A minor member of its cast--you know him now as Tyrone Power, Jr. but on one knew him as anything in particular, then--stood, on one of the latter afternoons of that month, in front of the Santa Fe station in Pasadena, signaling for a cab and grinning. This was the prodigal's glorious home-coming, the utterly satisfying I-told-you-so of a young man who for six determined years had swung at fate with both fists, while the crowd cheered fate.

He couldn't quite afford it and he hadn't much time, but the trip was a necessity to his ego. Hollywood, which had scorned him, must see the well-cut clothes he word and the two unbreakable, signed and sealed contracts he had in his pocket and the well-fed look of contentment he had on his face; and Hollywood must look carefully, for these things were his despite many things, and they were Triumph, incarnate.

Patia Power, his mother, to whom he had said once: "Let me go. I will do great things--" must see, and exclaim, and crow in unison with his crowing

In the cab he lit a cigarette and settled back, trying to recapture the personal excitement he had felt all the way across the continent.

He remembered now, without mirth, the three years of tramping form studio to studio in search of a job--any job; the insane fruitless months in Chicago at the World's Fair; the sudden stunning turn of luck in New York, when Cornell had decided that perhaps he had a little talent.

He thought suddenly, with a kind of amused detachment: Wait a minute! What is all this, again? Thirty bucks a week as an understudy, a job in summer stock at a clerk's salary, and then the smallest of small parts in Katherine’s fall play--is that what you're going to wave in the face of this millionaire industry?

There was that to consider during the rest of the ride. Until finally, when he walked up the porch steps and faced Patia at the door, saw the sharp unmistakable questioning in her eyes, he was ready with the answer.

"Okay," he told her, "I understand. It's only the beginning. But just watch me from now on--"

He saw the relief in her face. "It's merely a suggestion," she said, taking his arm, "but what do you say we go in and jump up and down on the new sofa, to celebrate?"

Understudying Burgess Meredith in "Flowers in the Forest" did little enough for Tyrone professionally, except that he got a chance to see the theater at first hand and to study hard. the break restored his optimism in a measure, but not his self-confidence, because he had never lost that; not even at the lowest level of his luck had he ever forgotten, for a moment, the definite certainty of his innate ability.

The summer at Falmouth was an interlude primarily of pleasure, partly of hard work, but dedicated to the realization of what had happened--to adjustment. The beautiful little theater was located out of town, planted superbly on the edge of Buzzard's Bay; and it had a deck, awninged and cool, that overlooked the shining water, and it had a night club for its neighbor, and the tradition of good productions which brought in the critical, sophisticated audience that filled it nightly.

Tyrone, after the first week, gave up the conscious effort of introspection and allowed things to take an inevitable course in his mind. He was given for the first time (because this was an experimental institution and he was promising material) the best parts in most of the plays--and they were good plays. "Private Lives," "Ceiling Zero," "On Stage," in which he found his stride.

There were sensations to feel--not for analysis--during that period. There was waking in the morning to the clear heat of the Massachusetts July and august, and lying at ease on the narrow beach learning lines in the sun, and there was coming lazily up at dinner time to sit in sorts on the theater deck, in the pale pink glow of the unbelievable sunset.

There was dancing in the nearby cabaret with the several lovely, now forgotten girls who also were members of the colony, and the potent nostalgia that came after the third Collins, when the saxophones went soupy and remembered past summers in melody. "I Apologize," said the saxophone, and "Can't We Talk It Over?" and "Just One More chance" and "Say It Isn't So" and "Look What You've done To Me, Baby."

There was not being in love, with anybody, and a clear sense of self-completeness....

Picture scouts infest stock groups of this sort and one cornered Tyrone on and evening after the show. "Maybe," the scout said, "I might manage to get some sort of a spot for you. You aren't bad as Jerry."

To his own amazement Tyrone mumbled, "Maybe you could. but I'm not interested," and left the bewildered scout openmouthed in the dressing room.

Later, after a week of self-recriminations during which he labeled himself a list of uncomplimentary things, young Mr. Power understood why he had refused the offer: I had the same chance once, in Hollywood, he thought, and it got me nowhere. Except years of waiting in producers' offices, and disappointment, and being poor. that might happen again--because I'm not really ready yet. Now they're doing me a favor, tossing a little something my way. The time will come when I'll be doing them a favor.

He was glad, then, for his first instinctive impulse. And i September he drove contentedly down to New York for the opening rehearsal of "Romeo and Juliet," in which he was to have a role of his own to create and to develop before big time audiences.

They opened in Baltimore and toured for a long time, according to the Cornell policy--and in this manner Tyrone completed the memorable sensation-year of 1935. Aside from work, only a few things were outstanding in his memory as indicative of the season.

Being a Shakespearean character on the stage was all right, but when you had to keep you hair at shoulder length and still Ty to pursue the normal bent of normal young man's daily life--in department stores and streets and on trolleys--the possibilities for trouble were endless.

