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Jean Wallace Profile
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| (Jean T. Walasek) |
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| 12 October 23 | is born in Chicago, Illinois, to John T. Walasek, an insurance salesman, and his wife Mary Agnes Walasek, nee Sharkey |
| 39 | upon graduation from high school, she meets producer Earl Carroll at a club dance |
| July 41 | meets actor Franchot Tone, the ex of actress Joan Crawford |
| 18 October 41 | marries actor Franchot Tone in Yuma, Arizona. He's 36; she's 18. The ceremony is performed by Justice Henry C. Kelly in his chambers. Afterwards, the newlyweds fly to Palm Springs. |
| November 41 | the Tones spend their honeymoon in his native Niagara Falls |
| May 42 | columnist Louella Parsons reports that she called Tone "the other morning about reports he and Jean Wallace were having trouble. Not only did Franchot assure me there isn't a word of truth but he said he may sign a term contract at Paramount and if so hopes to do a movie with his pretty blonde bride. The contract calls for Tone to make for Para pictures within the next two years. Incidentally, this is his first contract deal since he parted with MGM." |
| March 43 | the Tones announce they're expecting a baby |
| the Tones buy the former Robert Montgomery home |
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| 29 July 43 | her son Pascal Franchot is born in Los Angeles |
| 16 September 45 | her son Thomas Jefferson is born in Los Angeles |
| December 45 | Tone escorts her to her screen test at 20th Century-Fox |
| 29 May 46 | early in the morning, Tone hears her moaning and crying in bed and finds her semiconscious. She claims she took sleeping pills and is rushed to Receiving Hospital for a stomach pump treatment. Police are told Tone had been out during the evening, but that she had taken a few drinks with friends who called at their home. The doctors say she is suffering from an overdose of sleeping pills combined with a mild case of food poisoning. |
| 26 September 46 | reveals to the press that she and Tone have separated. The actor has left their home and she has remained with her two children. |
| January 47 | Tone escorts her to the Santa Anita Turf Club |
| March 47 | is suspended by 20th Century-Fox after refusing a role in Kiss of Death. Her part goes to Patricia Morison. |
| June 47 | she and Tone are reported "happier than they have ever been at a table for two at the Har-O-Mar" |
| June 48 | comes out of Helena Rubinstein's with her hair opalescent pink |
| July 48 | columnist Erskine Johnson reports that "those divorce rumors apparently are as far from the truth as you can get. He just bought her a mink coat" |
| 23 August 48 | divorces Tone in Santa Monica charging cruelty and jealousy. Tone is granted custody of their two children, Pascal Franchot, 5, and Thomas Jefferson, 2, under a joint agreement signed earlier. She says Tone was "extremely jealous" and had frequent violent fits of temper. Singer Elinor Parker substantiates her friend's testimony and adds that Tone also called his wife dirty names. Tone claims that Jean was an unfit mother and that she associated with Johnny Stompanato, lieutenant of gangster Mickey Cohen. Immediately afterwards, she leaves for New York and Paris to appear in The Man on the Eiffel Tower opposite Tone. |
| September 48 | starts dating Howard Hughes |
| the press notes that "an ex-convict night lifer has been escorting Jean Wallace. Then she was seen around with Tone." |
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| October 48 | columnist Dorothy Kilgallen writes "Paris observers are sure that Jean Wallace would say 'yes' eagerly if Franchot Tone asked her to remarry him." |
| November 48 | she and Tone are said to carry on like honeymooners in Paris |
| she and Tone attend a benefit ball for French children at the Paris Opera, one of Paris' big social events |
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| February 49 | columnist Hedda Hopper reports: "The Franchot Tones are still under the same roof. Sometimes they don’t speak. When Mrs. Tone was asked how she managed at dinner with the children, she said, 'Oh, I just turn on the radio.' They claim they're together for the children's sake but go their separate ways." The household contains their two boys and Karol, Jean's 10-year-old sister. |
| Early April 49 | is around town with Italian moneybags Ferruccio Coranelli. "Could be he wants her to do a picture in Italy." |
| April 49 | tours the gay spots with Bob Strong, the wealthy textile man. Franchot Tone has just left for Paris and more movie making. |
| is seen at the Mocambo with Renzo Avanzo. The night before, Tone was there with starlet Betty Underwood. |
