Stanislas Pascal Franchot Tone was born in Niagara Falls, New York on February 27 in 1905 and like the characters he would later play while under contract at MGM, he was from a socially prominent family. His interest in acting began when he was a student at Cornell University and eventually led to a professional stage debut in 1927. Broadway soon beckoned but his time there was brief and he soon joined the westward rush of stage actors anxious to get into the movie business in Hollywood. Tone made his film debut in The Wiser Sex (1932) and almost immediately leaped to leading man status the following year in MGM films like Bombshell, Dancing Lady, and The Stranger's Return. It's true that his well-bred looks and manners resulted in his being typecast often as a playboy or a sophisticated man about town. But Tone was also capable of giving strong dramatic performances whenever he was lucky enough to land a well-written part. For instance, his performance as Roger Byam in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) won him an Oscar nomination and he also won excellent notices for his work in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) and Three Comrades (1938). All of his wives were actresses and they included Joan Crawford, Jean Wallace (she later married Cornel Wilde), Barbara Payton, and Dolores Dorn-Heft. It was during his romance with Ms. Payton that Tone made front-page headlines in the early fifties. He was severely beaten in a barroom brawl by actor Tom Neal who was having an affair with Payton. Luckily Tone recovered but his film career began to fade about the same time as his marriage to Payton (It lasted a year). Instead of giving up the acting profession, he returned to the stage and received some of the best reviews of his career for his 1963 New York revival of Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude. He also co-starred in the TV series, Ben Casey, during the 1965-66 season, and added a touch of old Hollywood glamour to his supporting roles in two Otto Preminger dramas, Advise and Consent (1962) and In Harm's Way (1965), and Arthur Penn's offbeat Mickey One (1965) starring Warren Beatty. When he died in 1968 from lung cancer, he was in the middle of securing the film rights to Jean Renoir's biography, Renoir My Father. In celebration of Franchot Tone's birthday, Turner Classic Movies will be showing seven of his films: Gabriel Over the White House (1933), Sadie McKee (1934), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Reckless (1935), The Gorgeous Hussy (1936), Three Loves Has Nancy (1938), and Three Comrades (1938). Other February birthdays we are celebrating include Clark Gable (February 1), Bonita Granville (February 2), John Carradine (February 5), Eddie Bracken (February 7), Lana Turner (February 8), Kathryn Grayson (February 9), Anne Sheridan (February 21), and Robert Young (February 22). By Jeff Stafford 27 Tuesday 6:30 AM     Gabriel Over the White House (1933) A crooked president reforms mysteriously. Walter Huston, Karen M BW 87m. CC 8:00 AM     Sadie McKee (1934) A working girl suffers through three troubled relationships on her road to prosperity. Joan Crawford, Franchot Tone, Gene Raymond. D: Clarence Brown. BW 93m. 10:00 AM     Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) Classic adventure about the sadistic Captain Blight, who drove his men to revolt during a South Seas expedition. Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, Franchot Tone. D: Frank Lloyd. BW 133m. CC 12:30 PM     Reckless (1935) A theatrical star gets in over her head when she marries a drunken millionaire. Jean Harlow, William Powell, Franchot Tone. D: Victor Fleming. BW 98m. 2:30 PM     The Gorgeous Hussy (1936) President Andrew Jackson's friendship with an innkeeper's daughter spells trouble for them both. Joan Crawford, Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart. D: Clarence Brown. BW 104m. 4:30 PM     Three Loves Has Nancy (1938) A country girl follows the man who jilted her to the big city, where she finds two new suitors. Janet Gaynor, Robert Montgomery, Franchot Tone. D: Richard Thorpe. BW 70m. 6:00 PM     Three Comrades (1938) Three life-long friends share their love for a dying woman against the turbulent backdrop of Germany between the wars. Margaret Sullavan, Robert Taylor, Robert Young. D: Frank Borzage. BW 99m.