"Franchot Tone is the most exciting, handsome, lovable, exasperating, beguiling, and challenging man in my world." ~ Jean
Jean Wallace was born Jean Walasek on October 12, 1923 in Chicago, Illinois. She started modeling when she was a teenager and worked as an Earl Carroll showgirl. Jean made her film debut in the 1941 musical Ziegfeld Girl. She had reportedly lied about her age to get the part. When she was just eighteen years old Jean married actor Franchot Tone who was twice her age. She was offered a five year contract with Fox where she given small roles in movies like When My Baby Smiles At Me and It Shouldn't Happen To A Dog. Jean and Franchot had two sons together - Pascal and Thomas. The couple had a difficult marriage and separated several times. After they divorced in 1948 Jean had romances with Howard Hughes and gangster Johnny Stompanato. She continued to make movies but her personal life created more headlines than her career.
In 1949 Jean was arrested for drunk driving and she attempted suicide by stabbing herself with a butcher knife. Her second marriage, to Army Sergeant Jim Lloyd Randall, lasted only five months. She seemed to finally find happiness when she married actor Cornel Wilde in 1951. Jean and Cornel worked together in several films including The Devil's Hairpin and Sword Of Lancelot. Their son, Cornel Wallace, was born in 1967. Jean retired from making movies to be a full-time mother. Sadly her thirty year marriage to Cornel came to an end in 1981. She spent the next decade living in Beverly Hills with her beloved pets. Jean died on February 14, 1990 after suffering a gastrointestinal hemorrhage. She is buried at Hollywood Forever cemetery in Hollywood, California.
With Cornel Wilde
No comments:
Post a Comment