot on top and Jerry on the stairs. Franchot shared:

We were never off his back for a moment and the neighborhood kids joined in the fun, too...And I recall this vivid reaction—that while it didn't bother me to ride the burro to death in the daytime, I'd cry about him at night because of the awful way he was treated.

Franchot (left) and Jerry (right).
Franchot has this exact same stance
later in so many film scenes!
Source: Photoplay, May 1937.

When living in Arizona didn't appear to make any changes to Frank's health, the family returned to New York—first to Saranac Lake and then to Franchot's birthplace of Niagara Falls. Eventually, Frank regained his health fully.

Franchot swimming as a child. Source: http://lantern.mediahist.org

Franchot loved wandering off and seeking adventure. Except for writing poems, Franchot didn't care for school very much. Here is one of his childhood compositions:

It reads:

I was going to a schol my 

mother siad I cood not go for 

she siad you wood see there 

something that wood make 

you crie and crie until thie 

one eyess wood be out of 

thie one hed which ye 

see in your one vishuns 

in the night.

O human best, O giv me bak
my hart O didst yee now
yee hast my hart? O giv
me bak my hart; I will neverey be
cinde to yee inlest yee giv
me bak my hart.
-By S.P. Franchot Tone.

Upon return to Niagara Falls, Franchot went to a private school with Miss Otis. Still not much for school, Franchot would lead the rest of the kids down Buffalo Avenue to the Shredded Wheat factory where they would join the groups of tourists that were allowed to sample biscuits with fruit and cream. 

Franchot remembered that his first love was named Alice and he kissed her on the porch when tourists goaded him into it one day. He liked movies, banana splits, Charlie Chaplin, Pearl White, eating, fighting with another gang of kids, and being in charge.

Franchot. Source: Photoplay, May 1937.

When Franchot entered The Hill School (in Pottstown, Pennsylvania) in 1919, he worked on the newspaper and managed the football team. His family moved into a nicer house at 131 Buffalo Avenue and when he came home for the holidays, Franchot liked to cruise around Niagara Falls with a pretty girl by his side in the family Buick. Just as he'd fallen for Alice as a kid, teenaged Franchot now set his eyes on a local girl named Caroline. 

As a teen, Franchot contracted scarlet fever and spent eight weeks in the school infirmary before being sent to specialists in Atlantic City and Philadelphia. It was a long, slow time of recuperation and Franchot felt he was missing out on all the fun. He later reflected:

I was alone so much that I really think that period was a big turning point in my life. I started to read good books. I got a chance to rearrange my outlook on life and people and transpose or change many former ideas and ideals. Where before, I had merely accepted—I began to question everything and find new answers. Many of the ideals I formed at that time are still working for me, unchanged.

Then, in December 1923, Franchot received a letter dismissing him from The Hill School for being a "subtle influence for disorder":

I think I shall never forget that phrase: subtle influence for disorder. I didn't know that the real reason had been a senior class rebellion after I had left for the holiday and that the professors had traced the spirit of the rebellion to me. At that moment, as I read those words, it seemed as though the whole four years of my life at The Hill were passing in review on that small piece of white paper. As though it were unwinding on a motion picture screen, I could see myself waging campaigns for more self government among the students (this was the reason)...agitation for more senior class liberties...my head bowed deeply as I stood outside the church on Sunday awaiting the more devout students with whom I would argue religion vs. agnosticism for hours, later...the long summer twilights and the rendezvous with the 'Town Girls' who would wander out to the edge of town to meet the upperclassmen...those nonchalant affairs somehow became terribly important in retrospect...quick mental flashes of my contempt for rules and the secret satisfaction I got out of shooting-a-smoke in the basement of the professors' building on the very morning the treasurer of the school was showing the insurance salesman how little fire hazard there was about such a building...the happy hours I had spent at the editor's desk of the newspaper and the literary desk of the school magazine...

