Few stars have enjoyed the whirl of sudden success as much as Tyrone Power has. Paradoxically, a few stars have shared Power’s need to escape periodically from all the Hollywood success implies.

Power was plunged abruptly into a magic-making group where he, too, was distinguished and important. All the small troubles of everyday life disappeared miraculously. He who had been so ignored and discouraged was assigned one prize after another.

Caught up in this web of Hollywood activity, Tyrone at first beamed constantly. Everything he did, the whole atmosphere about him, was charged with dramatics. He had wanted events to pop fast and furiously, and his dream had materialized.

Because he is emotional, he was afire most of the time. He had fought to acquire a good speaking voice. No one had been impressed. Then all the study bore fruit in an incredible rush for his services. To him it was an overwhelming sensation to become the white-haired lad.

During his first year of major progress, he tried to crowd in all the social functions to which he was invited. The established leaders of Hollywood, accustomed to doling out their time and energy, were insistent. No more could Tyrone say, “No, I’d better stay home,” than he could have said, “Yes, I’ll be glad to attend,” a year earlier.

The conflict between society and dawn calls to be on sets for work taught him he had only so much energy. He cut dinner-partying to a reasonable scale.

Slowly he began to realize how few hours he was going to have to himself. He’d sworn he wanted to be so busy he’d never have a moment of idleness. He had to experience the unbelievable strain Hollywood popularity can cause before he grew up mentally.

”Everyone has to digest what life feeds him,” Tyrone says now, “and I had too full a stomach for a spell!”

He won’t allow a single quote to the effect that he worked too steadily for his own good. “I tried too hard to land my opportunity to ever complain about too much work!” He exclaims. He won’t admit the barrage of continual invitations finally floored him, depressed him because he just couldn’t possibly be in so many places at once, please so many people no matter how willing he was to be agreeable.

Nevertheless, as a friend who knows how impulsive Tyrone was, I can tell you that he did reach the spot where he had to find relief from the Hollywood strain. He’d uncomplainingly attempted to do more than anyone could do-without some sort of in-between pause. And had he not stopped to analyze his strange tenseness, he would I feel, have burned himself out in a blaze of well-meant appreciation.

Another trouble has been his inability to enjoy normal contacts. While in Missouri on location, Tyrone preferred to spend his time with a young woman to whom he was introduced at a village dance.

“When I meet a regular girl,” he said, in speaking of her “the first count’s against me. I’ve go to demonstrate immediately I’m not a conceited movie actor! I liked that girl because she was cute and fun and as interested in her work as I am in mine.”

But relaxes, spontaneous hours with her were rare, for almost everywhere he goes now Tyrone is in for stares and immediate attention. The near tragedy that practically nobody in Hollywood recognized centered right around as simple a point as this: Power was trading himself, all his potentialities, for stardom. The ever-increasing pressure under which he had to live threatened to ruin his rewards for him.

His first attempt to put Hollywood behind him for a few weeks took place last summer. Mexico seemed to be the best bet. Hector Dods, head cutter at 20th Century Fox, flew with him to Mexico City. To some extent, the vacation was satisfactory. But whenever he took in the sights, half a dozen star worshippers gaped at him.

”I think we ended up about even,” he said ruefully, after he returned to Hollywood.

Tyrone discovered airports are not lighted in Mexico, hence there is no night flying. But when the plane sat down on the high plateau of Mexico City, though it was pouring rain, there were 3,000 rabid Power fans waiting in the dusk to greet him. He and Dods had to be whisked to an inside hangar room, where fans broke through a glass door. Police helped them out, finally, by a back entrance.

An officer was stationed outside his suite at the fashionable Reforma Hotel, to ward off eager fans. “One afternoon I had the experience known as being ‘caught short’ Tyrone told his Hollywood friends. After a particularly busy day, the heat suggested a couple of beers. Comfortable in shorts, Power and Dods believed the knock on the door was their returning officer guard. Tyrone shouted, “Come in!” And in swooped 15 wild-eyed senoritas.

Dods, a fine polo player, arranged for them to play with the Mexican army team every morning for ten days. Although Tyrone had never held a polo stick in his hands before, he scored a goal against Mexico’s experts.

