You want the un-retouched truth about Tyrone Power?

Then here it is!

I have just spent a whole day, a real day with the new man in Hollywood. I chanced to get to the runner-up to Gable and Taylor directly, at his own home. No studio people were around and he was frankly himself.

Success-a Grand Romance-doing for his mother at last-planning to move to Beverly Hills-adjusting himself to a steady, better income-having fun in the fashion he prefers--! That's what I found him plunging into.

Great luck was with me, you see. Late last night my telephone rang.

His 'This is Tyrone' was entirely superfluous. That quality in his voice gives him away immediately. He's one young actor whose diction is that of a genuine gentleman.

'Stop bothering with celebrities!' he exclaimed. 'Let Gloria Glad Think up her own excuse for falling in love again. We got in an hour ago from Mount Rainier and I want to know what's been going on while we've been battling through snowdrifts. Come to breakfast at 9, can't you? And be ready to tell me what's been going on.'

He's been away on location for a week, with Sonja Henie and the 'Thin Ice' troupe that went North for ski shots. But weeks are seasons to Tyrone now-they're so crammed with climaxes.

You may be sure I recognized Opportunity thundering at me. I'd been to Tyrone's once for a formal luncheon interview; since then I'd become acquainted with him at 20th Century-Fox where he's rushed into one role after another. He'd seemed to deserve being the overnight runner-up to Gable and Taylor. He'd seemed too wise to be blas', too remindful of disappointing yesterdays to be a fool. By joining him casually like this I could discover how accurately I'd judged him. I could catch him off-guard.

He rents a low, white cottage in the central Hollywood district where houses are comfortable rather than spectacular. The architecture and furnishings are pleasant, instead of period. Because he's in the block below the swanky Sunset Tower apartment and is emphatically dwarfed by that fashionable building, he facetiously tags his place Power's Towers.

A maid quietly let me in. Tyrone emerged from behind a newspaper. A woman would be engulfed by his smile, would fine his eyes the warmest of brown. To me he's handsome and I let his looks go at that. He has remarkable poise, no inhibition and a refreshing enthusiasm.

He reacts strongly, emotionally to every situation.

'I must read my paper through every morning,' he grinned. 'Of course, until I have my coffee I'm not waked-up so I don't digest the news very intelligently!'

His mother, beautiful and gracious, came forward from the sun room adjoining the living room. 'I'm involved with clippings,' she declared, laying down scissors and a magazine. 'The minute Tyrone was back he went to the corner drugstore for the new magazines and so I'm merrily clipping and pasting away.'

Tyrone doesn't pretend this success he's having is merely what he expected. He dreamt of it, longed for it, struggled for it so passionately that he is honestly thrilled with every evidence that he is 'registering.'

He and I went on out to the porch that overlooks a small, enclosed back lawn. Breakfast, and Tyrone eats heartily in the hope that he'll gain weight, was served by his excellent cook.

'Well, it's this way,' he said when I complimented the food. 'I didn't always eat regularly when I was trying to get a break in pictures. And I enjoy eating regularly-and well!'

His pride made him persist in tackling Hollywood without financial aid from his mother. She was teaching dramatics in Cleveland and he came West when his father, particularly noted for a Shakespearian repertoire, was signed for a film lead. Before the picture got into production his father died-in Tyrone's arms.

'I'm going to move once more,' Tyrone admitted. 'We've been here almost a year, which is a record. But I'm looking in Beverly for a larger house. Here the garage is under mother's bedroom and I waken her when I come in late and go out early. Anyway, living in Beverly will be more living, won't it?'

Being with Tyrone, I was beginning to sense, is living as you've always meant to live. Dreams are materializing fantastically for him and shortly you, too, are gulping with excitement. Other stars have to recapture big moments; he's having all of his right now.

'In one year I was in and out of ten different apartment,' he was confessing next. 'After my father's death I stayed on in Hollywood. After a while I hung on. I got a stock contract at Universal which paid just enough for aboard and room. Richard Cromwell used to stop by and give me a ride to the studio. But I quite that embryo drama school because it wasn't leading to screen roles for anyone it. Father had left me a little money and gradually I was down to one room and not too much food as I tried for parts in pictures. I couldn't even get extra work!'

Fortunately the stage, after a two-year assault, was kinder.

'now that mother's with me after our having been apart for five years I want her to have the best.'

But having the best revived the memory of Uncle Frank.

'Can you drive downtown with me? I've got to see Uncle Frank!'

