Born into a prestigious Boston family of bankers with a patriarch who arrived in America from England in 1683, Sonny Tufts would eventually conclude his career as a notorious Hollywood "bad boy", mired in a reputation for excessive drinking and scandalous behavior.
Tufts earned his degree from Yale in 1935 and initially pursued a career in opera, subsequently auditioning with the esteemed Metropolitan Opera in New York. However, he ultimately drifted into the world of popular music and soon found himself performing on the Broadway stage. In 1942, he made the transition to Hollywood, where he spent most of the 1940s appearing in supporting roles or as second leads in lighthearted comedies produced by Paramount Pictures.
A pre-existing college football injury had rendered him unfit for military duty, and thus, with many of Hollywood's younger leading men serving overseas during World War II, this tall, blond, blue-eyed actor unexpectedly rose to stardom, albeit largely due to default. Nevertheless, by the turn of the decade, his name had become synonymous with his off-screen antics. In 1949, he was discovered intoxicated on a Hollywood sidewalk, and in 1950, he was sued by two women for allegedly biting each of them on the thigh. In 1951, his wife had him incarcerated for drunkenness. As a result, the very name Sonny Tufts became a punchline.
Subsequently, he appeared in few films, but could occasionally be spotted in guest roles on inconsequential television shows. He ultimately passed away at the age of 58 due to complications from pneumonia.