No, there was nothing they could pin on me definitely—I'd seen to it that I was never caught infringing any rule. But there was my notice. I was fired! There it was on cold, white paper and I had to show it to father. Just before my graduation, too. I remember walking into my father's study, handing him the paper, and walking slowly upstairs to my room. 

Franchot at 20. Source: Cornell University Yearbook.

Franchot's older brother Jerry had the idea for Franchot to take this opportunity to test and enter Cornell University early. (Jerry was already a student at Cornell.) Franchot passed all his exams. Soon, Franchot was an active member (and later president) of Cornell's dramatic club. Three students joined Franchot in renting a house that they named "The Little Gray Home in the West." Franchot said:

If that paints a quiet, sentimental picture, it's a false one. If The Little Gray House could talk, it would certainly have tales to tell of Saturday night beer busts, of dishes that were never washed, floors that were left unswept and of a big, blazing fireplace that soon became the focal point of every mentally undigested idea or notion in the clan. We had grand times, great talks and sometimes a heavy beer hang-over. The four of us did almost everything—including joining the Book & Bowl Club and acquring a model T Ford. When a fire broke out in The Little Gray Home, we spent three winter weeks with nothing but a canvas flap over the burned-away front door. And I'll never forget the night my Ford went "nuts" and chased the night watchman all over the campus—well, no one knows the truth of that little incident but the model T and myself.

Franchot at 22. Source: Cornell University Yearbook.

Several years into his Cornell education, Franchot enrolled in a French school and spent weekends with a Yvonne whom he described as a "cute little girl at Zelli's in Montmartre. There, at a small table in a far and dimly-lighted corner, we'd sit over a bottle of wine and she would speak to me in French. I learned a lot from her—about French, I mean—and I grew rather fond of her in the bargain."

You can read more about Franchot's childhood and school years in these earlier posts:

Childhood of FT

Family

~I think this definitely wins Most Adorable Post in this blog's 4.5 year history for all these childhood Franchot pics. What a cutie! I squeaked when I saw the first photo while swiping through the online Photoplay archives. I'm so glad Franchot shared these photos and stories with Walter Ramsey! ~

Sources:

Ramsey, Walter. "The Intimate Life of a Gentleman Rebel." Photoplay. May 1937.

Ramsey, Walter. "The Intimate Life of a Gentleman Rebel." Photoplay. June 1937.

Franchot's Ties to the Gatineau Fish & Game Club

"I love every stick and stone in this wonderful country."

Spurred on by an interesting discussion with Ann on the Finding Franchot Facebook page (thanks, Ann!), I've been researching Franchot's ties to the Gatineau Fish & Game Club in Ottawa for the past few weeks. I have always been intrigued by Franchot's connection to the Canadian wilderness, because the land and activities there seemed to be such an important part of Franchot's life. I love that Franchot had this love of land, solitude, and survival so deeply embedded in him and how greatly it contradicts those journalists and critics who incorrectly peg Franchot as a rich playboy and little else. My research is by no means complete, but I thought you might like to see what I've discovered so far.

Background
The Gatineau Valley Historical Society has published many interesting articles on the Franchot and Tone families in its Up the Gatineau! publication. Archie Pennie and Carol Martin, in their article "A Century of the Gatineau Fish and Game Club," described S.P. Franchot's (Franchot Tone's grandfather) involvement:

On March 5th, 1894, four Quebec businessmen met in Hull, Quebec and decided to form a hunting and fishing club on Pemichangan and Thirty-One Mile Lakes in northern Quebec. They were Alexander Maclaren of Buckingham, and Dr. W. F. Scott, Charles Leduc and J. M. McDougall of Hull. The original membership included four others to make a total of eight charter members: Albert Maclaren of Buckingham, S. P. Franchot of Niagara Falls, N.Y., and John Scott and Joseph Bourque of Hull. On June 27, 1894, a meeting of the stockholders was held and it was agreed that the Club should lease these two lakes from the Quebec Government for a period of ten years at a rate of $500 per annum. Incorporation of the Gatineau Fish and Game Club dates from November 16 of that year.

Pennie and Martin's full article, which goes into detail about the Club and its early days, can be found online here.

