If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times, "Sure I' know him. I used to go to school with him. We played n the same basketball team. Gee, he was a nice kid. But he's a big shot in Hollywood now and doesn't know me from the side of a fence."

And, "Why I knew him when he didn't even have carfare uptown. We were great pals then. Lots of laughs. But he's in the chips now and I only see him on the screen."

They say it resentfully. They say it sadly. And they say it as if it were to be expected.

Forgetting the kids they went to school with and the fellows who were swell to them when they didn't have a dime seems to be one of the favorite indoor sports of Hollywood movie stars. You might think the pin-heads in circuses have bad memories, but you just ought to see the big-heads in Hollywood. Not all of them, however. Regular guys like George Raft, Jimmy Cagney, Dick Powell and Pat O'Brien never seem to have been stricken at any time with an acute attack of amnesia. Friends they made in their lean days are still their friends. But they, and a few others are exceptions.

For the most part, just as soon as a young actor signs a contract with a studio he starts giving his former pals the brush-off. He can't have his new playroom cluttered up with Joe and Ed and Harry when any minute Joan Crawford might drop in for a cup of tea. Nice fellows Joe and Ed and Harry but they simply don't "belong." And anyway, he hasn't any time to see the old gang now because as soon as he finishes work at the studio he has to be seen with Alice Faye at Ciro's. And, of course, the day that Constance Bennett invites him to one of her parties he has complete loss of memory. From then on he's just a Hollywood movie star. Certainly not a human being.

When the fans "discovered" Tyrone Power in "Girl's Dormitory" (they were supposed to go mad over Simone Simon, but they fooled the studio completely and went mad over Tyrone) when he made a definitely hit in the leading role of "Lloyds of London," and when he signed a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox at a salary that definitely wasn't hay, people simply assumed that Ty would start giving his old friends the brush-off. But he didn't. when he became the most popular star on the 20th Century lot, when he married French star Annabella, and started entertaining the Upper Crust the Selznicks, the Mayers, the Goetzes, the Zanucks and the Leroys, in is luxurious Brentwood home, people were certain that he'd conveniently forget a lot of old familiar faces. But he didn't. So naturally Tyrone, young, handsome, and so very personable, has considerably upset the Hollywood tradition. "L.B.", "David" and "Darryl" are his friends--but so are Bill and Tommy. Bill and Tommy go back to the days when Ty was of no more importance than the kid who has just delivered our newspaper. They "knew Tyrone when." Most movie stars, when they come into money and social position, are very eager to give the frigidaire to folks who knew them before glamour set in, but not Tyrone. He's too regular for that. And much too human. And Ty knows what a lot of stuffed shirts should know and that is that the Upper Crust is all right when you are way up there on the top, but they do a better vanishing act than the invisible man when you're flat on the bottom. The bills and the Tommys are the real McCoy.

Bill Gallagher and Tommy Noonan are Ty's best fiends. The three of them have been pals for a long time, and no amount of success on Ty's [part has been able to break up this rather unusual Hollywood friendship. They know more about Ty than he knows himself. They help him keep his feed on the ground. Young, fun-loving and full of mischief they make grand companions for a young actor who just might take himself and his career too seriously. Heaven's yes, what with Tommy and Bill to worry about, Ty doesn't have much time to worry about himself. There aren’t many laughs--good boyish guffaws--in a studio, or an Upper Crust dinner party, but there are always plenty of belly laughs with Tommy and Bill.

Now don't get the idea that the Messieurs Gallagher and Noonan swooped down upon Ty like a couple of vultures as soon as he started dragging in the chips. It was Ty who did the inviting. Which further proves what a rally grand guy that handsome Mr. Power is.

