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Want to come along and look at how the Tyrone Power-Linda Christian marriage works? I've seen a lot of it.
Naturally, I've hard al the rumors--about it to working. And every time I've investigated...well, it IS working.
So after a while you say to yourself, "Hey, pull up a second. Maybe all the stories are cockeyed."
Seems like I've sort of followed them around. I've known Ty since the Annabella days.
He was in the War then...flying. He wrote her great long letters (Annabella, I mean). All about his flying adventures.
We would go up to her suite at the Pierre. And she would let me read parts of the letters. She was proud.
Then came Linda...and we all said we'd give this one three weeks.
I was there when they came home from the famous wedding in Rome.
We were all standing around in their suite. There were two of Linda's fur coats on the bed. Don't know where the other six were.
"Get that figure on Ty!" I said to somebody else there. Then somebody else said, "You look healthy, Ty."
"She's taking are of me." Ty patted mama on her most pattable part. Mama smiled appreciatively. She was a doll.
We asked whether she was going to keep on acting.
"I'd like to concentrate on having a family. That way there will be no combustion or frustration."
that's what she said then...and she pretty much kept to it...with just a couple of exception.
And when she has worked, Ty's never let anybody know of any objection he might have had...
A couple of years passed and again I was in their suite--at the Pierre. Funny thing...but this was the hotel where he'd stayed with Annabella.
Anyway...there was the phone.
Ty took it. I eavesdropped.
"Mrs. Power isn't here now. This is Mr. Power. Can I help you?"
Mr. Power could help, yes, thank you. Would Mr. give Mrs. Power a message? That Mrs. Power had been engaged to do a certain TV show.
And that Mrs. Power was expected to be there to rehearse at 7 p.m.?
"I'll assuredly tell her." Mr. Power is so blasted courteous and smooth in his manner that it makes an ordinarily guy discouraged.
Linda caused comment right away, doing TV.
an interviewer asked her, "What did Ty say to you right after he said, 'How do you do,' the first time?"
Linda answered: "Well, I don't think I could say that on the air."
Everybody to chattering about it. It seemed that Ty must have said something very, very dreadful to her after he said, "How do you do?"
So I asked him what he said.
"I don't know whatever it was I said," Ty answered, "and I'll give you another piece of news--Linda doesn't know, either! It's just her great knack of saying something provocative."
Ty said then that Linda'd be making more pictures except for one thing.
"She's always having a baby," he told me.
And now they've had their second one...and incidentally, that Linda's a doll when she's having a baby, too.
When she was having their second daughter, she was voted the Woman who Looks Least Like She's Pregnant by the barflies at the "21" Club.
"She looks like she's going to get it by mail," one observer said.
"Instead of by male," another added.
I sat with them one night in New York just before...and again in Rome just before...and neither time did she look like it.
But it was on her mind. For when she went to the ladies' room here in a New York restaurant, Linda said:
"and now if you'll excuse me, the baby must have its nose powdered."
She said "it" because then she didn't know. "It would be nice to have a little brother for Romina," Linda added. "She's getting so boy-crazy..."
so I would suspect that their two daughters won't be the last of the line.
In Rome, Linda was so carefree about the whole thing. She had about six weeks to go.
"Where are you going to have it?" I asked.
"Wherever we happen to be," she shrugged.
when Ty is on the road, touring in a play, Linda is occasionally seen in the cafes with an escort...but I've noticed that all the stories about them breaking up never seem to come true.
I would guess it's because they're sophisticated, liberal people who understand the world�s frailties about as well as anybody could.
My guess also is that they will make their marriage go.
If there is ever any minor rupture, you're not going to hear about it (I'm still guessing), and even if there's a major problem some time, you're not going to hear much about it--in my opinion--unless it's really grave.
They can't break up--they CAN'T--it wouldn't be fair to Italy!
I was sightseeing among the ruins just a few weeks ago in Rome. Our guide showed us to the Street of Caesar.
"Caesar actually walked down this old street," the guide said.
"But that up there--that is getting even more famous!"
"More famous than Caesar's street?" I said. "What could that be?"
"The church," he said, "where Tyrone Power married Linda Christian."
THE END
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