A person so important to Tyrone was a person I knew I should meet. While Tyrone put on a suite I glanced around his won room. Two huge photographs of Sonja Henie were autographed in the tenderest of terms. They dressed up the masculine simplicity of the bedroom.

Out to the garage we sped, and climbed into his Cord. It's an all-black convertible model and Tyrone, being anxious to tan, keeps the top down most of the time. As we hurried down Wilshire Boulevard he admitted, 'I usually am guilty of a silly stunt. I stick the morning paper into the car and whenever I get to a stop signal I grab my journal and read while I'm waiting. Then the horns commence behind me to bring me back to earth.'

But by now I could no longer suppress my curiosity as to the purpose of this jaunt.

'Oh, pardon me,' cried Tyrone. 'Uncle Frank's the banker! I mean he isn't a real uncle. Nor a banker, for that matter. He was my father's attorney and so as soon as I got my contract I remembered what respect I'd always had for him and his opinions I went to him and asked him if he'd handle my salary. After all, I know what poor businessmen most actors are; I want to save something. Consequently I'm on a budget that's not so large as I'll bet you imagine. All bills go to Uncle Frank and I just have a little each week for a few personal expenses. The only time I've been on the carpet was when I sent all those orchids to Sonja.' When Sonja left town for a skating tour Tyrone impetuously wired her a bouquet of orchids for each exhibition. 'The florist,' Tyrone recollected happily, 'didn't present the bill to Uncle Frank until I'd been able to send quite a few bouquets! I'm not extravagant, though,' he added. 'I've been accustomed to stretching actual cash and I still stretch it.'

Uncle Frank proved to be a genial guardian. Tyrone conferred with him about the move to Beverly. 'Since my option's been taken up, I really should get out there. It'll be keen for mother not to have to sleep over my car coming and going. We can find a place, reasonable enough, that'll have a swimming pool. Carl, down at the athletic club, has recommended more swimming for me, you know. And then we can have a small playroom, with room for badminton net. I have to return some of these social obligation I'm acquiring!'

'My boy, I don't need all that sales chatter!' Uncle Frank beamed and Tyrone, hitherto diplomatically grave, chuckled outright. 'You may look for a larger house,' continued the sage of the Power funds. 'But better let your mother do the looking, and better have her say it's for herself. If you go around they'll raise their prices on you.'

Whereupon we left the office building, Tyrone attempting to be nonchalant under the admiring stares cast his way by everyone who saw him.

We'd lingered over breakfast and it was nearing 11:30 as we crossed Western Avenue, half-way back to Hollywood from Los Angeles. I learned then precisely what's a treat to a movie star.

'Do you mind if we stop in at Westmore's for a few minutes?' Tyrone questioned. 'I feel like a bender.'

I coughed impolitely. 'At a hair and wig establishment?'

'Sure! That's where I get my hair cut. When you're on a picture a haircut has to be a delicate proposition; it must be just a snip and a snap so you're in a state of status quo. for the camera. But now I don't to work for two weeks. So I'm going to be sheared!' At my look of horror he amplified. 'You don't think actors like those long haircuts that are foisted on them in the name of Art, do you? They're like wanting to scratch yourself and not being able to. So whenever I'm certain I won't be looking into a camera for a spell I have me a hair bender!' His face was ecstatic.

He didn't say that he had to get to telephone, too. But before he embarked on a haircut he made a call. And then luck was with me once more. There was no booth.

He dialed.

'May I have Miss Henie, please?' An impatient bit of foot-tapping. 'Oh, Sonja!' If Sonja didn't practically swoon at his ardor she isn't normal. 'Can you have lunch with me? No--?' He stamped out his cigarette. Despair gripped him. 'But I'd planned on it; I haven't' seen you for so long.' (Not since last night.) A pause. A sigh. Intent listening to a lengthy interpretation of the emergency that had evidently arisen the hour before. Slowly but distinctly Tyrone's face went into high. He was exultant, his voice tender. 'I've two places to take you this evening, Sonja!'

Like Caesar entering Rome, he turned around to me. 'Shall we,' he laughed, 'have a haircut?' I'd hate to look in a mirror; Tyrone didn't dare be too rash himself, but he encourage my barber and I fear I've a convict contour. 'Awfully cool for the summer, Tyrone kept muttering.

So no wonder I accepted his bid to lunch. I don't know whether the Vendome will appreciate this, but Gable and Taylor prefer dive-in stands for mid-day refreshment, and Tyrone doesn't give a hoot for the movie colony's most expensive noon rendezvous, either.

