Franklin Perry Collier Jr. was born on June 16, 1905, in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, Franklin Sr., was a newspaper cartoonist known for the character Otto Grow. After graduating from Dartmouth in 1927, Franklin Jr. worked as a newspaper reporter and editor, and later as a writer for the WPA. By 1950, he was the manager of the Communist Party's bookstore in Boston, and he would become a national news story after having issued a party membership card to an undercover FBI agent. Collier committed suicide in 1958.