None of the seven male members of the troupe dared venture forth alone in daylight--Tyrone least of all. His lean face and have dark eyebrows were positively Machiavellian in a frame of long, flowing locks.

At noon of Christmas Eve, that year, he decided to go out and buy presents for everybody. In a moment of inspiration he rolled up his unruly mop of hair and hid it under his hat. Late that afternoon he stood in a packed street car, laden with parcels, unable to move, sweating freely; and he dropped a small bundle.

Bending down was impossible. He had to unhinge his knees and lower himself slowly to grope for the package--and this he did, leaving his hat balanced on the shoulders of his standing neighbors. When he came up the hat was still there and it settled once more on his head; but to the startled occupants of the car "Dr. Jekyll ad Mr. Hyde" was no longer fiction. Tyrone--the pleasing attractive youth had disappeared. He had emerged as something out of the Sixteenth Century.

There was bedlam. Women screamed. Men crowded against each other, either in miserable silence or shouting with laughter. the motorman stopped the car and somehow, from this nightmare, the apparition escaped, leaving a trail of gaily-wrapped packages behind him.

He has that incident to remember until his dying day; and there were others. the party Miss Cornell gave one Thanksgiving Day evening at a club on the Chicago Shore Road, at which Tyrone and his fellows, apprehensive of the liquor supply, drank everyone's wine at dinner--only to discover a sea of champagne waiting in another room. the actor who always sent his man on ahead to reserve the best dressing room with his name plate, and the night Tyrone beat the servant to it. And watching the actor's face when he discovered that his dressing room had a strange aroma, and pulled off the name plate from the door, and found the inscription "women" underneath...

On New Year's Eve, Tyrone Power and the cast of "Romeo and Juliet" finished the performance before midnight and went up to his small apartment to drink to toast to 1936. The host poured wine. The assembled group raised their glasses.

"What do you hope for yourself?" someone asked of him. "That I can do as much in this next year as I did in the one just past," he answered quietly as a clock began striking the new year in.

He had three months of grace, this young man; three months in which to rehearse stolidly for the part of De Ponlengey in "St. Joan," to hoard as much as he could of his small salary, to make plans with a few of his friends to board to tramp steamer in the spring and bum through a long lazy summer in Europe. then in April, things and events began to happen with such demented hast that there was no time for thought, no time for logical understanding, no time for anything--except to run as hard as he could in an effort to keep up; except to forget everyone and everything in the halcyon labor of a Star being born.

His agent called him from Detroit to New York to make a film test, and it stank. It was incredibly awful.

"Now are you satisfied?" Tyrone asked the agent afterward as they drank a consolation beer in the studio bar. "Now will you give me time, until I'm older and more experienced--until I'm ready?"

"Until you don't care any more, you mean," countered the shrewd agent. "Nuts! You never had time or patience for caution before. You wanted big tings and you wanted them right away and you knew you could get them because you were good--so now, you fool, this is the time! And you'll take a second test tomorrow y'see?"

Looking down into his glass, Tyrone thought: he's right. If I can't do it now, I'll never be able to do it. but I can--I can!

He said, "Okay. And it won't smell like the first one, either.

"Have another beer," said the agent, contentedly.

In a Hollywood projection room, a few days later, Darryl Zanuck sat and watched the shadow of Tyrone Power, Jr., move across the screen, heard his clear controlled voice read lines with interpretation and feeling. "Run it again." said Mr. Zanuck, and he said it five times and each time he sat straighter in his divan loge. Finally he rand his secretary.

"Take a wire," he commanded; and the words were sheer excitement.

It was incredible, but these were real, these tickets in this envelope that said a reservation had been made on a transcontinental sleeper plane for Mr. T. Power. Tyrone walked through the gate and up the steps and through the little door, and he sat down. He closed his eyes, thinking, I will be in Hollywood tomorrow. I will show my seven year contract with 20th Century to Patia, and I will walk down the same streets, and I will see the same people. and this plane is starting now, and it is going too fast, too fast for me to follow, and I wonder if I will be sick, and can I make that contract good? Can I be as good as I must be?

He looked out of the window, and down, and far below, the earth was flowing awkward like an endless patchwork. the symbolism was too pat; he became one with the plane--the earth was his life, rushing past with a humming sound....

The next months were like that, with their blinding pace and unfamiliar pattern and their ceaseless amazing flight. The United States held the most important election in its history and Adolf Hitler rewrote the Bible and Spain blew itself to pieces and an emperor took twice-divorced American woman for a boat ride to the Adriatic and groups of prison officials had a little party at which they burned the man named Hauptman to a cinder; but these things were secondary to the fact that Mr. Zanuck made "Girl's Dormitory." Tyrone Power had a few feet of film in the last reel, which he shared with Simone Simon, and women said: "Do you see what I see?"

