Tom Neal

He was brought to trial in 1965 for the murder of his wife Gale, who had been shot to death with a. 45-caliber bullet to the back of her head. Prosecutors sought the death penalty for Neal, which at the time meant a trip to the cyanide-gas chamber. The trial jury, however, convicted him only of "involuntary manslaughter", for which he was sentenced to 10 years in jail.

The volatile Neal, who once severely pummeled actor Franchot Tone over the affections of actress Barbara Payton, was later jailed for involuntary manslaughter in the 1960s for shooting his third wife to death in the head. He got six years despite maintaining it was an accident.

His second wife Patricia Fenton, whom he married in 1956, died of cancer in 1958. She bore his namesake, Tom Neal Jr., who later had a role in the remake of his father's classic film noir: Detour (1992). Following her death, his son lived with Tom's sister.

Both he and battling girlfriend Barbara Payton appeared together in The Great Jesse James Raid (1953).

In 1951, in a dispute over the on-again / off-again affections and the wavering allegiance of notorious actress / "party girl" Barbara Payton, he mixed it up with Payton's paramour, the aristocratic actor Franchot Tone. The former college boxer Neal inflicted upon Tone a smashed cheekbone, a broken nose and a brain concussion. Hollywood essentially blackballed Neal thereafter, but he would come to find a livelihood in gardening and landscaping.

Tried a comeback in the movies and on television in the late 1950s, but his career was finished due to his violent off-screen reputation.

Throughout the 1940s and into the 1950s, he appeared mostly as tough guys in Hollywood low-budgeters.

Tom Neal is best remembered for his off-screen exploits, which involved scandal, mayhem and a charge of murder. Before his 1938 screen debut in MGM's Out West with the Hardys (1938), Neal had been a member of the boxing team at Northwestern University, had debuted on the Broadway stage in 1935 and had received a law degree from Harvard, also in 1938.

Made his Broadway stage debut in a small role in "If This Be Treason" in 1935. Moved to California when a couple of other Broadway roles in "Spring Dance" (1936) and "Daughters of Atreus" (1936) failed to advance his career.

1933: Tom Neal knocked out Leo Hart in 1 round in Cambridge, Massachusetts in an amateur boxing match.

Was once engaged in 1934 to Inez Martin, a one-time Follies girl and ex-mistress of murdered racketeer Arnold Rothstein, who was shot to death inside a Park Central Hotel room on November 4, 1928. Martin was twice Tom's age. His father put an end to the whole thing by threatening Tom with disinheritance of the family's million-dollar fortune.