“There he was, dark-looking with black hair and eyebrows,and no man had a right to be that handsome.” So aviator Bob Buck rememberedfirst meeting Tyrone Power. Buck, enlisted by his boss Howard Hughes, the ownerof TWA, to pilot Power on a tour of South America, Africa and Europe, wouldspend three months with the actor and a small retinue on a trip that was set tobegin in September 1947. The group would travel in Power’s plane, The Geek,named after a character in his latest film, Nightmare Alley. At the time, at age 33,Tyrone Power was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, an adored “matinee idol,”but his straightforward, unassuming manner instantly disarmed the skeptical Buck.
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| Tyrone Power, father and son |
Born in Cincinnati in 1914, Tyrone Power descended from along line of performing artists. His father, born Frederick Tyrone Power in England and billed asTyrone Power, was a Shakespearean actor and hisfather was concert pianist Harold Power, son of celebrated Irish actor TyronePower. Tyrone Edmund Power was born May 5, 1914 to his 45-year-old father and his second wife, Emma (known as Patia Power). Young Tyrone and his sister, Anne, werethe esteemed actor’s only children. Power, Sr., and Patia, who had shared the stage with him from time to time, divorced in1920. The actor soon remarried and continued his stage and movie career whilehis ex-wife cared for the children and worked as a voice and drama coach.
It was at age 17 when he was just out of high school that theyounger Tyrone Power was able to spend some months with his father. Encouragedby his parents, he had begun acting early in life and that summer of 1931 hisfather took him to Chicago where he was appearing in a production of TheMerchant of Venice. Young Tyrone was given a small part in the play. Thetwo later returned to Hollywood where the elder Power began work on a film.Several weeks into production he suffered a massive heart attack at theHollywood Athletic Club and there he died in the arms of his son.
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| Tyrone Power on stage in St. Joan, 1936 |
By 1935, Tyrone Power, Jr., as he was then known, had madehis way to Broadway and been taken under the wing of stage icon KatharineCornell. He had a small role in Flowers in the Forest (1935), a play theactress produced, and Romeo and Juliet (1935 – 1936), in which Cornell and Maurice Evans starred. When heappeared in a supporting role in St. Joan (1936), starringCornell, Power was approached by talent scouts from 20th Century Foxand offered a screen test; Katharine Cornell told the young actor he was ready forHollywood.
She was right. Power’s brief appearance in his first filmfor Fox, Girls' Dormitory (1936) prompteda deluge of fan letters. Legend has it that powerful Hollywood columnist HeddaHopper stayed to watch a second showing of the film just to check the credits for the name of thehandsome young actor she’d spied in a brief role toward the end of the film.
It was with his third outing for Fox in 1936 that TyronePower became a star. Child actor Freddie Bartholomew, who played protagonistJonathan Blake as a youth, was top-billed in Lloyd's of London. Fourth-billed Tyrone Power, who had far morescreen time than anyone in the film, portrayed Blake as an adult. Only 22 atthe time, but handsome, charismatic and self-possessed, Power walked away with thefilm. He would share top billing on his next major production, In Old Chicago (1937), with Alice Faye and Don Ameche. Followingthe film’s great popular success, Fox would re-team him with Faye and Ameche inAlexander’s Ragtime Band (1938).Later in 1938, on loan to MGM, he appeared opposite Norma Shearer in thecostume melodrama Marie Antoinette. TyronePower was now a firmly established leading man.
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| Tyrone Power on the set of Marie Antoinette (1938) with Norma Shearer |
1939 would prove to be a watershed year for the 25 year old actor.He would portray the outlaw Jesse Jamesin one of only two Technicolor pictures Fox produced that year, and he would starin the studio’s spectacular The RainsCame. Nominated for six Academy Awards, it would win, in that year of the Gone with the Wind sweep, only one, forBest Effects, Special Effects. Power’s leading lady Myrna Loy remembered him asone of the nicest human beings she’d ever known. She would recall much later, “I’msorry to report that we weren’t lovers, but close to it. I loved him, but hewas married to that damn Frenchwoman.” That Frenchwoman was Annabella, theactress Power met a year earlier on Suez (1938)and married in 1939. Also in 1939, in an annual nationwide newspaper poll, TyronePower was voted “King of Hollywood.”
