Tyrone Power and Annabella in love! The gloriously romantic story of how she won the heart of Hollywood’s most eligible bachelor, simply because she didn’t try

“I’m in love. I’m I love as I never have been before.”

These words, confessed by Tyrone Power to a friend before leaving for South America and revealed only after his secret had leaked out, confirms that truth of Hollywood’s greatest surprise romance.

I’m in love as I never have been before.”

And the girl who won Ty’s love and his heart is Annabella, the French actress who shared honors with the star in “Suez.”

If a bombshell had been placed directly under Hollywood’s front porch, the effect could have been no more devastating than the series of shocked explosives that took place at every Hollywood breakfast table when newspapers headlined this statement.

“Annabella sail for South America to keep romantic tryst with Tyrone Power.”

Telephones fairly zipped with the news. Wires hummed with the repeated question of “Did you even suspect it?” And then, once the hubbub had subsided, Hollywood began comparing notes, remembering little things that had happened, remembering times when Tyrone and Annabella had been seen together at this or that nightspot.

And we have our special memory, too. Memory of an incident, so pronounced it has sprung up in our mind many times since a day, several months ago when we satin the studio dining room lunching with Tyrone.

Tyrone had been telling us of his hopes and dreams for this very South American trip. And then Don Ameche stopped by the table for a word and as usual Don always leaves there laughing. And Tyrone and I were still laughing after Don had gone on to his own table. Suddenly we both glanced up at the same time to see Annabella, her tailored suit in keeping with her short boyish bob, enter the café. Instantly the laugh died in Tyrone’s eyes and a new look, one difficult to define, crept in. He followed her with his glance as she went quietly and unobtrusively to her table and then as he turned to speak to me, I noticed the look (one of quiet peace rather than one of interest or even excitement), was still there.

Intrigued, I looked at Annabella more attentively and saw only a plain little figure outshone by at least a dozen beautiful girls in that very room. The short clipped bob only emphasized the prominent cheekbones and wide mouth.

So we went back to our chicken al ling almost convinced our imagination had been playing us tricks.

“Besides, she’s married,” a member of the studio staff scoffed when we asked concerning a possibly romance.

So too, add to the facts that Annabella had far from proven herself a sensation in her American picture, “The Baroness and The Butler,” and that she was neither beautiful nor glamorous, she also had an attractive husband, the French actor, Jean Murat.

How then did this girl, above all others, win the hear of Hollywood’s most eligible bachelor? For with both Gable and Robert Taylor frankly devoting themselves to no one but Carole Lombard and Barbara Stanwyck, Tyrone, fancy free after his romance with Janet Gaynor, is Hollywood’s man of the hour; with no less than a half dozen beautiful and famous stars ready to lay their hearts at this feet.

How then (and even Hollywood is anxious to know) did this romance come to such seriousness that Tyrone could say, “I’m in love as I never have been before.” I’m in love as I never have been before.”

We know the answer. Through a friend of Annabella’s and one or two who were close to them while “Suez” was being made, we discovered these amazing facts.

She won him because she didn’t try to win him or even want him. Didn’t set her heart upon him with all the tenacity given to some of our Hollywood lassies who have been determined to snare the handsome, eligible actor. And what’s more important, she won him because she was the first woman he’d met in Hollywood who knew how to laugh and live and enjoy life as simply and honestly as a child.

They literally laughed their way into love.

There were no grim business conference, harangues over money or long personal appearances to mar their friendship. And Tyrone, weary from long months of constant work and sickened by the overdone publicity that fastened itself to the Sonja Henie, Janet Gaynor attachments, found in this woman merely a good comrade who knew-more important at the moment to Tyrone than glamour, wealth or beauty-how to enjoy life.

It happened this way and we promise you this is the first and only time these inside facts have been revealed.

Tyrone first met Annabella a short time before “Suez” was scheduled for shooting. They met only as casual acquaintances, chatted a bit about their future assignment together, and that was that.

But one day a short time later Tyrone turned the corner of a sound stage on the lot to run headlong into a minor commotion. A dog was barking, a girl squealing, a truck driver howling, a spectator shouting. Arrested by the furor Ty stopped to investigate and discovered Annabella and her dog, “Puddie,” had been having their usual romp before her dressing room when the truck driver had nearly run them both down.

“What the heck were you doing?” Tyrone demanded when he saw the girl was Annabella.

“It’s a game,” she laughed. “Look.” She tossed the ball to “Puddie” who ran, picked up the ball and promptly went into a Polka and jitterbug time before bringing it back to his mistress.

Well, it ended up with Ty, the truck driver, the spectator and Annabella, all shouting directions at once to the dog and each laughing louder than the other.

“It was her disarming simplicity and amazing capacity for the real enjoyment of simple things that caused those meant to realize here was something rare to Hollywood and something they weren’t going to miss,” one of the “Suez” workers told me. “You know, few women in Hollywood know how to laugh or play anymore. If it’s tennis or badminton or golf or hunting they take up, it’s all done with a do or die attitude that actually robs the sport of all its fun.”

Annabella carried that same spirit to her work, out on the back lot shouting to “Puddie” between scenes or off in a corner completely lost in some simple guessing game.

