Zeus Farnsworth was an actor who had fallen on hard times. He was apparently living in the abandoned theater where Flattop Jones Jr. hid out after the murder of "Skinny" Skinner. Farnsworth's charred bones were discovered after the fire that consumed the theater. His remains (along with a belt buckle bearing the initial "F") were originally believed to be Flattop's. This led Dick Tracy and the police to temporarily suspend their manhunt for the young fugitive, allowing Flattop to make his escape into the countryside.