'Let's drop in at Schwabs,' he proposed. Schwabs is the drugstore at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Laurel Canyon Road. We parked in the pseudomarble-fronted market next door and climbed upon stools at the soda fountain counter. We got the last two vacant spots. The clerks smiled as at an old friend; only half the customers were in danger of falling off their stools. He was, it appeared a pretty habitual visitor. He walked in quietly, without an air of Here-I-Come.

There's nothing that betrays a snob more than a soft-pedaling or denial of everyday work in the past. Which made Tyrone's conversation over our double-decker sandwiches and milkshakes of special interest.

'A drugstore's rather homey to me,' he said. 'When I was in high school I worked in one after classes. At first I rode a motorcycle, delivering. Then I progressed to the soda fountain. I could leap over and give these fellows a lesson in sundaes! You know, I come here to buy the new magazines because I sued to pore through the magazine stand in that store back in Cincinnati.

'I'm not methodical now, but I was then. I kept tab on things-for my own satisfaction. For instance, I bought ordinary composition books and then charted which cigarettes were selling best, what request was made most often, and funny things like that. But I really was serious when I was ushering. Oh yes; I ushered in a movie theatre on my high school nights. For two years, anyway. And I kept confidential notes. I recorded box-office receipts for each picture; I wrote down the names of the director, producer, cameraman, scenarist, and designers. I even wrote a review of each film, analyzing its appeal.'

When Tyrone makes up his mind on a goal he studies all possible, pertinent factors, obviously. No matter how far he is from his objective.

'A real estate agent mentioned a particular house out in Beverly that he believed I'd like. Will you come along and look at it with me?'

Would I! Tyrone's unabashed vitality make him extraordinarily stimulating. Being with him when he considered a new home was next to picking out a star residence for one's self.

So we skimmed out Sunset passing the 'modern' shops that have cropped up on both sides of the Trocadero. 'I like the informal downstairs room there at the Troc more than the main dining room. It's cozier, I guess.'

Only after that remark of his was I at last aware that the radio had been going all the while we'd been in the car. Tyrone turns a radio on whenever he's near one, most always to classical music. But he rarely listens. The music subtly soothes him.

'I've a hunch the rent will be too high here,' he remarked sotto voice as he rang the doorbell of a near-mansion. 'It isn't pseudo-Spanish, thank God, but'' A butler bowed. Yes the lower rooms might be examined by Mr. Power. Madame was still asleep, so we'd have to return later to inspect the second floor. The swimming pool in the garden, a miniature Eden, fascinated Tyrone.

'It reminds me of exercise. Can you come to the Polar Palace with me?'

I could. And clear across Hollywood we skimmed; distances are nothing to the dynamic should like Tyrone. En route I remembered how I'd played tennis with Robert Taylor and ridden horseback with Clark Gable, on days with them. Sharply I remembered I couldn't' ice skate!

'But I never ice skated in the East,' Tyrone reassured me. 'After I met Sonja I decided I should at least be able to stagger around a rink. I came down here every afternoon for several weeks; I got in a great deal of 'ground-work!' Now I can skate backwards. Haven't tried it for months, but after Mount Rainier and skiing I'm in the mood. I'll demonstrate the trick.'

It was the slack hour. He was glad, because he'd no sooner pushed off impetuously than his backward-skating fizzled. He landed even as you and I!

But he could take it. Indeed, if you'd been there you'd have had to take it also if you, to, were a novice. He likes chums whose perception is quick, mentally, and who are game, physically. I strapped on skates. Floor to the right of us, floor to the left of us, floor behind, before, and most of all icy floor beneath us. Oh, what ground-work we got n! Tyrone was tempted to do a figure eight. 'Sonja will be amused when I flash this. She taught me to ski up there on location. I'd never tried before and didn't know a ski from a butter knife. I'm not telling her about my skating until I master the elementary figures.'

When you court the girl who's held the world's ice skating honors since she was eleven you're biting off something to even glance at a skate. But the abandon with which Tyrone sailed forth to ultimately pose as a sit-down striker was splendid. And it would be when he was accidentally sitting most eloquently that he'd be finally besieged for autographs. Smilingly he obliged and everyone was delighted at finding him such a sport. Would you let you public see you sprawling?

'I became used to being tossed about in high school. The lads were not beyond tossing a fellow down a flight of stairs; they had zest for wrestling on the slightest provocation. I recall when some conspirators nonchalantly shoved me into a locker, with a tremendous bearskin coat fighting for the space. I nearly smothered in the half hour I was inside howling for help. Nice crowd. Wonderful training for ice skating!'

But his eyes had leapt to the clock. It [SIC] [SIC] Carl at the Hollywood Athletic Club. Are you still with me?'

