The "ten million dollar baby" they are calling Tyrone Power in Hollywood these days. The most valuable male property on the 20th Century Fox lot, according to the wise boys. and yet less than two years ago the studio so little suspected his possibilities as to fail to even give him screen credit in his first picture, GIRL'S DORMITORY. Another newcomer, Miss Simone Simon took all the bows in that one.

The $10,000,000 tag is a matter of simple arithmetic figured in this fashion: in the one year of 1938 young Ty will have had the male starring role in four super-productions, each one of which will have cost a tidy little two and one half million good round dollars!

Two of the pictures, ALEXANDER'S RAGTIME BAND and MARIE ANTOINETTE already have been completed, Ty is now working on the third, SUEZ, and the fourth, JESSE JAMES, is scheduled for Fall production.

Not bad for a kid of twenty-four. Not bad at all.

The angle on the thing that I like best, however, is the graceful way Ty is wearing that sensational success; it would have been so understandable if it had impressed him as much as it has the rest of Hollywood.

"Why kid myself?" he asked bluntly. "I've been lucky, darned lucky, and I know it. And I'm not apt to forget it in a hurry. Particularly when things like that trunk business keep popping up ever day to remind me of how supremely unimportant I was to everybody but myself and my mother only yesterday."

A couple of weeks ago, it seems, Ty got an unusual fan letter. It was from a former landlady of his in Hollywood. she had read of his fine success and wondered politely if, maybe, he wouldn't lit to reclaim that trunk he left in her basement in lieu of the $22.50 rent he owed her. He must have left a good many of his possessions packed in it, she went on, because it certainly was heavy to move around.

"At first I had quite a time remembering exactly what basement she was talking about," Ty said.

One of those unpleasant things his memory conveniently had blotted out perhaps?

"Not by a darn sight," Ty answered promptly. "I lived in exactly eleven different places in twelve months. One jump ahead of the sheriff, as it were, and I was trying to figure out which of the eleven it was!"

Well, he went back to get the trunk and give the good should her $22.50. As he strolled up the path in the court of wooden bungalows painted a hideous brick red, the handy man around the place glanced up from his weeding to nod a casual hello. He recognized Ty all right but not as a famous movie star. To him the tall, dark young man was only the nice youngster who had lived in the court until the landlady gave him his walking papers.

That landlady greeted him effusively. Wasn't it all just too, too thrilling! Imagine, her former tenant so rich and famous now! She'd always said, mark her words, that young man would go far!

"Yes," Ty kidded her. "You yourself started me going once--without my trunk!"

She ignored that one. Didn't he want to open the trunk right away to be sure all his things were in good condition? He said no, he didn't think so, and besides, it was locked and he had no key. Pooh, that was nothing, she answered. Joe, the handy man, could open it in no time at all. Ty said don't bother and she insisted it was no bother at all. Eventually Joe was called and pried the lock open.

Eagerly peering over Ty's shoulder, the landlady looked down upon all the possessions young Mr. Power had left as rent bail. they consisted of three stacks of old magazines and newspapers and one frayed tie!

The trunk, incidentally, now rests in the basement of the beautiful home in which Ty lives with his mother in Brentwood, the fashionable Hollywood suburb. He wouldn't part with it now for a good many more than twenty-two dollars and fifty cents.

In his wallet Ty carries another reminder of the lean days so short a time ago. It is a thin slip of paper which was his card of admittance to Universal Studio when he was working in BROWN OF CULVER. It misspells his name as Tyronne, and is marked dressing room X; wardrobe X; makeup X.

X meant zero. In other words, no dressing room no wardrobe, and no make-up! the "ten million dollar baby" didn't rate any of them.

In Los Angeles there is an apartment house called The Tyrone. Its room are tastefully decorated and furnished. there are stall showers of gleaming tile and the roof boasts facilities for sun bathing. Yet the rents for the apartments are ridiculously low in relation to the comforts they afford. If perchance the lucky tenants have wondered why, they will now if they happen to read this story.

Ty lived in those apartments himself a little over two years ago. Only they weren't called The Tyrone then. The were the something or other Arms and were gosh-awful. The wall paper was a streaked, dark green, the light fixtures consisted of single globes hanging on the end of cords, and there was more of the horsehair stuffing of the furniture on the outside than in. The roof was a maze of tangled clothes lines on which underwear, diapers and shirts fluttered in the breeze.

"For Pet's sake, why don't you fix this place up?" Ty would ask the building's owner. "If it was mine I'd make it fit to live in! I certainly would!"

He could not protest too vigorously however; the agent was "uncle Frank," his late father's attorney, and he was a guest of the house, as it were.

His finances were particularly strained about that time.

One day recently, Uncle Frank handed him a legal document. (He now is handling Ty's business affairs.)

