PHOTOPLAY
"Take-off"
March 1948
By Elaine St. Johns
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"The plane's silver wings lifted him into the sky. Time for Ty to look ahead. The golden dream was over."
'I guess,' Tyrone Power said ruefully, 'I was born with sand in my shoes; a constant urge to go places, see things, met new people.'
It's certain that Ty feels a constant irritation when he's standing still-even when he's holding hands with Lana Turner, one of the most glamorous girls in glamorful Hollywood.
The saga of Tyrone Power up to the time of the war was a quiet one. He married Annabella when he was twenty-five. If he had 'sand in his shoes' then, even he wasn't aware of it. He was busy consolidating his screen popularity. He was achieving financial security. He and Annabella belonged to the ultra-conservative group of married stars. They spent their weekends building garden walks and planting flowers.
For four years it was all very charming and domestic. Then came the war. Ty became a transport pilot with the Marine Corps. The 'sand in his shoes' got a first-class chance of working out of them. He was one of the first pilots to land supplies on Iwo Jima, to land and take off again during a four-minute period of protection given them by the Marine guns.
'If things had not been right between Annabella and me before I went away,' he told me, 'I decided there and then to throw everything I had into the marriage when I got home. Like a lot of other soldiers, my wife and my home and everything they stood for took a singularly clear value while I was away.'
But like many other service men and their wives, they just didn't make it. They tried hard, two fine, sincere people working together, to pull their marriage together that first year. But they failed.
That mainstay gone Ty was really ready to 'bust out.' The wanderlust was on him and he planned to fly around South America. The failure of their marriage, which neither he nor Annabella announced until his return from the long trip, had been a great disappointment.
It was on the eve of this flight that he met Lana, one night at Romanoff's. 'I saw her standing in a crowd,' he said. 'But she seemed to be standing alone. And there was something in her eyes that I won't ever forget. Something that asked for help.' Thus Ty describes their first meeting.
Truthfully, the romance did not begin then. Not for some months. Ty, at that time, wasn't looking for romance. He was looking for adventure. In South America he had a whale of a time.
However, when he came back, he and Lana met again through friends. That did it!
Ty did a picture in Mexico. Lana flew down and spent her free hours watching the 'Captain from Castile' company work. When he had some time off the did Mexico City together. They went to beautiful Acapulco and ate strange native dishes. They danced and dined in Hollywood's most glamorous nightspots. They spent evenings in the Hollywood bowl listening to symphonies under the stars.
'And those symphonies were Lana's doing,' Ty maintains. 'She's a pretty amazing girl. I'll never forget what she taught me about music'and books.'
Long before she ever knew Ty Power, Lana Turner had told me, 'Of course I want to marry again. I want more children. My daughter needs company-and so do I. It's an unbalanced life for a woman to be alone. But,' she added a little bitterly, 'you'd be surprised how many men are afraid to marry Lana Turner.'
Lana had married twice, very early in her career. Once to bandleader Artie Shaw, then to playboy Steve Crane. They were both mistakes. But they only confirmed Lana's determination that marriage to the right man was what she wanted.
Lana didn't sit still and wait. She started looking for her happiness. Twice she thought she had found it. Once with Turhan Bey, young Turkish star, then with Hollywood's most determinedly unmarried bachelor, Howard Hughes. But both times happiness slipped through her fingers.
It was at this precise point in her life that Ty Power first crossed her path, while Lana, hurt, bewildered and confused, was seeking refuge in a feverish gaiety.
Ty Power believes that some part of every experience stays with you-becomes a part of you. And what remains with him of Lana isn't the glitter. 'I honestly think it was what she taught me about music. I'm not very bright about it-but she has understanding of music. After a concert she'd put the same records on in her home and explain the passages to me.'
The break-up between these two appeared to be sudden. Actually there were indications three months before that this was not the romance of the century.
When Ty bought a house with only one bedroom it did not look as if he planned to carry a bride across the threshold. Then he decided to dust off his private plane and take an inside look at Europe. Lana wished him a tearful Godspeed, but showed no inclination to sit by the fire knitting socks until he returned.
Meanwhile, Ty fell in love with Rome. He took a look around the first day, went back to the hotel and told his pals, 'You might as well unpack, boys. This is the end of the line.'
He was interested in the Italian film industry. When he met the cameraman who filmed 'Open City' he congratulated him. He told him that all Hollywood was acclaiming his new technique.
'I thought he'd die with mirth,' Ty recalled. 'he claimed his 'new technique' on long shots was just lack of film.'
'And their actresses are different. Not quite so polished, but very fascinating.' He claims he loved all the Italians in Italy.
'There's beauty there,' he told me. 'Raising its head even above the havoc wrought by war. A purposefulness mixed with the gaiety of the people. You have the feeling you are taking something in spiritually, getting recharged.' As it was, this trip, he extended his three-day stay to twenty-three. Lana didn't understand that one. What was there, she demanded, that made him so much more anxious to stay an extra twenty days in Rome than to spend them with her in New York? The trans-Atlantic telephone sizzled.
When he arrived back in Hollywood Lana flew out to see him. Ty met her at the airport. They went to a mutual friend's house for a talk. They had been apart three months and there seemed to be some things to settle, some catching up to do. Exactly what was said at that time is a point on which they both have remained silent. But the results were plain enough.
After a hasty visit to her studio the following day to okay some costume sketches, Miss Turner returned to New York with her daughter Cheryl, and Cheryl's nurse. She made a flat statement that it was all off between them and that she and her daughter would join her mother in Sun Valley for Christmas.
Ty got busy redecorating his new bachelor home. He started studying Italian. At the moment he is seeing more of Linda Christians [sic] than any other girl and here again he is running true to form in his search for color and adventure. Linda is a fabulous girl. Dark, svelte, international and alluring, she makes a perfect companion for a guy who wants to be footloose and fancy-free because undoubtedly Linda does herself. There are rumors of a romance in high places in Mexico for Linda. So this does not look like a matrimonial venture on either side. When asked about her, Ty said: 'She's grand. She's one of my best friends if that isn't too trite a remark to be acceptable. It happens to be true.'
Ty has been tied down. He wants now to explore, perhaps to understand a little more about this sorely confused civilization of ours. He is ready to take flight.
'It's not something new with me. I've always wanted to do it. But it's the first time I've been able to indulge myself. And with that on your mind it's no time to be thinking of marriage. You can't expect a girl like Lana, or any girl for that matter, to sit at home while her man pays his respects via long distance from Rio, Rome and North Africa.'
It just didn't work. Lana is temperamental, volatile, emotional. Ty is quiet, searching thoughtful. Lana will continue looking for what she wants most in her heart of hearts-a happy married life. And Tyrone will fly high-trying to shake out the 'sand in his shoes.'
THE END
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