Bill Gallagher and Ty met in New York city in 1933 when they were both engaged in the same rather unpleasant pastime--job hunting. Ty had come on form the Coast where he had spent nearly two years trying to get by the casting directors' offices and was just about as affluent as the proverbial church mouse. Having been given the cold shoulder by the movies he wanted desperately to get on the stage, but the New York casting managers didn't seem to be any too enthusiastic about him either. He budgeted himself so that he could have five dollars a week to live on, but soon the five dollars gave out, so he decided that he'd better take any kind of job he could get. Bill Gallagher had already arrived at the conclusion. He and Ty made the rounds of the employment agencies together. Young and full of the devil a little thing like approaching starvation couldn't dampen their spirits. It was bill who finally landed a job--as a shoe salesman up in the Bronx, and his first sale they practically ate up in one meal. "Thank heaven for shoes," Ty would say as he carefully selected the biggest chop.

Several years before, when Ty had been trying to crash the studios in Hollywood, he had gone out driving one day with a lawyer who later became his business manager. During one year Ty had lived in about twelve places in Hollywood, a little matter of rent no doubt, so when the lawyer drove up to an apartment house down on Twelfth Street in Los Angeles and said, "I have this apartment house in receivership. You can have an apartment here free for several months," Ty jumped at it like a cat at a canary. When he left there to try his luck wit the theatre in New York, Ty said to the lawyer, "If I were you I'd fix up that place a bit. Put in new electric light fixtures, new titles in the showers, a good coat of paint, new rugs, etc., and you can triple the rents." When he returned to Hollywood in 1936 with a nice little 20th Century Fox contract tucked away in his safety deposit box the lawyer, who was handling a few investments for him, again drove him down to the apartment house on Twelfth Street. On the front of it in large letters was "Tyrone Apartments." When Ty looked puzzled the lawyer casually announced, "Now you can make all those improvements you suggested to me. The apartment belongs to you." Ty made the improvements--and sent bill Gallagher a wire to come to Hollywood at once and live in his new apartment house, for free. He made Bill his trouble shooter, secretary, and pal. IN fact, he made him everything but his yes-man. Bill, tall, slender, and Irish as his name, is probably the only person in Hollywood who says "No" to Mr. Power. He not only says "No," but he also says, "Your picture stinks" and has the pleasure of hearing Ty say, "Bill, you're right."

When Ty left on his South American trip several years ago he took Bill with him. When he was downtown getting his passport he said to the publicity man with him, "I'm certainly going to get a thrill out of seeing Bill enjoy South American." Doesn't sod much like a self-centered Hollywood movie star, does it?

Tommy Noonan, the third member of the Unholy Three, went to school with Ty away back in Cincinnati. They attended classes at the Purcell High School there in the mornings, and in the afternoons Tommy would drop by the corner drugstore, where Ty was a soda jerker for a coke and cherry. Tommy was very eager to become an actor so he enrolled at the Schuster-Martin dramatic school where Patia Power, Ty's beautiful and talented mother, conducted several classes. When Mrs. Power and her daughter, Ann, joined Tyrone in Hollywood in 2931, after the sudden death of Mr. Power, Tommy drove out in the big Pierce-Arrow with them. He continued his lessons with Mrs. Power and played in the little theatres in Hollywood and Santa Barbara. Ty was delighted to see his former school chum again and Tommy remembers that the first thing he did was to take him for a sightseeing trip around Hollywood. "See that big building over there," Ty said to Tommy, "that's a studio. I've tried for three months to get past the gate. But one of these days I'm going to be very important there."

When Ty returned to Hollywood in 1936--after making a hit on the Broadway stage with Katharine Cornell in "St. Joan"--with his 20th Century contract, he immediately looked up Tommy, and another pal of his from the Cincinnati high school, Bill Walsh. Bill was doing very well in the publicity business, but Tommy still had hankerings to be an actor so Ty promptly got him a job as his stand-in. Tommy not only stands in for Ty, but has bits in all his pictures, and when Ty is "Between pictures" he works at the studio in other films. a couple of years ago, Tommy had an idea that he might like to try his luck on Broadway in a legitimate play, so Ty sent him to New York in great style with letters to all the big casting managers there. "But," says Tommy, "I guess I just love California. Before Tyrone had a chance to Get a new stand-in, I came running back asking for my old job."

