Jeff Suess|Cincinnati Enquirer
Only classic movie buffs may know his name now, but Cincinnati’s Tyrone Power was the last of the great Hollywood matinee idols.
Known for his dashing good looks, charm and star power in such films as “The Mark of Zorro,” “Blood and Sand” and “The Black Swan,” Power was a top box-office draw in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s for what The New York Times described as “giving the women something to sigh about.”
Anne Baxter, his co-star in several films, said, “He was the most beautiful man I ever saw. No question.”
Actress Sophia Loren said, “Tyrone Power was the god of my adolescence. I would return to see his pictures over and over again.”
Cincinnati-born Power was descended from a line of distinguished actors. His great-grandfather, the first Tyrone Power, was a popular Irish stage comedian in the 1830s, and was lost at sea in 1841. His father, also Tyrone Power, had a 44-year career in the theater and as a character actor in a number of films, including “The Big Trail” in 1930, which was John Wayne’s first starring role.
Tyrone Power Sr. was in Cincinnati in 1911 for a week-long run of “Thais” at the Grand Opera House on Vine Street when he met Helen Emma Réaume, known as Patia, a local drama teacher and actress. The two were soon married.
Tyrone Edmund Power III was born in his maternal grandmother’s home at 2112 Fulton St. in Walnut Hills on May 5, 1914. The family moved to California shortly after as his father began acting in silent films. The couple divorced and Patia moved back to Cincinnati with the children in 1923. They lived at 1015 Taft Road andshe taught at the Schuster-Martin School of Drama on Kemper Lane.
Young Tyrone (pronounced tih-rown) attended St. Xavier High School, Downtown, as a freshman, spent a year at a Dayton prep school, then finished at Purcell (now Purcell Marian High School). One of his Purcell friends was Bill Walsh, the future Walt Disney producer who created “The Mickey Mouse Club” and co-wrote “Mary Poppins.”
During the summers, Power worked as an usher at the Orpheum Theater on East McMillan in PeeblesCorner. He was remembered for fetching cups of water for the projectionists. He also kept a notebook of his observations on the films he saw repeatedly on the job, analyzing the acting performances.
At school, he appeared in the first play ever at Purcell in 1929, when it was all boys. “He played the feminine lead in ‘When Smith Stepped Out.’ He wore a blonde wig and thought it was hilarious,” Power’s cousin William Martin told the Cincinnati Post in 1958.
His yearbook proclaimed: “‘Ty’ is a good student, but his acting makes him the logical successor to John Barrymore” – a prescient comparison to the legendary actor.
After graduating in 1931, he reconnected with his father, who gave him acting advice and taught him about breathing, enunciation and projecting his voice. He accompanied his father on stage and then to Hollywood, where Tyrone Sr. was cast as the lead in “The Miracle Man.” But a few days into filming, his father suffered a heart attack and died in the arms of his 17-year-old son in December 1931.
Although his famous name got him in to see casting directors, Power had no film experience. A bit part in “Tom Brown of Culver” in 1932 failed to jump-start his career, so he did any acting jobs he could get in Chicago and New York, reading comic strips on the radio and performing on stage.
He returned to Hollywood in 1936 and walked into the office of director Henry King to ask about his new picture, “Lloyds of London,” a period drama set during the Napoleonic wars. King was impressed with his poise and gave him a screen test to persuade Darryl F. Zanuck, the Twentieth Century Foxstudio executive, to cast him. Power was billed fourth, but he was the leading man and soon a star.
These were the days when studios owned actors’ contracts and controlled their careers. Over the next four years, Zanuck put Power in 16 films ranging from drama to light comedy, westerns, musicals and swashbucklers.
“The Mark of Zorro” was a turning point. Audiences loved his impish charm in the dual role of the noble bandit and his foppish alter ego. Although Cincinnatian Tom Noonan was his stand-in, Power did his own sword fighting. His duel with Basil Rathbone is one of the best in movie history.
“Power was the most agile man with a sword I’ve ever faced before a camera,” said Rathbone, an accomplished swordsman. “Tyrone could have fenced Errol Flynn into a cocked hat.”
The world premiere of “Zorro” was held in Power’s hometown on Nov. 1, 1940, simultaneously at the Albee Theater on Fountain Square and the Shubert Theater at Seventh and Walnut streets. Power and his then-wife, French actress Annabella, made appearances at both theaters.
About a previous visit home, the former theater usher told The Enquirer, “Going down to the Orpheum and seeing that marquee changed with my name going up in lights was the biggest kick I’ve ever had. Not because it was my name that the bulbs were spelling, but there was a marquee being changed and I didn’t have to do it!”
His personal life garnered nearly as much attentionas he did on screen,with three marriages and high-profile affairs with Lana Turner and Judy Garland.
When the U.S. entered World War II,Power enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1942, but the studio pressured the government to send him back for a few months to film the submarine movie “Crash Dive” to support the war effort. Already a pilot, Power earned his wings and served as a Marine cargo pilot, logging over 3,500 flight hours and flying missions over Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
After the war, Power insisted on more dramatic movie roles, earning praise for “The Razor’s Edge” and his personal favorite film, “Nightmare Alley.” In the 1950s, he cut back to one movie a year so he could do more theater productions.
He returned to Cincinnati to perform in “John Brown’s Body” in 1953 and “The Dark Is Light Enough” in 1954, both at the Taft Theatre.
In his last completed film, Power was cast against type as an accused murderer in Agatha Christie’s “Witness for the Prosecution.”
Power was filming an intense sword-fighting scene for the movie “Solomon and Sheba” in Madrid, Spain, when he fell ill on Nov. 15, 1958, and died on the way to the hospital of a heart attack. He was 44 years old. He is buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Actor David Niven, a friend, said of Power, “Ty was everybody’s favorite person, and all agreed that he was that great rarity – a man who was just as nice as he seemed to be. With his flashing good looks, graceful carriage and easy laughter, it was no surprise that he was a Pied Piper to women – they followed him in droves wherever he went – but Ty was a simple person, with a great down-to-earthness and modesty about himself.”
Sources: “Tyrone Power: The Last Idol” by Fred Lawrence Guiles, “Biography” documentary, tyrone-power.com, Enquirer and Post archives.
