MODERN SCREEN
"Tyrone Power Plans Marriage"
June 1939
By Sonia Lee
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Tyrone Power and Annabella will marry as soon as an important problem which is now an obstacle to their marriage can be solved.
The impasse to their marriage is religious in nature. They are both of faith which prohibits divorce. In view of Annabella's former marriage, there are problems of religious significance which must be met. And so, they are applying for a dispensation. When it is granted, they will marry.
Tyrone and Annabella are not planning an elopement - the Yuma kind. Neither do they believe in a spectacular wedding. So they are planning a quiet ceremony in Hollywood, with only a few intimate friends present. Circumstances could change their plans at the last moment, but they do not believe this will happen.
It is given to few men to have an ideal woman-a dream invested with virtues and graces and qualities which a man feels will most completely supplement his own nature - and then to discover that ideal in reality. Tyrone has been that fortunate.
?"ou will remember," Tyrone reminded me as we sat discussing Annabella, "that several months ago I said to you, "the things I want in a wife are a sense of humor, undeviating integrity, a spontaneous graciousness, a quick intelligence, the thoroughbred quality which would prompt her to accept things as they come along without too much delight in the case of success or too much sadness in the case of failure." Do you remember, I also pointed out to you that I would like to marry an actress, for she would understand my profession, and therefore understand my moods and my problems?
"We discussed the necessity for a man to create a world of his own---a safe and peaceful refuge which he can share with a woman who understands him even better than he understands himself."
And very simply, Tyrone Power, the idolized of the world, the man who can make the heroes of history live, says, "Annabella more than fulfills everything I have ever looked or hoped for."
The first time I saw Annabella was on the SUEZ set. Tyrone and I were standing on the edge of the studio made desert. Suddenly he stopped in mid-sentence. "See that girl down there? That's Annabella. She's only made one picture here. She's marvelous in this. You'll be hearing a lot about her."
Perhaps it was prophetic. Perhaps some deep, unconscious realization that here in this girl, almost a complete stranger then, he had met the woman he would love greatly, made him speak.
The greatest gift Annabella has brought to Tyrone is a sense of placidity, of peace, of release from tension. This was his urgent need. For his career was at last established. Difficulties had been conquered; problems had been solved. All his obligation to those dear to him had been taken care of. There was no longer need to worry about his own financial future.
And now he had time to devote to himself-to his own needs, to the state of his being as a person.
We discussed this new sense of freedom of Tyrone's on the day he told me of his and Annabella?s marriage plans.
"It is a satisfaction to know that I have earned security for those I love, and for myself, too. The big hurdles are over. There are always lesser ones, of course. Because the moment you begin to feel that there is nothing new for your either to learn, or to conquer, you inevitable become less the person than you were. You go back instead of going ahead," he pointed out.
"But the big job of getting started in career, making adjustments, is done. I can now pay some attention to myself as a human being. I have had an almost fantastic three years, full of confusion and change, and startling happenings. I am leaning back now and taking stock."
"The things I wanted a year ago, I no longer want today. The things that seemed essential such a little while ago, are no longer important. For I have changed, as all men do, when they telescope many experiences into a few short years. In reality I am much older than my twenty-five years. So much has happened to me. So swiftly have changes occurred. It was inevitable that I should mature quickly."
"I am now ready for a breathing spell. I want peace. I want time to know myself, and in knowing myself, to understand others better. I am happier today, more contented, than I have ever been before in my life. That is due to Annabella, primarily."
Tyrone's previous enchantments have had little quietness in them. His hectic romances with Sonja Henie and Janet Gaynor were frequently front-page news. There were thousands of words written in speculation on Tyrone?s attachments and the imminence of marriage.
But until recently, Tyrone was not ready for marriage, either from the standpoint of his career, or as a person. There are certain psychological bridges a man must cross before he is ready for marriage. There must be an adjustment mentally and emotionally to the idea. There was such a period for Tyrone, and as is usual, romance was part of it. Now he is ready for more than romance. He is ready for marriage.
"Annabella has helped me to discover more within myself than I have ever been able to find before," Tyrone says. "I have , for the firs time in my life, peace. I feel now that I am ready to do my best work. I seem to be all-together. I find myself functioning along a straight line, easily, smoothly."
The keynote of their relationship is comradeship. While they attend parties and previews frequently-they are far from being romantic recluses - they go spend many quiet evenings together, reading aloud to each other and discussing all manner of interesting problems. She amazes him frequently with a philosophical turn of phrase, aptly and expertly put, through English is still a trifle strange to her.
"Annabella," Tyrone says, "has an astonishing aptitude for reaching to the core of a problem to analyze it swiftly. She does not impose her own views on others, but she does express them. That's bound to be a stimulating quality in a woman."
Tyrone and Annabella hid their romance will from Hollywood's eyes before the South American incident, which was blazoned in the newspapers.
He met Annabella casually when he had visited the set where she was making "The Baroness and the Butler." He thought then she was an excellent actress. He had forgotten her, until he met her again. The second time Tyrone saw Annabella was on the SUEZ set. From the first scene they played together, Tyrone was impressed by her sincerity. It was almost a tangible quality. The character she portrayed required it. Later, he discovered it was really part of the woman herself.
they saw each other frequently during the production and appeared occasionally together in public. But no one suspected an emotional interest between the two. Perhaps they, themselves, then, didn't realize the extent of their attraction.
After the Janet Gaynor romance which subsided I a fanfare of publicity, Tyrone said, "It's very difficult to fall in love or to stay in love in this town. Long before either a man or a woman is certain of real feeling, the publicity swamps them. It confuseS them. You begin to doubt yourself, or what is worse, you talk yourself into an emotion, which doesn't exist. When I really fell in love, I tried to be quiet about it, so that both of us would have at least an even chance to be right."
Tyrone is as good as his word. This time his romance flourished more or less secretly. Not until his South American trip did the light of publicity finally find them.
Once back in Hollywood, speculation ceased about Tyrone and Annabella. It was an accepted romance---to run its course and then to be ended.
But this is not an interlude. It is the milestone in Tyrone's life. Tyrone is an idealist. To him, one woman must be all things. She must have many facets to her nature, to match his own.
In Annabella, he is fortunate. In addition to her sincerity, she has a buoyant vitality. She is exhilarating, with a joyous outlook on the world. She has the French woman's capacity for making a man comfortable, at ease, content.
She is not a philosopher, but she has an intense seriousness, an understanding of realities. She is practical.
For Tyrone, she is a balancing wheel. He was a little wind-tossed from riding so rapidly on the current of Fame, when he first met her. He was confused. Annabella brought to him not only emotional but mental stability.
It is interesting to note that Tyrone?s mother approves heartily of the French girl. Annabella has an unerring sense of the fitness of things. And this quality, especially, has endeared her to Patia Power. Recently she said, "Annabella is a lady. She always does the right thing, which is after all, the ultimate mark of a person of consequence."
In Annabella, Tyrone Power has found not only what he needs at this point of his life, but the very qualities with which he has invested his ideal woman. The ideal and the woman have merged.
And so they are planning marriage - and will marry, if obstacles to their marriage can be removed.
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