Franchot's maternal grandfather S.P. Franchot was an impressive man. The son of a congressman, S.P. would be a civil engineer, businessman, patent holder for his electrolyte process, and senator before his death in 1908.

In various early Hollywood articles, Franchot Tone mentions spending his childhood summers in Canada and in 1937, Franchot's father Frank Jerome Tone purchased additional property (the estate of W.W. Butler) on the club limits.

Newspaper Mentions of Franchot's Involvement
From the Montreal Gazette on July 23, 1940:

When Franchot Tone wants a holiday he picks for real pleasure a fishing trip in Ontario…Mr. Tone arrived at St. Hubert Airport yesterday afternoon, visited Montreal briefly and left by plane for Ottawa at 7 o’clock. In Ottawa he is to meet his father, Frank J. Tone, of Niagara Falls, N.Y., and the two of them will spend two weeks, maybe three, fishing and relaxing with perhaps a little golf on the side…born in Niagara Falls, Mr. Tone knows that part of Ontario just across the border pretty well, having spent his summer holidays from the age of three to 23 around there.

In Ottawa Citizen, May 19, 1960:

As you read this column (Rod and Gun by Vern Bower), Cliff and I will be in the far north of the Eagle Depot country with a group of friends including actor Franchot Tone…and mayor Jean Paul Desjardins of Gracefield. We move north from our Danford Lake headquarters to Kazabazua Creek, then sweep north to the Picante and from there we push on to Cayamant and on into the Eagle…Our headquarters will be in a cedar cabin, sweet-smelling because it was built from the reclaimed timber of a barn. Very unusual, and in a long stretching line, will be the tents in which Franchot Tone and his friends prefer to live while in Canada.

On August 28, 1960, the New York Times reported:

Henrik Ibsen’s rarely staged “When We Dead Awaken” will be rehearsed at a fishing camp in the Canadian wilds…Franchot Tone, who will be starred, along with Viveca Lindfors and Betsy von Furstenberg, has invited the cast to his fishing retreat at a lake near Gracefield, Que., about sixty miles north of Ottawa.

From the Montreal Gazette on June 2, 1966:

MLA Fournier has not been alone in his efforts to develop the county’s full potential as a mecca for Canadian and American tourists. He has had the valued support of veteran Hollywood actor Franchot Tone, who maintains a year-long residence in the Gracefield area.

In the Ottawa Citizen's obituary of Franchot in 1968:

Stage and screen star Franchot Tone, whose second home from early childhood was the Gatineau area, died at his home in New York City Wednesday of lung cancer...Tone sought privacy away from the gossip columns in the Thirty-One Mile Lake area 28 miles south of Maniwaki. His father was one of the first to build a summer home on Thirty-One Mile Lake near Gracefield, Quebec. Eventually the camp on Thirty-One Mile Lake became the Gatineau Fish and Game Club. Tone visited the area annually in the summer and fall to fish and hunt moose. He held a lease on at least a dozen good trout lakes. He sometimes visited Gracefield area in winter to hunt wolves on snow sleds. He was an excellent outdoorsman. When rehearsing a Broadway play, he would frequently invite the cast to Thirty-One Mile Lake for long weekends. He was a lifelong friend of the late Jean Paul Desjardins, mayor of Gracefield for many years. "I love every stick and stone in this wonderful country," he once said. 

Joan Crawford's Visits
It is possible that Franchot first showed Joan the Gatineau area in 1933, but I cannot prove it. When they were dating in November 1933, Franchot and Joan visited New York together. It's possible that Franchot would've taken this holiday to show Joan the Canadian home that he loved, too.

