About the Blog & Further Reading

About the Blog

Finding Franchot is a fansite and blog dedicated to the life and work of Oscar-nominated actor Franchot Tone. The author is a Franchot aficionado who has been blogging her research of Franchot Tone since April 2015. Finding Franchot is not affiliated with the Franchot Tone estate, but the intent has always been to provide accurate and well-rounded information on an often underappreciated actor who possessed and presented a rare and wide-range of talent.

I'm glad you stumbled across my blog in your quest for information on Franchot Tone. I created this blog after yearning for more online resources devoted to Franchot. I'm constantly searching the Internet, film sites, and DVD shops for more on him, so I figure why not share my findings here?   I am not an expert, but I am a devoted fan with a background in published research so I intend for this blog to be as accurate and well-researched  (and fun!) as possible.I make an effort to include sources for all the information I post. If you share anything you find here, I only ask that you do the same and include this blog as a source. If you feel I've posted something in error, please contact me and I will be happy to remove/fix the content.

I have been watching films that featured Franchot Tone as a secondary character for years. I had seen all of the films in which he costarred with Jean Harlow, but didn't truly notice him because I was so focused on the platinum blonde at the time. The same goes for his films with Joan. I couldn't see the Tone for the Crawford! It was not until I was ill and requiring extended bed rest four years ago that I truly saw Tone's talent. Stuck in bed, I began to seek out films and film stars with which I was not very familiar. It was the 1938 comedy Three Loves Has Nancy that cemented my adoration for Franchot. He simply stole every single scene! I watched the film twice back to back on Turner Classic Movie's TCM app and then stayed up the rest of the night reading up on Franchot on any website I could find. I realized that little clueless me had been watching Franchot my whole life and never realized it! I immediately watched The Unguarded Hour and Fast and Furious and was thoroughly impressed and excited by Franchot's performances. Since then, I have watched and continue to watch any and all of Franchot's work that I can get my hands on. At the moment, my favorite Franchot films are Midnight Mary, The Unguarded Hour, Dancing Lady, His Butler's Sister, Honeymoon, Fast and Furious, Three Loves Has Nancy, and Uncle Vanya.

I am frustrated by the researchers who imply that Franchot was a minor actor riding on the fame of his marriage to Joan and was only in pictures because she got him there. I think Joan and Franchot loved each other very much, but had different attitudes on their careers and fame (and earned their fame independently.)

Franchot worked as an actor from the time he was in college until his death in 1968 and took his craft seriously. He was an extremely gifted actor in his own right, but continues to be under-appreciated to this day.

If you have any questions about this blog or just want to chat about classic films, please feel free to leave a comment. I'm also on letterboxd.

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Further Reading

Print:

Crawford, Joan, and Jane Kesner. Ardmore. A Portrait of Joan: The Autobiography of Joan Crawford. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962. Print.
Davis, Bette, and Mickey Herskowitz. This 'n That. New York: Putnam's, 1987.
Foote, Horton. Beginnings: A Memoir. New York: Scribner, 2001. Print.
Kazan, Elia. Elia Kazan: A Life. New York: Knopf, 1988.
Levin, Martin. Hollywood and the Great Fan Magazines. New York: Arbor House, 1970. Print. Meredith, Burgess. So Far, so Good: A Memoir. Boston: Little, Brown, 1994.
Plummer, Christopher. In Spite of Myself: A Memoir. New York: Afred A. Knopf, 2008. Print. Smith, Wendy. Real Life Drama: The Group Theatre and America, 1931-1940; New York: Knopf, 1990.
Spoto, Donald. Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford. New York: William Morrow, 2010.
*Note: Some of these books will only mention Franchot briefly, while others make reference to him quite a bit.

Online:

Find a Grave
Internet Movie Database
Internet Broadway Database
Playbill Vault
TCM Database
Internet Archive
Alt Film Guide's Interview with FT Researcher Lisa Burks
My Love of Old Hollywood
Weirdland