"All right, bright boy," he grinned. "You won the apartments now. go ahead and fix 'em up with all that fancy stuff you were raving about."

Ty was a good as his word. And that's how those lucky tenants happen to be getting so much for their money.

When he visited in Detroit on his vacation a year or so ago the movie editor of one of the Detroit papers asked him as a special favor would he come down to the newspaper office for an interview. He realized it was a bit irregular, particularly for a star of Ty's importance he said, but the truth of the matter was, the girls in the business and editorial offices had made him promise to try to wangle it. They wanted a good, close-up view of their screen heart throb. good sport that he was, Ty agreed and went to the paper.

A young riot broke out on his appearance and he was besieged for autographs and pictures.

In the course of the interview he mentioned casually that he had played in Detroit a year or so before in the Katharine Cornell production of SAINT JOAN.

"Of course, I remember," the editor said. "You were very fine. I said so in my review. Outstanding work. I remember saying so." Ty thanked him but there was a funny little smile around the corners of this mouth. He, too, remembered. then the editor suggested they look up in the files exactly what he had said about Ty�s debut in the Michigan city.

the review was located and read by an amused Ty and a red-faced editor. Every name in the cast had been mentioned except Ty's; he was referred to only as "and others!"

On that same trip Ty revisited a greasy hamburger joint where he had eaten many a meal while playing in that same production. It had been within walking distance of the theatre and its 10 and 15 cent menu was the best he could then afford.

This time, however, he was driven to its humble door in a sleek and expensive care put at his disposal in Detroit by an eager dealer, and escorted by a corps of motorcycle cops with sirens noisily heralding his approach.

It was a little-boy stunt, of course, but I for one don't blame him. After all, it's no fun to eat hamburgers because you have to!

Another little story of contrasts between Ty's yesterday and today happened just last week out at the studio. but more than just pointing contrasts, it reveals so much about the man himself.

When he signed his first contract with 20th Century-Fox back in 1936 (and didn't in a picture) Ty was driving a second hand Model A Ford. It would run, but not much more could be said for it. Now he drives a low-slung, sporty roadster that is the envy of every mechanic in town. the other day some minor gadget got out of adjustment and he called the agency for a repair man to put it in order.

When the mechanic showed up at the studio, by some strange quirk of fate he was driving Ty's beloved and battered old Model A. Ty greeted it like a long lost friend. After inspecting the roadster the mechanic discovered some difficulty that could be repaired properly only in the shop. the job would take a couple of hours and meantime, he said, he would leave the Model A parked at the studio. If, of course, Mr. Power had no objection. Mr. Power said he had none. Just let him know when his car was ready.

Two hours later the mechanic telephoned to say the roadster was in repair and that he was driving it out immediately.

"Say," Ty answered, "do you mind keeping it yourself tonight and letting me have the jalopy? I�ve been having a grand time driving it all over the lot and I would like to take it home tonight to show to mother."

That's how much fame and riches have affected the "ten million dollar baby!" I wish as much could be said for some others I know in Hollywood.

You won't find anybody back in New York among his old associates either who will sneer "Yah, I knew him when!" "when and now" are synonymous as far as they and Ty are concerned. He won't have it any other way. When he was East recently, for instance, he was given the usual rush of swank invitations from celebrity worshipers. He politely refused every one to spend every hour of his free time with the boys and girls who were his pals when he was struggling with them to gain a foothold in the magic world of the theater. Girls like the one who spent painstaking hours curling his wig when he was playing a bit in ROMEO AND JULIET with Katharine Cornell at the Martin Beck Theatre. boys like the chap with whom he roomed over a second-hand furniture store and who was his sole ally in a bitter feud with the landlord concerning noise they made at night and noise other tenants made in the morning.

Even to Tony, a very remarkable, but little known chef who cooks up fine pots of spaghetti to the melodic rhythms of a Mozart symphony, Ty is still just that young actor fellow who has a good ear for good music. Tony presides over the kitchen of a little Italian restaurant in a basement next door to the theatre and because Ty was a favored son, he was permitted to eat at a small table in the kitchen, itself, so that he, too, might listen to the music.

Ty sat at this usual kitchen table, covered with a coarse red-checked cloth, the last time he was in New York. His name by then, of course, was a byword with millions of moviegoers. Tony was presiding over the stove.

"Where you been?" he tossed over his shoulder at Ty. "Long time you no come here."

"I�ve been in Hollywood, Tony," Ty answered. "So?" said Tony. "What you doing way out there?"

"I've been working in the movies," Ty said.

"Thassa good!" Tony pronounced. "You work hard, boy, and some day you be big actor fellow," he encouraged.

Ty intends to work hard. He is working hard now. After all, the daily grind of four super-productions in one year and weekly radio show to boot aren't exactly child's play or a lazy man's life. But he hopes his luck holds too. His ten million dollar luck.

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