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| has been under contract to 20th Century-Fox for the past 5 years, but has appeared only briefly in When My Baby Smiles at Me and It Shouldn't Happen to a Dog |
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| May 49 | is reported burning about reports that she and Tone will reconcile. The divorce is final in August, and she says it will stay final. |
| columnist Sheilah Graham reports that Jean will take her sister, "who has always lived with her, and her small son to Canada for the summer. They will live near Quebec in the home of her estranged hubby, Franchot Tone. Jean is trying to get out of her contract at 20th Century-Fox. 'They don't know I exist out there,' she tells me." |
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| October 49 | Tones "reconciliation" with her is the talk of the town. "He was out with Jean one night and the next night he and Hedy Lamarr closed up the Chanteclair at 2 a.m. It's a new twist for a Hollywood reconciliation but typical of Franchot and Jean, who can't seem to make up or make up their minds." |
| 21 November 49 | stabs herself with a butcher knife after a Christmas shopping tour with her two sons. After the Saturday afternoon tour, she has dinner with them in Tone's home. "Franchot called her and said he had a date," says her mother, Mrs. Mary Ingham. "He wanted Jean to dine with the boys and with my little girl, Karol, who was celebrating her tenth birthday." Sometime after the children's party, Jean returns to her mother's apartment. About 4.30 a.m., Mrs. Ingham says, she is awaked by screams. She finds her daughter in the kitchen with a 14-inch knife in her hand and an inch-deep wound in her abdomen. Jean is treated at George Street Receiving Hospital and then taken to Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, where her condition is reported not serious and she's comforted by her brother, John Wallace III. Tone, notified by telephone, appears at the Receiving Hospital shortly after his former wife's departure and inquires about her injuries. |
| 22 November 49 | is reported in satisfactory condition. Dr. C. Landry Cooper says the wound is three-fourth of an inch wide and "several inches" deep. She has nicked a large vein and several stitches were needed, he says. "I just did it for laughs," she tells Hollywood attendants at Presbyterian Hospital. "There is no plan for a reconciliation," Tone says. "I'm very sorry." Police call it an attempted suicide and say only the intervention of her mother prevented more serious injury or death. |
| 24 December 49 | is booked by the police after her car strikes a parked auto. Officers say she was scantily attired in only a coat, slippers, and lace panties. She says she was en route to visit friends after spending Christmas Eve at home "hoping I'd get a call from Franchot inviting me over to see the children. I guess I just waited too long." At home on $50 bail, put up by her mother, she shows reporters gaily wrapped Christmas packages that she says are for the boys. Earlier in December, she was charged being drunk in an automobile. |
| Late December 49 | when asked about her whereabouts Christmas morning, Tone replies: "I don't know and I don't care." |
| 29 January 50 | marries 33-year-old former Army Sergeant / Captain Jim Lloyd Randall in San Diego. They met when she was on a hospital tour in Tacoma, Washington. Her mother will disclose the news to the press two days later. |
| Late January 50 | will star in Pierre Chenal's upcoming Native Son, to be filmed in Argentina in February |
| 7 February 50 | on trial in Los Angeles, she claims her Christmas arrest on a drunk driving charge came about after she refused to be nice" to some unidentified officers. After she was arrested, officer Russell H. Barker "grabbed me by the head and pulled me over toward him" several times in the police car. She says that each time she pulled away. He and his partner, R. E. David, bundled her into the back seat of their radio patrol car after the crash. They took turns sitting beside her, she claims. An unidentified officer told her "Be a nice girl to me and everything will be all right." Another told her, she says, "If you had been a nice girl to us we wouldn't have arrested you." She has another bone to pick with Barker, who testifies "her coat flew open and all she was wearing was a pair of black lace panties." That statement, she says, is incorrect. "They were blue." |
| 8 February 50 | is found guilty by a municipal court jury of eight women and four men of driving while drunk and being drunk in a public place |
| 9 February 50 | applies for probation on her conviction. Tearfully she asks Municipal Judge R. Morgan Gailbreth for a probate investigation before sentence. The court agrees and sets February 28 for a hearing. Then she's ordered to surrender her driver's license, which she does. |