I was, but if there was going to be any more strenuous conduct I was going to watch it.

Carl, the veteran trainer so many male stars go to, gave Tyrone an exhaustive routine. It seemed exhaustive tome, that is. He did time with a heavy medicine ball, did complete exercises, chinned on bars and punched at bags. Some fast sparring and Tyrone wound up with a swim in the pool-and so did I.

On our way out of the locker rooms he reached for his pocketbook. 'To see if I can buy us a cocktail apiece!' A ring rolled from it and glistened on the cement. Tyrone retrieved it so hastily I was suspicious.

'Secret pledge from Sonja?' I asked.

He grimaced. 'Forget your chase celebrities, Ben! No. A fan sent me this and I always carry it for luck. Can't wear it, because it's too small. The girl who sent it said it had been given to her great grandmother in Romania, by a gypsy. Said it assures the wearer of health, happiness, and success. It arrived a month ago with a letter concluding, 'I think you need this more than I do!''

And that demanded a Martini, no less. He would, for it was a jaunt to Beverly again. (Uncle Frank: Don't you ever check his gasoline consumption?'

Who should we run into there but Loretta Young, playing guide to visiting relatives. The Hawaiian cocktail room took on a sparkle as screen boy met screen girl. Having done two films together, Tyrone and Loretta are starting a third after he does his bid scenes with Sonja.

'I hear they previewed our new picture,' Loretta beamed. 'They say there was applause for the flower shop sequence.'

Tyrone groaned, feigning misery. 'But I had nothing to do in that part.'

Loretta retorted, 'Why, yes, they had the cameras on you for that one line. Don't you remember it?

'I wonder,' he mused, 'which angle the close-up there-'

'Why, my angle, Tyrone! No doubt they selected a gorgeous focusing on me.'

She laughed, and so did he. Loretta explained, 'Tyrone can 'rib' better than anyone in town. The director, Tyrone and I were having lunch at the studio as we were finishing on that picture we've been talking shop about. The director and I had been congratulating Tyrone on the variety he's had in his assignments. 'Yes,' he informed us solemnly, 'everything has been ideal. Although I haven't had much luck with my leading ladies.' Well,' gasped Loretta, 'I'd been kidded like that fifty times before, but never so convincingly. I couldn't help a double-take. He was fresh! Of all the nerve!! Then I looked him in the face and the darned fool was roaring.'

Tyrone interrupted/ 'The 'rib' that lingers on with me was the one pulled on me about getting my contract. 20th Century tested me in New York and advised me they'd inform me in two weeks if I'd do. I was shrouded in suspense. Three weeks dragged by, and no message. Then one matinee I received a wire from the New York head of the company, instructing me to contact my manager because the test was excellent. I almost let the show go on without me, tussling with the telephone. The manager phoned back that no one at 20th Century knew anything about it. It was a 'practical' joke!' We all moaned. 'However,' topped Tyrone to cheer us up, 'two days later the company did sign me after all!'

Loretta and her party leaving-with Tyrone you do meet such interesting folk-he glanced at his lapel watch. 'Six o'clock! Dinner's at home in another hour. If you'll join mother and me I'll play hooky from my piano lesson.'

'Your what?'

'Why, didn't you know I'm giving myself a jazz course? I have the book, the fancy chart all Technicolored so I match my fingers with certain shades! Scientific and painless-no scales. I'm trying to develop a swing base. When I was a child I murdered 'The Jolly Postman' and now I murder my favorite piece.'

'Which is--?'

'Have you no detective strain at all? Don't you ever go sleuthing? What could it be? Not 'Blue Hawaii.' Of courts it's 'One In a Million.' And once in a million tries I nearly get it right on my piano.'

The dinner was the kind you'd have every night if you were a star.

The date for which he ditched me afterwards was with the heroine of his pet tune. He was escorting Sonja to the bowling alley on Wilshire Boulevard where he plays two nights a week. He's the second best bowler among all the actors in Hollywood and that way she has of sitting all evening while he embarrasses his competitors is a trip to the femininity he finds behind her championship fame. The other place he took her, for a nightcap, was for a brisk drive to the beach for a whirl on the roller coaster.

The denouement, Tyrone, is this story. You're a celebrity yourself, pal. (Or are you a pal anymore?) You told me to sleuth it up when I was in the very act of Charlie Channing on you!

The day has been the most exhilarating day you can have in Hollywood, because everything you've though can't happen in these times is busily happening to Tyrone Power all at once. Everything swell, I mean.

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