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| Tyrone Power, 1939's "King of Hollywood," with Ed Sullivan and "Queen" Jeanette MacDonald |
Power next appeared as what has to have been one of the most attractive criminals in Hollywood history in JohnnyApollo (1940) opposite Dorothy Lamour. His first swashbuckler would follow,The Mark of Zorro (1940). Among hisbest known films, it features one of his most memorable performances. TyronePower and Basil Rathbone had reputations as two of the best fencers in film andthey would dramatically cross swords in TheMark of Zorro:
Dec. 2012 update: sadly, this (colorized) YouTube clip was recently blocked
Before joining the U.S. Marines and departing for World WarII, Power would star in one of his favorites, the vivid Technicolor Bloodand Sand (1941). Directed by Rouben Mamoulian, it is the story of a brilliantbullfighter undone by temptation and jealousy. Power was apparently entranced by co-star RitaHayworth, one of his two leading ladies (the other was Linda Darnell), and hisstand-in reportedly noticed that the actor could not take his eyes from herthroughout filming.
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| Rita Hayworth and Tyrone Power in Blood and Sand (1941) |
Also prior to entering the service, Power completedA Yank in the R.A.F. (1941), a war-time romance that paired him with Fox’s othersuperstar, Betty Grable. He also appeared in The Black Swan (1942), a Technicolorswashbuckler in which Maureen O’Hara, as an aristocratic young beauty, plays hard-to-get with Power’s character, a dashingreformed pirate.
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| Tyrone Power, U.S. Marine Corps |
Tyrone Power was about to turn 28 when he joined the USMC. He haddeveloped an interest in flying through director Henry King and flew in the Pacific during the war, carrying supplies intoIwo Jima and flying the injured out, often under heavy enemy fire. When hereturned to Hollywood just a few years later, he seemed to have aged.Though still very handsome, he appeared world-weary.
Power returned to the screen in the Edmund Goulding-directedproduction of Somerset Maugham’s TheRazor’s Edge in 1946. Myrna Loy later remarked on the spiritual quality shesaw in Power’s eyes. As Larry Darrell, a war veteran on a quest for enlightenment and meaning in The Razor’s Edge, she believed he was perfectly cast, “That was Ty,” she said.
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| Nightmare Alley (1947) |
Nightmare Alley (1947) was a film Power battledwith Fox chief Darryl Zanuck to make. Zanuck, protective of Power as a valuablestudio asset, feared that casting him as a dark character in a downbeat film woulddamage his box office appeal. But Power was frustrated with the endless stringof heroes he invariably played and longed to break type. As sleazy carnivalhuckster Stan Carlisle, Power is fascinating - and convincing. ButZanuck had no confidence in the film and it was given little promotion. Thoughit quickly faded from view it developed a solid reputation and following over theyears. Captain from Castile (1947), Power’s first post-war swashbuckler, wouldnot be his last. At the time the picture was filming in Mexico, he was in themidst of a high-profile romance with Lana Turner. She flew south of the border tobe with him on Christmas 1946 and would remember their New Year’s Eve together asthe happiest night of her life. Her daughter Cheryl Crane recalled that one ofher own earliest memories was of sitting on Power’s lap in the family den. “Iwas only about three years old, but I remember his face.” Lana would foreverrefer to Power as the love of her life and recall, “No man except possiblyTyrone Power took the time to find out that I was a human being, not just apretty, shapely little thing.”
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| 1946: Lana Turner and Tyrone Power in Mexico |
It was while involved with Lana and following the completionof his first three post-war films that Power readied for his trip across theAtlantic with pilot Bob Buck and crew. As the group prepared to depart onSeptember 1, 1947, Turner took Buck aside and told him, “I love that guy, besure you bring him back to me.”
