”In the first place,” Tyrone explained, “I don’t think it would be fair for me to get married now-I am not well enough established and I am too busy to be a good husband. Perhaps in another five years-“

He laughed. “You know, I think I am asked more questions and do more talking on the subject of marriage than any four other fellows, but I really don’t’ want to get married! Not now--not for years!” But there was twinkle in his eye, a laugh at his own expense. “At least, that is the way I feel today!”

A few years ago Tyrone was struggling determinedly to get into the movies. He always had wanted to be an actor, which was natural enough since his earliest memories were of the theatre and all his associations with theatrical people. His father, also Tyrone Power, was one of our foremost Shakespearean actors. His mother, Patia Power, was herself a fine actress, and although she was determined to make a real home for her two children, Tyrone and Ann, she kept in touch with things theatrical, organizing and managing a stock company during the war and later occupying a chair of voice and expression in a dramatic school in Cincinnati.

Tyrone was born in Cincinnati and was nine when they returned to that city. In the meantime, they had lived in New York and Santa Barbara, where they had gone for his health, but it is Cincinnati where his roots went deep, Cincinnati which will always be home.

Naturally, Mrs. Power early began to train her young son in dramatic expression. He was barely seven when he appeared in a Mission play, in which his mother played the lead, in San Garbriel, California, and by a splendid performance won especial notice in the newspaper reviews. At eight, he recited his first poem over the radio.

In Cincinnati, Mrs. Power put on plays and trained her pupils for radio performances, in which her young son occasionally had small parts. Meantime, he attended school, played the leading role in his class play and augmented his small allowance by ushering in a local theatre and soda-jerking at a corner drugstore.

Graduating from Purcell at seventeen, Tyrone broached the subject nearest his heart. His mother had planned to send him to college, but Tyrone saw no use in wasting any more time. If he were to be an actor, it was time he was getting started. Hi mother yielded-he was very young, but obviously, he knew what he wanted.

Tyrone’s mother and father had been separated for some years, but the logical step now seemed to be for Mr. Power to take charge of his son’s career and see that he got the right start. After several weeks of intensive training in Shakespearean roles, Tyrone made his first appearance on the stage in Chicago, with his father. In the company were Fritz Lieber, William Faversham and Helen Menken.

His association with these famous actors strengthened his ideals and ambitions and was a liberal education in the best school of American acting. With such an introduction, it looked as if Tyrone’s future was assured, as if he might look forward to working his way steadily up the ladder of fame. But fate brought Tyrone and his father to Hollywood, to appear in Paramount’s production of The Miracle Man and a few weeks later, Mr. Power was suddenly taken ill and died.

Mrs. Power and Ann came at once to be with Tyrone. The boy braced himself against shock and grief and determinedly began his own assault against the Hollywood gates. His part in The Miracle Man did not materialize and Tyrone found that, while he could win an audience eon the strength of his father’s name, it was only because people were ready and willing to talk, to reminisce about the famous actor, not because they were interested in his son.

At the time, the struggle seemed long and bitter and well night hopeless to the ambitious, eager boy. Now he looks back on it and laughs.

”It was like finding a door locked against you, and putting your shoulder against it, determined to push and push until it opened-and having it suddenly give way, hurling you inside with such force that it left you off balance-I am still stumbling!”

How it happened is one more Hollywood fairly tale. After two years of repeated discouragement, almost getting something, but never quite, Tyrone reluctantly turned his back on Hollywood and set out for New York.

A stopover in Chicago delayed him somewhat and played a certain part in his eventual success. It was Fair time in Chicago, and Tyrone was persuaded by some young friends to try out for the Circuit Theatre production. He was engaged, but the remuneration was small so he decided to audition at NBC and soon found himself signing on the dotted line. Actually, the contract was of little value, as there was no emolument connected with it, it merely limited him to the NBC airwaves, and no opportunity presented itself of demonstrating his ability. He read the comics, he plays an occasional small part on the Grand Hotel program, he read commercials. Except that it marked the beginning of his friendship with Don Ameche, with whom he has been associated in pictures, he had little to show for the passing weeks.

More disappointments awaited him in that city, but he was fortunate in being the guest of Michael Strange, poet and playwright, and her husband, Harrison Tweed. The Tweeds were more than helpful to their young house guest, but were far from realizing his actual financial state. Tyrone was elated when he had a chance to appear on an NBC program and cheerfully walked from 86th Street to Radio City-at lest, he thought, he could ride back! But at the conclusion of the broadcast, he was informed a check would be mailed to him. Swallowing his disappointment, he waved an airy okay-after all, walking was good exercise!

After that, he appeared several times on the Roses and Drums program. More recently, he was featured in a skit on Rudy Vallee’s program. But radio was to prove no open sesame to fame. However, while Tyrone was desperately hanging on, unwilling t write home for help or to leave New York, what he still considers the best break he ever had had was right around the corner. Helen Menken, with whom he had played in Chicago, had talked to Guthrie McClintic, famous stage director and husband of Katharine Cornell, about young Power and Tyrone received a call from him and was immediately signed to understudy Burgess Meredith, who was playing the lead in Flowers of the Forest, starring Katharine Cornell.

When the play closed, Miss Cornell saw that Tyrone had a contract for the next season, and he returned to Cincinnati for a few weeks’ vacation with his mother, with the pleasing consciousness of that precious paper rustling in his pocket.

”It was like Miss Cornell to realize what it would meant to me to have the actual contract in my possession,” Tyrone commented. “She is the most understanding person….”

