Franchot Tone was born on February 27, 1905 in Niagara Falls, NY. His father was president of the Carborundum Company.  Franchot traveled with his parents all over the world, attended Miss Otis's School, then a boys' academy, Hill School, from which he was dismissed "for being a subtle influence for disorder throughout the fall term."  His instinct for rebellion began early.  With a half-year of high school remaining, Franchot entered Cornell University, where his brother had attended and retained some influence.  He joined his brother's fraternity, Alpha Delta Phi and the drama club and spent a summer studying in France.  He breezed through Cornell in three years, Phi Beta Kappa.

To his father's disapproval, Franchot declined a career at Carborundum to join a Buffalo stock company at fifteen dollars a week. He moved to Greenwich Village and auditioned for the New Playwrights' Theater, making his broadway debut with Katharine Cornell in The Age of Innocence.

On September 28, 1931, at the depth of the Depression, the Group Theater presented its first play, The House of Connelly, with Franchot Tone and Morris Carnovsky in the leading roles.   Franchot later appeared in Success Story for the Group.  His performance in Success Story drew an offer from MGM and although he had no ambition to become a movie star he decided to take the contract. He intended to endure a year in Hollywood and return to his comrades in the Group and never lost his attitude that films were somewhat beneath an actor's dignity. 

His first film was Gabriel Over the White House, with Walter Huston and Karen Morley. During the thirties, he met and fell in love with, Joan Crawford while making the film Today We Live.  He found that he was fascinated with her, as well as, the power structure of Hollywood and its glamor. He and Joan did six additional films together,  including Dancing Lady and Sadie McKee.  During Sadie McKee, they were observed holding hands. Franchot introduced Joan Crawford to sophisticated writing and plays, a new and stimulating world for her.

Franchot had been part of the flood of actors who had poured into Culver City, and producers didn't know what to do with him.  Most of them felt that his polished manner seemed best suited to white tie and tails.  Mayer fancied that the Crawford-Tone romance could contribute to the box office, and he approved casting of the pair in the four films they did together in two years.  Tone had third and fourth billing and it rankled him that he seemed typed as the "other man" in Joan Crawford films.

However, soon he was to be loaned to Paramount to costar with Gary Cooper in Lives of the Bengal Lancer.   Because of this success in an adventurous role, Irving Thalberg cast him in his oscar nominated performance, Mutiny on the Bounty, 1935 with Clark Gable and Charles Laughton.

Finally, on October 11, 1935, Joan Crawford agreed to marry him. Unfortunately, the marriage only lasted four years.  Joan Crawford, such a formidable actress who sought the limelight of publicity, who had such success in her career, was too much for Franchot.  Joan filed for divorce in March 1939.

He appeared in over fifty movies during the next fifteen years. By the late 1930s he was one of Hollywood's leading actors and appeared in some notable successes, including the Academy Award winning Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and the highly acclaimed, Five Graves to Cairo (1943). 

Like most former members of the Group Theater, Tone had difficulty making films in Hollywood during the 1950s. He returned to the cinema with Advise and Consent in 1962 and followed it with In Harm's Way (1965) and Mickey One (1965). 

He played on the stage and co-starred in the "Ben Casey" TV series 1965-66 and did a classic Twilight Zone episode entitled "The Silence".

He was married four times; his wives included actresses, Joan Crawford, Jean Wallace, Barbara Payton and Delores Dorn-Heft. He died on September 18, 1968.