Hollywood Studio Magazine (October 1968)

UNIVERSAL?/ ) he mmk store ^na/imacqj CORNER VENTURA BLVD. \ AND LANKERSHIM VETERAN ACTOR FRANCHOT TONE DIES IN NEW YORK $ PRESCRIPTIONS $ PERFUMES HE FINE COSMETICS HE FREE DELIVERY to the Studio Cahuenga Blvd. No. Hollywood, Cali Phones: 877-4841 — 761-3319 universal; STORE - Sfoea - 3604 W. Magnolia Blvd 0 Burbank Telephone 842-5882 Open Friday nights FEATURING: HUSH PUPPIES and KEDS for the entire family. FREEMAN FOR MEN RED GOOSE for children KRAUS for women. *» fashions HAPPINESS IS ^ SHOPPING AT MORTS 3614 W. MAGNOLIA BLVD, corner Hollywood Way BURBANK, CALIF. 91505 849-2506 848-5816 Hi Fashion and casual elegance in DRESSES COATS SUITS SPORTSWEAR Shoes and Boots by CAPEZIO Scarves..Jewelry.. Lingerie BANKAMERICARD MASTER CHARGE LAY-A-WAY Open daily and Saturdays 9 o30 to 6 p.m. Friday night 9.30 to 9 p.m„ PLAYED LEADING ROLE IN 100 FILMS BY DIALTORGERSON TIMES STAFF WRITER Franchot Tone, who played a leading role in 100 films and four marriages, died Wednesday in New York. He was 63. Best known as a Hollywood star, he nevertheless preferred the stage to the screen and New York to Southern Cali¬ fornia. He died at his apartment on Manhattan’s fashionable East Side. Death came from lung cancer. He had been ill many months. His son, Jeff, 23, was with Tone when he died. Born rich, he grew into one of those men who seemed to have everything; money, social position, looks, manners and talent. His career was almost uni¬ formly successful for more than three decades. But marital misfortunes plagued most of his adult life. He married four ac¬ tresses: Joan Crawford, Jean Wallace, Barbara Payton and Dolores Dorn-Heft. Each marriage ended in divorce. It was his stormy love affair with Barbara Payton which caused Tone the greatest anguish. The slim, suave, imperturbable, im¬ peccably tailored Tone found himself in a violent triangle with-a blond almost half his age and a muscle man almost twice his size. In September, 1951, he fought a bloody fistfight with tough-guy actor Tom Neal over Miss Payton. He lost the fight (a broken nose, severe facial injur¬ ies), won the girl, then, after a seven-week marriage, rued his victory and divorced her, naming Neal as corespondent. Tone suffered a loss of image and considerable blood. At one point he became so exercised over the issue that he spat in the eye of a Hollywood columnist. He later apolo¬ gized and paid a $400 fine. For Neal and Miss Payton the scandal meant the loss of their Hollywood careers. Miss Payton died last year, at 39, after having been arrested for passing bad checks, drunkenness and prostitution. Neal is in Sole dad Prison serving a one- to-10-year term given him in 1965 for the fatal shooting of his wife at Palm Springs, where he had been working as a gardener. Tone’s acting successes continued after the incident, but his best known films were behind him. The son of scientist manufacturer Frank Jerome Tone, Franchot (pro¬ nounced Fran-sho, a contribution from his mother’s French lineage) was born Feb. 27, 1905 at Niagara Falls, N.Y. Then sound films came in and Holly¬ wood, seeking actors with good voices and proper diction, lured Tone and others to the movies. At the time of his 1935 marriage to Miss Crawford he was already a big star. In 1965, when his film career was fading, he became Dr. Freedland on The Ben Casey television series. “I like my profession,” he said. “Since there is not enough work elsewhere, I can work at it here. It’s better to know you have a challenge than to sit and wait.” By then he was already on television, anyway: “All those 100 pictures I made are back on television,” he said. “There’s at least one a week.” He was married to Miss Crawford in 1935, divorced 1939; married Miss Wal¬ lace in 1941, divorced in 1948; married and divorced Miss Payton in 1951 and married Miss Dorn-Heft in 1956, and was divorced in 1959. He leaves two sons by his marriage to Miss Wallace, Pascal (Pat) and Thomas Jefferson (Jeff). In his long Hollywood career — from 1933 to 1962 — he never won an Oscar. A serious student of the Stanislawsky system of acting (the “method” of the 1920s), he was rarely given a chance to step outside his “gentleman” stereotype in movies. * * * A hit, is a hit, is a hit. In London, just as in the U.S.A., France and everywhere it’s played, Robert Stack’s “The Un¬ touchables” posted the highest ratings of the year, topping the England vs. Aus¬ tralia cricket test matches. Live coverage of the French student riots finished a poor third. * * * Producer A1 Brodax is trying to rent a submarine, paint it yellow and p.a. it around the country for his Beatles fea¬ ture-length animated cartoon, “Yellow Submarine.” First two stops are at the British Admirality and the U.S. Navy Department. Pag* 10