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 actors James 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.