Tom Franco

Thomas Andrew Franco (born April 14, 1980) is an American actor, artist and the founder of the Firehouse Art Collective in Berkeley, California. He is the brother of actorsJames Franco and Dave Franco.

Franco was born in Palo Alto, California. His mother, Betsy Lou (née Verne), is a writer and occasional actor. His father, Douglas Eugene Franco (d. 2011), ran a Silicon Valley business, and was a "philanthropic entrepreneur". Franco's father was of Portuguese (Madeiran) and Swedish descent. Franco's mother is from a family of Russian-Jewish 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 James Franco and the younger is actor Dave Franco. They were raised in Palo Alto.

Franco is a graduate of Palo Alto High School, class of 1998. He graduated in 2002 from University of California, Santa Cruz majoring in fine art, then attended California College of the Arts in Oakland, California, majoring in ceramics.

Franco started acting professionally in the comedy horror film Basket Case 2 (1990), credited as Frog Boy. He subsequently appeared in A Peace of History (2005) and The Devil Wears a Toupee (2007).

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.

Franco's first wife, Julia Lazar (1957–2014), worked closely with him. Her death was a result of liver failure (brought on by hepatitis C and liver cancer) and kidney trouble. The two were married in a hospital solarium about a month before her death. In 2015, Franco married Iris Torres, a film producer.