(11 October 1935 - 11 April 1939) (divorced)
1932 December. Today We Live begins production. Joan meets Franchot Tone for the first time.
1933 Summer-Fall. Joan and actor Franchot Tone seen together frequently.
1934 Spring. Joan, influenced by Franchot's roots in the New York theater, adds a small theater to her Brentwood home. (She also adds a bath-house and swimming pool, whose roots can probably be attributed to: "How neat to have a bath-house and swimming pool!") Around this time, Joan lists her "five closest friends" as Tone, actress Jean Dixon, actor Francis Lederer, writer Lynn Riggs, and publicity man Jerry Asher. The six often get together on Saturday nights at Joan's home.
1935 Summer. After filming Mutiny on the Bounty with Gable, Franchot Tone is loaned by Metro to Warners to appear with Bette Davis in Dangerous. Davis falls in love with him, arranging for extra rehearsal time, and Joan subsequently becomes a frequent visitor on the set.
October 10. Joan and Franchot attend the Broadway premiere of "Porgy and Bess" at the Alvin Theater in NYC.
October 11. Joan marries Tone in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. That night, the couple dine and drink at Manhattan's Stork Club, not telling their celebrity companions of their wedding. Columnist Walter Winchell is the only one in the know and the world learns of their nuptials in his column a day or so later.
The couple honeymoon briefly at the Waldorf Astoria. (On their wedding night, Joan also receives an anonymous call offering to sell her a stag reel in which she had allegedly appeared. Joan refers the caller to MGM's legal team, who view the reel and deny that the girl in the film is Joan.)
1936 July. Joan is on hand -- with Clark Gable, Franchot Tone, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, and Harry M. Daugherty -- to greet the winner of the Chicago Yacht Club's 29th Mackinac Race. (Time Magazine, 7/27/36)
July 27. Joan appears with Franchot Tone on the Lux Radio Theater's version of her movie Chained.
1937 Joan and Franchot host reception for conductor Leopold Stokowski at the Ambassador Hotel. Joan also begins studying opera and has herself recorded singing duets from La Traviata and Don Giovanni with baritone Douglas MacPhail. Also this year, Joan is considered for the part of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind.
May 10. Joan appears with Franchot Tone and Judith Anderson on Lux Radio Theater's "Mary, Queen of Scots."
1938 June 13. Joan, while at the Turf Club at Hollywood Park, reports to the LA Evening Herald-Express that, despite ongoing rumors, she and Franchot are NOT divorcing.
July 20. Joan and Franchot announce via an MGM press release that they're divorcing: "We regret this action, but we believe it is the best way out for our future happiness."
1939 April 11. Joan and Franchot Tone officially divorce.