| 28 February 50 | is fined $60 instead of a possible jail sentence. The press catches her outside the court room happily embracing her mother. |
| End March 50 | RKO asks Tone to take her with him for personal appearances to help ballyhoo The Man on the Eiffel Tower. Tone refuses, saying the divorce was final and he didn't want to start reconciliation rumors. "He'll go to some cities, Jean will go to others." |
| 13 June 50 | asks for an annulment of her proxy marriage to Randall in Tijuana, Mexico, claiming that it was illegal both in California and Mexico. She also petitions for a divorce on cruelty charges if the annulment is not granted. |
| August 50 | is reported in a huddle with her lawyers, and the result may be unpleasant headlines for her and Tone. She wants custody of the children and a new property settlement. |
| September 50 | the press thinks it looks like Tone is reconciling with her. "When Franchot finishes his Second Man tour, he dashes to his hunting lodge in Canada, where Jean and their children are waiting to welcome him. These two find it hard to live with each other, but harder without." |
| October 50 | attends Mitzi Green's opening at Ciro's with writer Roy (The Good Humor Man) Higgins |
| is the new girl in the life of Jackie Coogan, the ex of Betty Grable |
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| November 50 | wins an annulment from her second husband in Los Angeles, although Judge Thermond Clarke finds it hard to believe that she was a "kissless bride." The dual reason for the annulment is that she and Randall didn't comply with the laws of Mexico plus declaration that she never was his wife. |
| 9 December 50 | in Los Angeles court she tells of fights, quarrels and love-making with Tone, all since their 1948 divorce. Her attorney, S. S. Hahn, announces he will name a dozen glamour girls who played leading ladies to Tone in off-screen romantic adventures in Texas, Palm Springs, Florida, New York, and the capitals of Europe. "These 12 beauties are in addition to screen siren Barbara Payton, who is subpoenaed in the court battle." Jean testifies also that Tone made love to her since their divorce. Once, when they were both in Paris, he arranged adjoining rooms in a hotel for them, she says. At several points in her testimony she breaks down and weeps. |
| Mid-December 50 | Tone wins custody of their two children in Los Angeles court after hearings spiced with charges by each that the other was an unfit parent. Tone, accompanied by Barbara Payton, charges she had been running around with a Mickey Cohen henchman, Jean charges that Mrs. Payton was mixed up in narcotics activities, and Tone, under questioning, admits he had seen Barbara unclothed "frequently." Outside the courtroom, the press catches Tone and Barbara in jubilant mood. |
| January 51 | columnist Harrison Carroll thinks she and Ted Briskin "have clicked in a big way. They've been all over town together." |
| May 51 | columnist Erskine Johnson thinks her romance with actor Cornel Wilde is serious. "They both have single apartments at the same address, but their names do not appear on the mailboxes." |
| June 51 | is seen ringsiding with Wilde at Gloria DeHaven's opening at the Versailles in New York |
| 4 September 51 | marries actor Cornel Wilde in Los Angeles, five days after his divorce from actress Patricia Knight. He's 35; she's 27. The ceremony is performed by Superior Judge Arthur Crum in his chambers. She brings in her two sons and her 9-year-old sister, Karol. |
| November 51 | will be with Wilde in his upcoming The Gladiator |
| December 51 | drops out of the cast line-up of Joan Crawford's Sudden Fear |
| January 52 | will be in Albert Zugsmith's lady swashbuckler, Private Women, opposite Barbara Payton, Lili St. Cyr, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Denise Darcel |
| February 52 | is clipped in a $10,000 stock deal |
| March 52 | is set for Vittorio Gassman's leading lady in The Glass Wall. "The only thing keeping Jean from putting her name on the contract is that she wants to find out from producers Ivan Tors and Maxwell Shane how long the New York location trip will take. Most of the action takes place in New York. If that means that she will be away from Cornel Wilde and the children too long, she might bow out." |
| 21 May 52 | obtains custody of her two children in a dramatic court session in Santa Monica, reminding the court about Tone’s love brawl with fellow actor Tom Neal about Barbara Payton in September 1951. Tone admits that he is satisfied with the kind of home the children have with her and Wilde. Tone, she says, is welcome to see the boys, "and he knows it." |