Tyrone played Benvolio In Miss Cornell’s production of Romeo and Julietthat fall, after a few weeks with a summer stock company at West Falmouth, Massachusetts. And now the familiar Hollywood tale repeats itself-talent scouts caught up with him, endeavoring to entice him back to the cinema city. Tyrone, however, continued with Katherine Cornell a while longer, playing with her in St. Joan and profiting immeasurably by his association with her and her company.

But he took time out for a screen test, and Darryl Zanuck of 20th Century-Fox was quick to realize that the boy had something. The gates that had seemed so formidable swung open and Tyrone found himself inside…

Lloyds of London was his first bid opportunity. Almost overnight, the move world was Tyrone Power conscious, the girls and women crazy about him, the fan mail piling up. But Tyrone is much more than a handsome boy, a boy with that mysterious appeal that women of all ages find so irresistible. He has looks and physical attraction to a degree, but above and beyond that, he is an actor. Seasoned critics and fine actors have recognized his ability and are confident that he is tops among the younger actors and will remain tops.

And Tyrone himself has not been bewildered or misled by his quick success, but is intent on forging ahead, on striving for further achievements. As a matter of fact, he prefers character parts, something he can get a grip on. In a role of the handsome leading man type, he is ill-at-ease, self-conscious. What he wants is not just to photograph well, but a chance to act.

“A few years ago,” he admits, “if anyone had asked me if I’d like to be right where I am now, I would have thought it was the ultimate goal. It was what I longed for, dreamed of. But it is like anything else,--when you reach one goal, you see another beyond it. There is always something more to strive for…”

That is why he likes the forceful part he has in In Old Chicago. And why he is very much excited over the radio opportunity which is his at last-under Woodbury sponsorship, on the NBC network, he is to do a series of half-hour plays and not only to have the lead but to have a voice in selecting his vehicles. It is a thrilling opportunity, to a boy of twenty-three.

It is the habit of movie studios and press agents, these days, to manufacture romances for their young actors and actresses. Because of his popularity and natural interest in the opposite sex, Tyrone is excellent material. His romance with Sonja Henie began this way, as a good press story for their picture, Thin Ice. Oftentimes, such an artificial romance leads to a real love story, no more.

In this case, Tyrone and Sonja came to be genuinely fond of each other, real friends enjoying their companionship and, perhaps, ignoring for a while deeper implications. It seems likely now that Sonja’s emotions were the more deeply involved of the two. In any case, this romance, rumored on and off so many times by the press, is not likely to lead to marriage, for while Tyrone is no more fickle than any other boy of his age, he definitely is not ready for marriage and his tastes change, his attentions wander from one pretty girl to another.

When I suggested that the two girls he is with most constantly, Sonja and Loretta Young, seemed to me as different as two girls could be, Sonja being the forthright sportswoman and business woman, the almost masculine type, while gracious and gentle Loretta was essentially the languid, clinging vine type, Tyrone agreed. “That’s another reason why I shouldn’t marry,” he grinned.

After a moment, he went on: “I still believe that some day I’ll meet a girl who combines all the qualities I like. A professional woman, probably-and I don’t mean necessarily an actress, but a girl who is doing something, who has that quality of awareness peculiar to people who lead active lives of one sort of another…”

There is one quality Tyrone is particularly wary of and tat is possessiveness. He doesn’t want to be “the world and all” to any woman, the center of her interests, the hub of her universe. That is one reason why a girl with a career appeals to him, for her interests are necessarily divided and she would be less demanding than the girl who was merely wife and sweetheart.

Tyrone is very independent, somewhat self-willed, occasionally stubborn. He had to live his own life, to shape it as he thinks best to feel free, not bound to anyone’s apron-strings. After years of devoting herself entirely to Tyrone, of being absorbed in his welfare, his development, his mother has found it necessary to adjust herself to this independence of spirit. Not that he isn’t grateful for all she had done-he is thoroughly appreciative, utterly devoted. But he is at the age which has to make its own mistakes, abide by its own decision. And the girl who falls in love with him would be wise to recognize that only a loose reign will serve in holding this spirited young man.

In spite of his youth, he is wise in his way of living, investing his money carefully through “Uncle Frank” Adams, the friend and financial adviser who stood by him in the lean years.

He lives quietly with his mother in Beverly Hills.

”Probably I am the only actor in Hollywood who has neither a swimming pool nor a bar!” he remarked.

He is a loyal friend. Tommy Noonan, his stand-in and pal, was a former schoolmate, and he has kept in touch with other boyhood friends. He did spurge to the extent of buying a Cord, but though he likes a good time as well as the next fellow, he is working too hard to have much time for sports or for nightclubs. He loathes parties where people always say the same things, but enjoys a twosome or foursome for dinner and dancing.

He is, when all is said and done, a normal, talented boy, his ingratiating ways, his charming manners, his gay good humor and love for fun offset by a keen conception of what he wants of life, a strong determination to reach his goal, a sense of values, strengthened by vivid memories of the lean and difficult years. He won’t waste time fighting windmills, but he wont’ let anyone divert him from the path has chosen.

Success is his goal and his excellent training, plus his native ability, have him well on the road. When he decides upon marriage, he will bring the same qualities to it and the girl he chooses will be lucky, indeed.

“Of course, you can theorize,” he summed it up lightly, “and make up your mind to do this or not to do that, but it is always possible something will happen to change your mind. I mean it when I say I don’t want to marry, for lots of reasons-and good reasons! But if I happened to meet somebody, I might feel differently-tomorrow!”

”Or even today?” I suggested.

He grinned. “Or even today!” he admitted, after a moment.