Thomas Andrew Franco (born April 14, 1980) is an American actor, artist, and the founder of the Firehouse Art Collective in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

. He is the brother of actors

James Franco James Edward Franco (born April 19, 1978) is an American actor and filmmaker. For his role in '' 127 Hours'' (2010), he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Franco is known for his roles in films, such as Sam Raimi's ''Spider-Ma ...

and

Dave Franco David John Franco (born June 12, 1985) is an American actor. He began his career with small roles in films such as '' Superbad'' (2007) and '' Charlie St. Cloud'' (2010). Following a starring role in the ninth season of the comedy series '' Scr ...

Early life and education

Franco was born in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...

. His mother, Betsy Lou (''

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

'' Verne), is a writer and occasional actress. His father, Douglas Eugene Franco (died 2011), ran a

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

business, and was a "philanthropic entrepreneur". Franco's father was of Portuguese (

Madeira ) , anthem = ( en, "Anthem of the Autonomous Region of Madeira") , song_type = Regional anthem , image_map=EU-Portugal_with_Madeira_circled.svg , map_alt=Location of Madeira , map_caption=Location of Madeira , subdivision_type=Sovereign st ...

n) and Swedish descent."James Franco",

Inside the Actors Studio ''Inside the Actors Studio'' is an American talk show that airs on Ovation. The series premiered in 1994 on Bravo where it aired for 22 seasons and was hosted by James Lipton from its premiere until 2018. It is taped at the Michael Schimmel Cente ...

, December 7, 2010. Franco's mother is from a family of

Russian Jewish The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest pop ...

ancestry; her parents had changed the surname from "Verovitz" to "Verne." Tom is the middle child of three brothers; the older is actor, director, writer, and artist

and the younger is actor and director

. They were raised in Palo Alto. Franco is a graduate of

Palo Alto High School Palo Alto Senior High School, commonly referred to locally as "Paly", is a comprehensive public high school in Palo Alto, California. Operated by the Palo Alto Unified School District, the school is one of two schools in the district, the other b ...

, class of 1998. He graduated in 2002 from

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...

majoring in fine art, then attended

California College of the Arts California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996 it opened a second campus in San ...

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

, majoring in ceramics.

Career

Franco started acting professionally in the comedy horror film ''

Basket Case 2 ''Basket Case 2'' is a 1990 American comedy horror film written and directed by Frank Henenlotter, and the sequel to the 1982 film '' Basket Case''. It stars Kevin Van Hentenryck as Duane Bradley, who moves with his deformed, formerly conjoined t ...

'' (1990), credited as Frog Boy. He subsequently appeared in ''A Peace of History'' (2005) and ''The Devil Wears a Toupee'' (2007). He had a small role in ''

The Disaster Artist ''The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made'' is a 2013 non-fiction book written by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell. Sestero details the troubled development and production of the 2003 cult film ''The Room,'' hi ...

'' (2017), in which his brothers played the lead roles. Franco is the founder and co-director of Berkeley's Firehouse Art Collective. He shared directorship with his wife Julia Lazar Franco who died in 2014.

Personal life

Franco's first wife, Julia Lazar, worked closely with him. Her death was a result of liver failure (brought on by

hepatitis C Hepatitis C is an infectious disease caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV) that primarily affects the liver; it is a type of viral hepatitis. During the initial infection people often have mild or no symptoms. Occasionally a fever, dark urine, a ...

and

liver cancer Liver cancer (also known as hepatic cancer, primary hepatic cancer, or primary hepatic malignancy) is cancer that starts in the liver. Liver cancer can be primary (starts in liver) or secondary (meaning cancer which has spread from elsewhere to th ...

) and kidney trouble. The two were married in a hospital solarium about a month before her death. In 2021, Franco married Iris Torres, a film producer.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Franco, Tom 1980 births Living people 21st-century American male actors American male film actors American male television actors American people of Portuguese descent American people of Russian-Jewish descent American people of Swedish descent Place of birth missing (living people) Jewish American male actors Male actors from Palo Alto, California People of Madeiran descent University of California, Santa Cruz alumni California College of the Arts alumni Palo Alto High School alumni 21st-century American Jews