Though Buck was originally drafted to pilot The Geek, Power confided early on thathe would like to do most of the flying himself. Buck quickly learned that theactor “flew like an old pro” and relaxed into backing him up as co-pilot.Wherever The Geek landed, they weremobbed and sometimes pursued. Even landing in a jungle in Liberia and greetedby only two natives, one of the two pointed to Tyrone Power and said, “I knowhim.” When they arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa, Power’s group was welcomedby a crowd so large and enthusiastic that their driver commented, “they didn’tdo this for the king and queen.” According to Buck, Power believed that peopleweren’t reacting to him but to the characters he played and their own romanticfantasies. Buck felt this perspective “kept his head size normal.” Buck formed a life-long friendship with Power and saw in himan all-American guy and natural athlete who could also talk religion,philosophy, art and literature. He had a photographic memory – which Buckwitnessed first-hand when he watched the actor scan a script and then discussit in great detail.
Once The Geek madeits way to Europe, the group spent some time in Rome. It was there that Powerencountered Linda Christian, a young starlet he would marry the followingyear. They would have two daughters before divorcing in the mid-‘50s.
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| The Dark is Light Enough on Broadway, 1955 |
Back in Hollywood, Power’s career would continue with a mix ofswashbucklers, adventures, light fare and big budget A-films.
In 1951 Power went on the London stage for a six monthengagement of a Joshua Logan-directed production of Mr. Roberts. It wasa sold-out run and Variety characterized his performance in the title role as a “warm,colorful and meaningful interpretation.” Hetoured the U.S. very successfully in John Brown’s Body and took it to Broadway in1953 with Raymond Massey and Judith Anderson. He returned to Broadway in 1955with The Dark is Light Enough, starring with Katharine Cornell (a young Christopher Plummer would win a Theatre World Award for his supporting performance in the play).Power’s final Broadway appearance came in Back to Methuselah in 1958with Faye Emerson.
His last finished film would be Billy Wilder’s Witnessfor the Prosecution (1957) with Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich. In it, Power, castagainst type as an accused killer, delivers one ofhis most acclaimed performances. Billy Wilder reported that co-star MarleneDietrich developed an enormous crush on Power during filming and remarked, “Everybody had acrush on Ty…it was impossible to be impervious to that kind of charm.”
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| Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Witness for the Prosecution (1957) |
In 1958, 44-year-old Tyrone Power married26-year-old Debbie Minardos. They traveled to Spain in September where he wasto film the King Vidor epic Solomon andSheba. On November 15, Power collapsed on the set during an arduousswordfight scene with George Sanders and suffered a massive heart attack; he died on the way to the hospital. It had been ice-cold on the set that day and he was a heavy smoker. Power’s wife gave birth totheir son, Tyrone Power IV, in January 1959.
“His voice was beautiful to listen to, deep, clear andstrong,” Bob Buck wrote; his dark, long-lashed eyes radiated warmth and a soulful quality.He performed with sensitivity and conviction and he brought to the screen a certain nobilityand tempered reserve. He was Fox’s top leading man for more than 15 years and though hislate career had its ups and downs, his last films were some of his greatestsuccesses. He has been called “illegally handsome” and perhaps his looks, coupled with a powerful onscreen charisma, blinded both studio and audience to his actual talent and capacity to be something more than aleading man.
Today, August 25, Turner Classic Movies honors Tyrone Power with a full24 hours of his films as part of its annual SummerUnder the Stars celebration in August. Click here for the schedule of films. Click here for more on Michael and Jill’s Summer Under the Stars blogathon.
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| Portrait of Tyrone Power by Claire Trevor, 1958 |
Sources:
North Star Over MyShoulder: A Flying Life by Bob Buck, Simon & Schuster (2002)
Being and Becomingby Myrna Loy and James Kotsilibas-Davis, Alfred A. Knopf (1987)
On Sunset Boulevard:The Life and Times of Billy Wilder by Ed Sikov, Hyperion (1998)
Lana: the Memories,the Myths, the Movies by Cheryl Crane, Running Press (2008)
Website: www.tyrone-power.com