Always anxious to investigate and enjoy new things, Tyrone was feted continuously. The president’s wife gave a cocktail party for him in the presidential mansion. The chief of police of Mexico City staged a charra, a rodeo , in his honor and it was there he met the lovely niece of President Cardenas. They danced frequently; it didn’t take him long to learn how charming Mexican beauties can be. The American ambassador was gracious. Tyrone had to use a rear exit from the hotel to get away to see the pyramids, yet he autographed photographs and scraps of paper for hours and hours. “When anyone asks me for an autograph, believe me, I’m complimented!”

He decided to squeeze in the quiet of Mazatlan before coming home, He and Dods rushed to the airport and secured the last seats on the plane. There was no room for their one big suitcase, so Tyrone oblivious to the stares, blithely rummaged through it for his toothbrush and razor. That was all he had in the way of baggage for his stay on the West coast of Mexico.

All in all, it was a pleasant holiday-not too restful, perhaps, but at least a change from Hollywood life.

Despite the unpleasant elements in the Mexican trip, Mexico must have impressed Tyrone favorably. His most recent journey took him over some of the same ground he visited last summer.

On Nov. 8 he left Los Angeles for Mazatlan, the first jump on a 20,000 mile flying trip around south America. Save for a repetition of the difficulties encountered on his Mexican trip, it gave every promise of being a pleasant jaunt.

”I love to fly,” Tyrone has said many times. “Let me have one glimpse of a plane and I’m itching to climb aboard. An airplane’s the magic carpet of the present day. I get a great kick out of plunging into strange countries, into different languages and customs so swiftly.

”I’ve always longed to see South America. I’ve heard so much of its beauty, so much about how friendly and gay it is. Watch me roll down to Rio! In grammar school the Andes always sounded exciting to me, and the Incas were especially fascinating. I’ve wanted to fly over the Andes. Well, no matter what happens now, I will have flown over those mountains.”

Tyrone has seen his dream come true. On Nov. 28, he arrived in Rio de Janeiro, having flown form Santiago, Chile, to Buenos Aires and then up the coast to Rio.

In Rio, he made the headlines by meeting lovely Annabella and accompanying her to Pleasure Isle, the home of Brazilian millionaire. Romance rumors filled the air at once.

Tyrone’s stop at Porto Alegra was marred by the violence of his fans’ enthusiasm. After the 20 minute stop was over, Tyrone was half crippled by an arm injury he received at the hands of a wildly excited mob. He is due back in Hollywood as this issue of SCREEN BOOK Magazine goes to press.

Tyrone is making another bid for peace, one that promises to be ore successful than his vacation tours. He can afford to vacation anywhere he’d like to go. But wherever movies are shown, someone is bound to spot him. The answer to his situation has been found in an island somewhere off the west coast of Mexico.

”I know that I’ll handle myself better now that I’ve arranged for some hidden holidays,” he explains. “I’ll duck to the island for real rests. I haven’t bought it; I live on too strict a budget. I can’t go around purchasing islands. But I’ve done the next best thing. I’ve leased it.

It’s in the Pacific, three miles of the shoreline of a little Mexican town. I have no elaborate ideas for it. I won’t build a Hollywood place there. I can survive marvelously without a playroom or a frigidaire. I have no electric current. But to me there’s something about a wood stove that’s rather pleasant and the moonlight they have down there more than compensates! It’s a convenient bit of the South Seas and it has an ideal beach. The grass on the hills is lush and green all the year around. The weather is always warm.

I found this haven last summer and I hope to go there for a few weeks as often as I can. It will be the thorough contradiction of the hard work here I Hollywood, of the bustle of a New York visit. I’ll be able to read and fish and think leisurely. I’ll permit no schedule there. It will be all comfortable laziness. Down there I can slow down, get the correct perspective on my life. I wan my niche as an actor to be permanent. That means I must keep improving. Unless I can estimate myself, periodically, I won’t check on myself efficiently enough.

”Most of all I want to be a success as a human being. I must straighten out a number of possibly choices and I’ve a hunch my forthcoming ‘duck-outs’ will help me turn the trick.”

Some stars lose their original resolutions in the whirlpool of Hollywood. They become chameleons, so affected by calculating persons that they fail miserable. Other drink and philander away their envied positions. But Tyrone Power ranks with the few who are trying to create a sane future.