Tommy also likes to tell about the morning Ty called on him at the General Hospital. Driving home form Ty and Annabella's home in Brentwood late one night he came into close contact with another car, and what was left of poor Tommy they carried off to the Generally Hospital. As soon as Ty was notified hi came rushing down to the hospital. Tommy stood the pain very well, but he says that Tyrone took one look at him and almost passed out cold. Ty saw to it that Tommy was put together again by the best doctors, and at the best private hospital, in Hollywood.

But the biggest thrill the Unholy Three ever had was their recent trip to Cincinnati for the premiere of "The Mask of Zorro." "We hadn't been up in the air fifteen minutes," said bill, "before thy and Tommy started looking of Cincinnati. I've never seen two guys more excited. When we did get there we found almost a million people at the airport. I've seen Ty get a thrill out of things before, but never such a thrill as that."

According to Bill and Tommy the nightspots of the Cincinnati trip were:

The afternoon Ty drove out to Hyde Park to by a coke to Deno Spacarelli's drug store. ("Deno," said Tommy, "is one of the boys from Purcell High who made good. He owns his own drugstore.") while Ty was sitting there sipping his coke and dishing over old times with Deno a lady customer came in, saw Ty, almost swooned, and finally murmured faintly, "Mr. Spacarelli, surely you aren't gong to charge Mr. Power for a coca Cola!" Before he finished his drink the store was full of fans, all clamoring for his autograph. The glass he drank his coke out of was sold to a Hyde Park young lady for fifty cents. Mr. Spacarelli reported that business hadn't been so good in years.

Then there was the morning that Hector Dodds was expected to fly in with the film--Mr. Dodds being the head of the cutting department. Ty sent him a wire to the plane asking him if he wanted to be welcomed by a reception committee. Mr. Dodds, feeling cute, wire back, "Yes, I would like a reception committee. Preferably blondes." So Ty called his cousin and she called all the girls she knew and when Mr. Dodds landed at the airport he was met, much to his surprise, by several dozen girls in horrible blonde wigs, greatly resembling Harpo Marx.

And of, of course, the luncheon that Ty gave to his former classmates from the Purcell High School. "He had it in the Presidential suite of the Netherland Plaza," said Tommy, "and boy, watt it a luncheon. About thirty guys showed up and we all had toe tell what we were doing now. Two of them, Jack McKenna and Joe Scanlon, turned out to be income tax collectors for the government, so Ty made them sit at a table all by themselves, and after lunch we turned the shower on them with their clothes on."

The high spot of the trip to Annabella, both the boys agreed, was the drive that Tyrone took her on all over the town pointing out to her the schools he had gone to when kid, the soda fountain where once he had jerked sodas in the afternoon, the theatre where he had ushers, and Grandmother Reaume's old home on Fulton Avenue where he had been born one bright May morning in 1914. "When Annabella got back to the hotel," said Tommy, "she looked as if she had been crying. I guess she and Tyrone had a good old sentimental cry."

To Bill, who had never been to Cincinnati before, the whole thing was just a series of montage shots: crowds, phones ringing, motorcycle cops, sirens, crowds, luncheons, speeches, dashing to broadcasts, dashing to the premieres, more sirens, autograph books, fans, and six telephones going all at once. "Tyrone and Tommy were local boys who had made good," said Bill, "I had to make sense." The biggest laugh of the whole trip, according to Bill, happened late one afternoon at the hotel when he was trying to wade through the mail that had gathered for Ty. He was sweating away, and suddenly thought how good an electric fan would feel.

"Give me the desk," he said over the phone. "Say, will you send up two fans to Mrs. Power's suite."

A few minutes later there was a knock at the door and when Bill opened it he stood face to face with two rather amazed fans, with autograph books!

Back in Hollywood the Unholy Three are planning their next trip--but they agree that it won't be as exciting as Cincinnati.

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