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Posts tagged franchot tone's crazy love life

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Bette Davis and Franchot Tone in Dangerous. “This has remained secret for more than 70 years, but Davis, on her last visit to London two years before her death, revealed it to me: the love of Bette’s life was a man she could never marry because he became Joan Crawford’s second husband. ‘She took him from me,’ Davis admitted bitterly in 1987. ‘She did it coldly, deliberately and with complete ruthlessness. I have never forgiven her for that and never will.’ “When she uttered these words, Crawford had been dead for ten years, and Davis, gaunt and wizened from a stroke and a mastectomy, was almost 80. Yet, the hatred remained intense. “This amazing saga of love and possession began in 1935 when Bette Davis was 27, and was cast by her studio, Warner Bros, in the role that was to win her the first of her Best Actress Oscars. “In the melodrama ‘Dangerous,’ Davis played Joyce Heath, a neurotic, egomaniacal alcoholic actress, loosely based on the Broadway star Jeanne Eagels, who died from a heroin overdose aged 35. “Playing opposite her, as the architect who tries to rehabilitate the fallen star, was the tall, dark and attractive 30-year-old actor Franchot Tone, born into a well-off New York family and a graduate of Cornell University. “Davis had been married for three years to her high school sweetheart, the musician Harmon Oscar (‘Ham’) Nelson. Nelson was not successful in his career, and spent long periods away from home, touring in an orchestra. “The marriage lacked passion and was seen as a failure.Within a few days of working on ‘Dangerous,’ everyone on set realised Davis was attracted to Franchot Tone. “Years later she said: ‘I fell in love with Franchot, professionally and privately. Everything about him reflected his elegance, from his name to his manners.’ “There was only one problem. Joan Crawford, MGM’s reigning sex symbol, recently divorced from Hollywood’s dashing crown prince, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., had got to Tone before her.” (via the Daily Mail)

Bette Davis and Franchot Tone in Dangerous.

“This has remained secret for more than 70 years, but Davis, on her last visit to London two years before her death, revealed it to me: the love of Bette’s life was a man she could never marry because he became Joan Crawford’s second husband.

‘She took him from me,’ Davis admitted bitterly in 1987. ‘She did it coldly, deliberately and with complete ruthlessness. I have never forgiven her for that and never will.’

“When she uttered these words, Crawford had been dead for ten years, and Davis, gaunt and wizened from a stroke and a mastectomy, was almost 80. Yet, the hatred remained intense.

“This amazing saga of love and possession began in 1935 when Bette Davis was 27, and was cast by her studio, Warner Bros, in the role that was to win her the first of her Best Actress Oscars.

“In the melodrama ‘Dangerous,’ Davis played Joyce Heath, a neurotic, egomaniacal alcoholic actress, loosely based on the Broadway star Jeanne Eagels, who died from a heroin overdose aged 35.

“Playing opposite her, as the architect who tries to rehabilitate the fallen star, was the tall, dark and attractive 30-year-old actor Franchot Tone, born into a well-off New York family and a graduate of Cornell University.

“Davis had been married for three years to her high school sweetheart, the musician Harmon Oscar (‘Ham’) Nelson. Nelson was not successful in his career, and spent long periods away from home, touring in an orchestra.

“The marriage lacked passion and was seen as a failure.Within a few days of working on ‘Dangerous,’ everyone on set realised Davis was attracted to Franchot Tone.

“Years later she said: ‘I fell in love with Franchot, professionally and privately. Everything about him reflected his elegance, from his name to his manners.’

“There was only one problem. Joan Crawford, MGM’s reigning sex symbol, recently divorced from Hollywood’s dashing crown prince, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., had got to Tone before her.”

(via the Daily Mail)

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Franchot Tone with new bride Jean Wallace. 1941. “A chance meeting in July 1941 between Jean and the actor Franchot Tone, formerly Joan Crawford partner and twice her age, had led to a whirlwind romance, seven years of rocky marriage and, ultimately, divorce. Jean twice attempted suicide, the first with sleeping pills in 1946, the second by stabbing herself in the abdomen in 1949. During the acrimonious divorce proceedings that followed, Jean alleged extreme jealousy and an affair with peroxide blond siren Barbara Payton, while Tone claimed that his wife had been involved with gangster Johnny Stompanato, bodyguard of infamous L.A. mobster Mickey Cohen (Stompanato later came to grief at the hands of Lana Turner’s daughter, Cheryl Crane, in 1958). In 1950, Jean married soldier James Randall in San Diego, but this union was annulled after just five months. Having lost custody of her two children to Tone, she then lost her driver’s license, following a charge of drunk driving. Things could only get better.” (via IMDB)

Franchot Tone with new bride Jean Wallace. 1941.

“A chance meeting in July 1941 between Jean and the actor Franchot Tone, formerly Joan Crawford partner and twice her age, had led to a whirlwind romance, seven years of rocky marriage and, ultimately, divorce. Jean twice attempted suicide, the first with sleeping pills in 1946, the second by stabbing herself in the abdomen in 1949. During the acrimonious divorce proceedings that followed, Jean alleged extreme jealousy and an affair with peroxide blond siren Barbara Payton, while Tone claimed that his wife had been involved with gangster Johnny Stompanato, bodyguard of infamous L.A. mobster Mickey Cohen (Stompanato later came to grief at the hands of Lana Turner’s daughter, Cheryl Crane, in 1958). In 1950, Jean married soldier James Randall in San Diego, but this union was annulled after just five months. Having lost custody of her two children to Tone, she then lost her driver’s license, following a charge of drunk driving. Things could only get better.”

(via IMDB)

Filed under movies franchot tone's crazy love life