In July 1940, the Ottawa Citizen reported that Franchot was in the Gatineau Valley area on a vacation with his father and that he would be there for several weeks. In August 1940, the Ottawa Citizen included the headline,"Joan Crawford Pays Surprise Visit to Ottawa." The article read:

Recognized by only a few Ottawa people though she passed hundreds on foot and while driving around the Capital during an automobile ride, Joan Crawford, titian haired star of the screen, paid a flying visit to this city yesterday to do some shopping at the end of a four-day visit to the Ottawa district and Gatineau Valley, where she enjoyed what she termed a ‘real Canadian holiday’…Miss Crawford, who came to Canada unaccompanied, spent the greater part of the afternoon in Ottawa and left by train for New York. During her short stay here she was escorted by D. Leo Dolan, director of the Canadian Travel Bureau, and an old personal friend who had met her in Hollywood.

Something tells me that Franchot and Joan vacationed a bit together during this surprise visit. They were divorced at the time, but remained friendly, and Joan would visit the area with Franchot several more times after this. I've no proof, but I feel that there is no way Franchot would've been in the Gatineau Valley in July and August of 1940 and Joan would've been there in August and not been with each other at some point in their trips. I think they were just excellent secret keepers.

On March 26, 1955, the Ottawa Citizen stated about Joan:

As to Canada, she said she ‘adored’ Canada and particularly liked Lake Louise and Banff. She admitted being in Ottawa three years ago but ‘kept it quiet’.

Again, another trip to the region "kept quiet" in about 1952.

In June 1965, Franchot and Joan were photographed at the Jean Lesage International Airport after having vacationed together at Franchot's home in Gracefield. You can view those photos here.

Friends' Remembrances
John Strasberg (son of Lee Strasberg) wrote in his autobiography:

I don’t remember feeling any peace or harmony from the moment we moved back to New York in 1947 until I began spending summers in Canada with Franchot Tone when I was twelve. We hunted and fished, camping in Quebec’s wilderness country. Franchot’s wealthy industrious family owned three houses that sat on the ridge of land between two lakes that were part of the Gatineau Fish and Game Club, near Gracefield, Quebec. We portaged deep into land that he owned, smearing honey under the canoes of poachers so that the bears would destroy them. Franchot became one of my heroes, once I realized that heroes could be human…He exposed me to a world that I loved and felt at home in…Above all, he taught me that work is part of one’s natural respect and love of human life, but it is not a way to ignore it or dominate it.

In his autobiography, actor Burgess Meredith wrote:

There were also some quiet times in Canada at his hunting lodge. Tone had a secret side to him. It was his love of the Canadian woods. He was a fine woodsman.

Today
Franchot's family still owns property and is active in the Gatineau area. Franchot's grandson (also named Franchot Tone) performed at the Gatineau Fish and Game Club in 2013.

Sources:

• The Concluding Chapter of Crawford: http://www.theconcludingchapterofcrawford.com/1965.html
• Hills, Frederick Simon. New York State Men: Biographical Studies and Character Portraits. Vol. 1. 158-159.
• Ottawa Citizen: November 16, 1933, July 20, 1937, July 23, 1940, August 28, 1940, March 26, 1955, May 19, 1960, June 2, 1966, September 19, 1968.
• Meredith, Burgess. So Far, so Good: A Memoir. Boston: Little, Brown, 1994. 72-76. Print.
• Pennie, Archie and Carol Martin. "A Century of the Gatineau Fish and Game Club." Up the Gatineau! Vol. 21: http://www.gvhs.ca/publications/utga-a-century.html
• Strasberg, John. Accidentally on Purpose: Reflections on Life, Acting, and the Nine Natural Laws of Creativity. New York: Applause, 1996. Print. 8-9.

Early Influence: Charlie Chaplin

Source: Wikipedia

"I remember, too, how I used to imitate Charlie Chaplin. After I had seen him for the first time on the screen, I proceeded to make everyone's life miserable. I would dress up like Charlie and go waddling down the street. I carried a cane and woe unto any lady who happened to stoop to tie her shoe! I would ring door bells and when the people answered, I'd go skidding around the corner on one foot—at the same time tipping my hat."

In honor of Franchot's childhood love of Chaplin, I thought I'd highlight two funny gags in Franchot's films.

