A hero of the grand tradition established by Hollywood, the handsome and elegant actor was the third of the same name who had achieved a great artistic career. His great-great grandfather, an Irishman, was a theater actor, and his father a great tragedian specializing in playing Shakespearian roles. Tyrone began his career in front of the footlights at the age of seven, by the side of his mother, Patia Tyrone Power.

He surprised Hollywood in 1939 when he married the French actress Annabella, who was older and the mother of a nine-year-old girl. “She helped me more than anyone to discover myself,” he told reporters years later. In 1938 and 1940, he was considered Hollywood’s most popular actor. He certainly was the best paid and the most requested by producers. At that time he was under a 16-year exclusive contract with 20th Century-Fox.

Enlisting in the Marine infantry during the Second World War, he became a pilot for the renowned corps and was sent to the Pacific. Upon his return to Hollywood with the end of hostilities, his friends noticed a great change in the [war] hero, who now appeared impatient and eager for freedom – “my freedom,” he would say, “is the most precious thing; nothing is more important to me than my freedom.” He divorced Annabella in 1948, and immediately after, began to travel around the world, turning up in Paris, later in Mexico, and finally in London, and only returning occasionally to Hollywood.

“He was distant and cold,” his second wife, Linda Christian said, after obtaining a divorce in May 1955. “He always wanted to be left alone,” she added, “even though his Hollywood reputation was that of an amiable and pleasant man, with very cordial manners; nothing was more important to me than him. But he was tired of Hollywood and everything it represented: a superficial life that no longer satisfied him in any way. For that reason he returned to act on the Broadway stage, without giving up film, but making movies only in Europe.”

“I’m happy being celibate,” he declared in 1957, and despite that, the following year he married Deborah Montgomery. The third Mrs. Power is expecting a baby next February.

(The actor’s body was transported this evening from Madrid to the American air base at Torrejon, accompanied by a delegation of the American Air Force stationed in Spain. The funeral chapel of the Madrid clinic where the former pilot and commander died announced that the body will be embalmed at the Torrejon air base and shipped tomorrow morning to the United States. Both the Spanish actors union and Power’s colleagues who were acting in the movie Solomon and Sheba when he experienced his tragic ending sent floral funeral wreaths to the chapel. Furthermore, this night producer Ted Richmond took on the duty of telling Power’s mother, who lives in Boston, the terrible news.)