| 18 January 53 | she and Wilde, with the kids, their cat, dog and other household pets, take off to Morocco for the filming of his Saadia |
| February 54 | the press notes Wilde's affections for her two sons as "amazing" |
| forms Theodora Productions with her husband as president and her as vice president and secretary for the upcoming The Big Combo |
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| 18 August 54 | her mother, Mrs. Mary Agnes Ingham, 46 / 60, is killed in a hit-and-run accident in Los Angeles |
| 22 October 54 | she and Wilde are appointed guardians of her 13-year-old sister, Karol Walasek, because the death of her mother and the whereabouts of her father are unknown. Karol has been living with the Wildes since their marriage. |
| 8 November 54 | sues in Los Angeles for $30,000 in damages in connection with the death of her mother and names James G. Stanfield, a warehouseman, as defendant. He is accused of running down her mother as she crossed an intersection. Police report that Stanfield fled the scene but was caught after a 15-minute chase. |
| July 55 | filming Star of India in Europe, she and Wilde face troubles with producer Raymond Stross, who dubs Jean’s voice in the soundtrack with that of Claire James, a British starlet Stross plans to marry. Finally Wilde reinserts Jean's voice, adds a new music score, and is ready to release the picture in the States. |
| February 56 | will be with her husband among other stars in “The Bob Hope Show,” filmed in London |
| May 56 | Tone wants his two sons for the summer; she seeks to increase the $250 support he pays |
| September 56 | talks Wilde into a full marriage ceremony in a Catholic church |
| March 57 | promoting her The Devil's Hairpin, she is named queen of the Paramount Ranch Sports Car Road Races, held March 9-10 |
| February 58 | wants to play Daisy Mae in the touring Li'l Abner |
| May 58 | her tears to the contrary, a Santa Monica court grants Tone's request having their 14-year-old son Pat attending an Eastern prep school. Tone and his wife, actress Dolores Dorn-Heft, live in New York. |
| Fall 60 | the Wildes are in Italy for Constantine Il Grande |
| Mid-October 62 | is abed in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, with an injured back. She was practicing for a riding part in Lancelot and Guinevere when her horse refused a jump. She fell and suffered a fractured sacrum, which a spokesman says will keep her bedridden for the next few weeks. |
| Winter 64-65 | accompanies her husband to Africa for his The Naked Prey |
| 4 March 65 | is called to Los Angeles from London when their home in the exclusive Trousdale Estates area is reported to have been looted |
| 19 December 67 | her son Cornel Wallace is born in Los Angeles |
| July 70 | in London Wilde signs her for his No Blade of Grass |
| 9 July 72 | her son Thomas Jefferson marries Mallory Hathaway of Owings Mills, Maryland |
| July 74 | attends the first annual Berkeley Celebrity Tennis Tournament with her husband and their 6-year-old son |
| 76 | when not traveling around the globe, the Wildes make their home in Beverly Hills, California |
| 14 September 76 | her father dies at age 78 in Los Angeles |
| 80 | her marriage with Wilde ends in a bitter divorce |
| Late 80s | never having remarried, she lives in Beverly Hills with her pets: two snakes, a Chihuahua, a parrot, two rabbits, a tarantula, and a duck |
| 14 February 90 | as Jean Wallace Wilde, she dies unexpectedly at age 66 at her Beverly Hills, California, home from gastrointestinal haemorrhage |
| is interred at Hollywood Forever, Los Angeles, California, in the Abbey of the Psalms, Sanctuary of Light, G-4 #6253 |
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| Sources: The Swashbucklers by James Robert Parish, Whatever became of... #11 by Richard Lamparski, The Helena Independent, Nevada State Journal, The Lowell Sun, Lincoln Sunday Journal and Star, Syracuse Herald-Journal, Oakland Tribune, Middletown Times Herald, Mansfield News-Journal, The Zanesville Signal, The Pottstown Mercury, Edwardsville Intelligencer, Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, The Independent-Record, Portland Press Herald, Waterloo Sunday Courier, The Era, The Daily Recorder, The Monessen Daily Independent, The Daily Register, Lincoln Journal, Reno Evening Gazette, The Newark Advocate and American Tribune, The Sheboygan Press, Traverse Record-Eagle, The Herald-Press, The Lima News, Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, The Independent Record, Dixon Evening Telegraph, The Lowell Sun, Indiana Evening Gazette, Pasadena Independent, The Bismarck Tribune, Appleton Post-Crescent, Stevens Point Daily Journal, The Valley Independent, The Intelligencer, www.Findagrave.com, www.Ancestry.com | |
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| Links: Filmography | |