Mr. Zanuck made "Ladies in Love" and Tyrone Power had more than a few feet of film which he managed not to share with anyone, and the watching women said to their escorts: "Buy me that! The one with the eyes and the smile. Named Power, or something."

Mr. Zanuck made "Lloyds of London."

After that people came to Tyrone and said. "What do you think about life and love and women and politics? where were you born? What do you eat for breakfast? What color socks do you wear? American wants to know."

Publicity boys cornered him and said, "Don't tell them anything. Dole it out in little pieces. And watch this romance situation--if you run around with anybody make it a girl from this lot."

Sales agents grouped at his doorway. They sold him a radio, a set of books, and electric razor and a Cord car.

And Mr. Zanuck made "Love is News." And the living patchwork began moving so fast that it became a gray blur, the noise of its speed a monotonous cacophonic disjointed jitter.

Hearing it, Tyrone sat over is coffee, waiting for the set to call him back for the afternoon of work.

Out of the confused jumble a voice said, "Are you Mr. Tyrone Power?" He looked up, saw the trim body and the straight shoulders and the smile and the fresh healthy beauty of the girl who stood there. "I've some tickets to a skating exhibition, if you'd like them," she said. "My name is Sonja Henie."

That began it. He went to the exhibition and took her home afterward. A few nights later he tossed gravel at her window, and she climbed down an ivy lattice, and they went for a drive. You could say they fell in love with each other that evening, but essentially it was that they discovered between themselves a kinship of circumstance.

They were foils for each other--her stolid, brilliantly posed Norwegian balance against his nervous, erratic alertness. Both were only twenty-two and both were already flashing high in success. the difference was she was used to adulation and he was not. She helped the necessary process of deflation, of dissemination.

Both were beautiful people, and neither was unaware of beauty. It was an indicated thing that they should go dancing together, that they should dine tête-à-tête in smart restaurants that photographers' flashlights should flare about them and that columnists’ typewriters should clatter weekly commentary on their smallest activities. To the newspapers, to the publicity professionals, and ergo to America the arrangement was a Romance.

In a way the label was justified, except that Tyrone and Sonja were not (and are not) purely and simply sentimental about each other. Young Mr. Power, at twenty-two, had come too far, had learned too much, had acquired too great a share of the things called sophistication to be purely sentimental about anything or anyone, ever again.

Wherefore the past tense had lost its value in the telling of this story, and we are concerned with the present. today's portrait of Tyrone Power must be done with care, but hastily, since the subject is changing; and problem children--even when they're grownup--are unpredictable.

I met him the day after Hollywood saw "Lloyds of London" a its premiere and found a young man apparently poised apparently detached about what was happening to him, but breathlessly excited beneath a shell of mannerism. He was in the throes of adjustment to new wealth and new fame, but there was not the naive astonishment at Hollywood and Hollywood morals that distinguished the collegiate Robert Taylor when first he hit the Town.

Tyrone--twenty-two precocious years old, then--was a little amused at the movie city and its vaunted sophistication. He knew it too well, as he knew the older, more vicious hardness of New York and Chicago theater circles.

Yesterday, when we talked, he was imperturbable, assured. The screeching of preview mobs, the assured. the screeching of preview mobs the insistent autograph hounds, the fan mail that had been multiplying itself like compound interest, the knowledge that he may open any newspaper, any time, and find his name in it--these things have done their work. It is the natural, necessary revision of personality that must result from such circumstances.

He cannot, after all, be too amazed at what has happened; it is only what he set out to have happen, only what he promised himself six years ago, and, with a kind of ruthless shrewd determination, created....

These are days which he knew must come, inevitably. He can say now, "Good evening, Marcel." and his regular table is waiting at a score of smart clubs. He can wake up in the morning, and touch a bell, and a smoothly working household leaps into action to make his day luxurious. He can go into stores, and say "I will have this, and that, and these," without even glancing at prices tags. He can dial any one of a score of numbers and the world's most famous, most beautiful women are there to answer: "I'd love to! What time?"

At twenty-two he can say, "I think Sonja Henie is a lovely girl, but I will not marry her--or anybody--for several years because I'm too busy." And he can say. "I don't care what happens to me in pictures. I can always go back to New York to the stage." Tyrone Power, who played football with the Hunkies from across the tracks in Cincinnati, who only yesterday lived precariously in empty apartment buildings between changes of ownership can say these things without blinking an eye.

He is ineffably attuned to 1937, easily one of the year's most important young moderns. He is the personification of this new day, and of his astounding generation. things become him--the last notch of speed to be forced from powerful motors; the crashing, orgasmic finale to a Gershwin orchestration; sleek, superbly smart women with faces by Arden and minds by Havelock Ellis; the vital tense restlessness of the American mob; speedboats and the latest novel and the latest play and the latest amusing phrase and the latest anything.

Whatever happens, he will survive, He's too intelligent, too evolved, and too impatient with life to do anything else.