“I think,” this same friend confided, “the two things about her that appealed most strongly to Ty wren her ability to know, really to know how to enjoy life, and her utter indifference of him as a star and an attractive man. She liked him, enjoyed being with him but never once by word or thought or deed did she take advantage of his obvious enjoyment of her company. This very detachment, this setting him free from the chains that had already scared him to death on more than one occasion, was the thing that really brought them together.”

“I have a new game,” she’d announce on the set. “It’s called ‘An Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral.’”

And Annabella would join in the laughter that rose “It’s older than the hills, Annabella,” Tyrone would say, “But come on, let’s play. It sounds like fun all over again.”

And it was. Sometimes he’d seek her out and find her off the set with a minor member of the cast, the two romping with the dog.

It was Ty that was constantly seeking out Annabella’s company. Sometimes they’d strike out for a nearby restaurant for a late dinner after along day’s shooting.

And it was then Tyrone learned, but by bit, the story of the little French girl who wanted so badly to be a cinema star. They laughed over Annabella’s story of her first little theater in the chicken coop behind the house. She told him how for years she’d worn the pictures of Mae Murray and Norma Talmadge in her locket, and how one day at school the locket fell revealing the pictures.

“They’re my cousins,” she lied to the strict schoolmaster.

At seventeen, she told Tyrone of slipping into a Paris studio and her joy in being cast for a bit in a picture. Her face flushed with excitement as she told of her first great success abroad in “Wings of the Morning.” And then the heartache and loneliness that followed on her first Hollywood venture, when lonely and alone she made the French version of “Caravan” with Charles Boyer.

“I decided after that experience I was going to learn to speak English so I could talk to people,” she told him.

It was to Tyrone she first introduced her father, Monsieur Charpentier, the retired French journalist, and in company with her younger brother, the four really saw Hollywood. And Tyrone saw a new and wonderful Hollywood through the eyes of Annabella and her family. When few people in Hollywood knew Annabella’s young daughter by a former marriage was here with her, it was Tyrone who showered the little French girl with gifts and attention, choosing carefully trinkets that would appeal to a young foreigner in a strange country.

Then came a memorable night when Tyrone insisted Annabella visit the famous cocoanut Grove. Her short clipped bob gave her an impish loveliness as she whirled about the dance floor in Tyrone’s arms. The music the setting, the lights, all so familiar to Tyrone, took on a new beauty as he danced with this French girl in his arms. Suddenly he knew he loved her. Just in a moment he knew it.

She must have sensed some change for next day, while still as comradely and friendly as ever, she said casually, “I have written for Jean to come over. You have never met my husband.”

They tried very hard both of them to fight against the thing that had happened. But it was difficult to conceal even from each other. When prominent visitors came to the set they were always led first to Tyrone.

“I want you to meet Annabella,” he’d say immediately.

Jean Murat, I think knew almost at once what had happened. Annabella’s work in Hollywood and his in France had kept the two apart for so long they had almost outgrown their marriage.

Before he left for home the three had talked it out. Murat and Annabella agreed the break would eventually come anyway and so when her work in “Suez” was completed, she quietly slipped away to France to arrange for the divorce.

And still Hollywood little dreamed of the drama behind the constant unending drama of Hollywood. Ty was seen with this girl and that at various nightspots and after her work in “Suez” Hollywood forgot Annabella.

Forgot her until the newspapers revealed the secret that had been kept in both their hearts. Immediately the studio wired both its blessings and warnings. “Don’t marry until you return,” they wired Tyrone, wishing him happiness at the same time.

Whether these two will marry since his return to Hollywood is problematical. Close friends of Tyrone ‘s claim they will. Loyal South American fans who haunted the two in their journeys about the city of Rio de Janeiro are sure they will.

“Well,” shrugged one Hollywood beauty, “I’ve always had a hunch this glamourizing business is overdone. I remember when Annabella rushed into Mr. Zanuck’s office one day and begged not to be re-made Hollywood style, and Mr. Zanuck promised she could remain as she was, her own natural self. And look what it got her-only Tyrone Power, that’s all.”

No, I can’t say Hollywood as a whole is exactly pleased over the romance. But remembering the look in Tyrone’s eyes that day in the Commissary, and remembering his words, “I’m in love as I never have been before,” I’d say at this moment Tyrone Power is probably the happiest man in North or South America.

When Tyrone met Annabella in Rio de Janeiro, no doubt they hoped to elude reporters, fans, people-all the white glare of publicity. It was a vain hope, of course. For Ty is a famous young man now; he is reaping the rewards of a long struggle to reach the top-and he is also reaping the drawbacks which come with those rewards. If, perhaps, he is sorry that the world is watching him, wondering, speculating-then he should think back to the days, only a few years ago, when fame was something far to seek. Remembering that, he should remind himself that he is what he made himself. And he should be glad…..

Next month, look behind the headlines to the Tyrone Power of yesterday, as RADIO MIRROR begins a fascinating life story of this romantic young star. His boyhood-the tragedy which shadowed his career as it was just beginning-his first love affair-read about them all in the April issue of RADIO MIRROR