Realizing a lion has taken the place of Ann Sothern in Fast and Furious, 1939

Making Deanna Durbin laugh in His Butler's Sister, 1943

I didn't have a chance to create .gifs for them, but two hilarious FT movies that will have you laughing out loud are Love on the Run (1936) and Three Loves Has Nancy (1938). Franchot plays the second lead in both films, but steals every single scene in which he appears!

Source: www.moviestillsdb.com

Source: www.ravepad.com

 Source:

• Tone, Franchot. "I've Always Been a Show-Off". Hollywood Magazine. June 1935. Page 23, 55.

Franchot Tone's Early Life in Niagara Falls

Franchot was born on February 27, 1905 in Niagara Falls, New York. His father Frank Jerome Tone was the Works Manager and President of the Carborundum Company and made many scientific and technological contributions. There's an impressive bio on Frank J. Tone here. Franchot's mother was Gertrude Franchot Tone and he had an older brother named Frank Jerome "Jerry" Tone.

Franchot as a boy.
This photo originally appeared in a 1930s fan magazine.
I saved it, but I cannot find the original article in my files today.
It's somewhere in the Media History Digital Library database. http://lantern.mediahist.org/
 

The 1905 New York Census shows an 8 month old baby Franchot living with his father Frank J., mother Gertrude, and brother Jerry at 613 Buffalo Avenue in Niagara Falls, New York. Franchot would later describe his street as the "main residential street of Niagara Falls" running from "the Falls and passes the Shredded Wheat factory. This is one of the points of interests for visiting tourists, so this particular street carried a lot of traffic". Also in the house are Lizzie Spooker, a German maid, and Lizzie Oates, a Canadian cook. The state census also shows a Tusch family and does not give them a separate street number. Herman Tusch is a special agent (am I reading that right?), so I'm not sure if or how he is connected to the Tones. There are other Tuschs at residences near the Tones, so I don't know if this is a census error or if the Tuschs indeed lived in the Tone residence.

1905 New York Census, www.ancestry.com
 

The 1915 New York Census shows the Tone family on the same street, but with a different street number. Frank J. Tone is still the head of the Carborundum Company, with wife Gertrude, 13-year-old Frank J. "Jerry", and 9-year-old Franchot. In their household at this time is an English maid named Georgiana Pittman and an Irish cook named Anna H. Ryan. In this census, there are many Franchot households around the Tone residence (Franchot being Gertrude Tone's maiden name).

1915 New York Census, www.ancestry.com

In the article, "I've Always Been a Show-Off" attributed to Franchot and published in Hollywood Magazine in 1935, Franchot shared the following childhood memories:

I can remember when I was only four years old. I was taken to a summer resort in the Canadian woods. Some boys were trying to spear fish and I was watching them. Suddenly I looked up, and there was a beautiful little girl standing a few feet away. Immediately I grabbed a spear and tried to show how good I was. Instead, I went in head first. Of course, I was too young to know how to swim and actually I was going down for the third time when my nurse came along and jumped in after me. She couldn't swim either but she managed to hold me up until help came...

 Another time I remember when some new people moved in next door to us. They had a boy just about my age and, of course, I was curious to know what he was like. He played in his yard and I played in mine. I kept watching him out of the corner of my eye, but whenever he looked over, I would assume the most innocent air of indifference. One day a truckload of coal arrived. The boy next door completely ignored me by concentrating on the man emptying the coal into the basement. I had a new bicycle, so I ran and jumped on it. I pedaled furiously and tried to do all sorts of fancy tricks. Then something happened. The wheel gave a sudden twist and I found myself sitting in the middle of the coal-chute.

Sources:

• Tone, Franchot. "I've Always Been a Show-Off". Hollywood Magazine. June 1935. Page 23, 55.
• New York State Archives; Albany, New York; State Population Census Schedules, 1915; Election District: 01; Assembly District: 02; City: Niagara Falls Ward 02; County: Niagara; Page: 21
• New York State Archives; Albany, New York; State Population Census Schedules, 1905; Election District: E.D. 02; City: Niagara Falls Ward 01; County: Niagara; Page: 11