Tyrone Power Applause is Not Enough
The publicity blurbs that movie studios send in are usually filed in my trash basket. but the one on Tyrone Power contained one literary beat. I thought Tyrone himself would like to read, so I showed it to him:
"Success apparently is in his blood. There are some himans whom fate can never keep down. They march forward and take by divine right the best the world affords. But success after all is nothing more than courage....the will to fight and keep on when everything seems darkest. Of such stuff is young Tyrone Power made."
"The guy who wrote that is probably writing my next movie script," Tyrone said, and I'm sure he blushed.
He admits to 35, stands about six feet, has dark brown hair and eyes, an easy grace, and an eagerness to please. He had just returned with his new wife, lovely Linda Christian, from Italy, where they had been married with much hoopla.
While in Europe Tyrone made two movie epics; one a little $4,500,000 thing called "Prince of Foxes," which The Darryl Zanuck insist is the last of such extravaganzas because the poverty-stricken movies can no longer afford them; and the second, named "The Black Rose," filmed in Morocco in England.
Propagating The Powers Tyrone and Linda say they will settle down first and start a family and will try for two kids and she won't do any acting.
Tyrone spent the last 17 months in Europe and Africa, and not too long ago piloted his own plane over 26,000 miles of south America. He's made about 30 movies these past 14 years....
"Which is fine," he says, "except you get tired of doing the same story over and over again. After we get settled I'd like to do a small picture, no spectacle, just a story about people who live and breather."
In spite of the 30 movies with "the same story over and over again," Tyrone started on the stage. Both his mother and father were actors and he knocked over the road with them. When they separated he lived with his mother. At 16 he went off to Chicago from his native Cincinnati to join his father, who was working with Fritz Leiber, the Shakespearean actor...
"I was with Leiber too. Excuse me. I mean I carried a spear in his plays for a short while. Then my father took me to Hollywood where he was to make a movie. But he died when it was half finished."
So at 17 Tyrone was on his own. He chauffeured a writer around, made hamburgers and malted milks in a drive-in, and was a mail clerk in a bank. Then he slipped into a show at the Pasadena Playhouse...
"The show as 'Lo and Behold,' longest revue on record. the curtain was up at 8:15 p.m. and came down at 1:30 a.m. to what I would generously call 'scattered applause.' The audience was quite scattered too.
"I recall a girl in the show named Eunice Quedens who changed her name to Eve Arden. Me? I sang and danced and was as stiff as a poker. Only thing I got out of it was learning how to tie a bowtie. I had four changes into a full dress suit."
Then Tyrone got involved in Chicago Fair exhibition called "Hollywood At the Fair," in which he informed the citizens how movies are made. He had only been in one up to then.
The Unspectacular Rise After the Fair he besieged New York, haunted the casting offices, and was finally hired by Katharine Cornell and Guthrie McClintic-as an understudy to three men: burgess Meredith, a Hugh Williams, and a John emery, who distinguished himself by withstanding a few years of marriage with Tallulah Bankhead and compared that tumultuous even to the decline and fall of the Roman empire. anyway, after a summer of stock Tyrone returned to appear in Cornell's "Romeo and Juliet," and "St. Joan"...
"No. Not opposite her. Just small parts. then my agent arranged a screen test and I got to Hollywood. It was as unspectacular as that."
His long stretch of movie making was interrupted only twice: When he came to Westport to act in "Liliom," and when he enlisted as a private in the Marine Corps, became a lieutenant and a transport pilot and spent three and half years flying around all the Pacific hellholes from Kwajalein to Japan.
Tyrone says he'd like to arrange his life so he could spend half the year in Hollywood and half in New York acting in real plays, a familiar sing-song by movie people. A Hollywood veteran might find a play tough going...
"Have you been to Morocco lately?" he asked tartly. "Only movie people would get up at 6 a.m. and walk into a sandstorm to shoot a scene." Then he sighed: "But you do get lazy in Hollywood. Awfully lazy."
Which means that he has the applause of the multitude, but he would like more than anything else to win his own self-approval. I don't think he has it yet.
You can guess that director John Ford decided to do the story of West Point because he could tell through the Irish eyes of Sgt. Marty Maher, whose career is one of the legends of the U.S. Military Academy. Ford, four-time Academy winner as a result of "The Informer," "The Grapes of Wrath," "How Green Was My Valley and "The Quiet Man," is a one-man chamber of commerce for Ireland.
And that is as it should be, because Ford's real name is Sean O'Fearna. Jus why he surrendered that lilting moniker for his resent nom de screen evades me. Perhaps, back in 1914, he didn't want his parents in Maine to know that he'd cast his lot with the odd people who were hopping around Hollywood, making faces at cameras.
Tearful Piece
In The Long Gray Line O'Fearna, who is Ford, has teamed up with two other Celts, Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara, and the net result is a magnificent thing, although you'll find yourself throttling back tears as the story builds from one climax to a greater one.
President Eisenhower, Gen. Omar Bradley and other West Pointers who have seen it say that it is the most moving document they've ever witnessed. Ford, with his usual sensitivity, unlocked the emotion-charged story of West Point as it never has been revealed before.
About 14 years ago, when Sean O'Fearna and your reporter both were much younger, he told me that the old western star, Harry Carey, played a most influential part in his career.
"I started at the old Universal lot, as a prop man, in 1914," explained Ford. "The next year, I was 19 and was pressed into action to direct a western, "The Sky Pilot." The studio told me that Harry Carey would star in it, but pointed out that as Carey's contract would not be renewed, I could handle him with a minimum of respect.
"Naturally Carey and I became great friends and he gladly helped me on my first picture. He knew all the answers, all the tricks of the business."
John Ford chuckled.
"In fact, we became so enthusiastic that what the studio had charted as a two-reeler ran up to 5,200 feet, FIVE REELS! When the studio saw what we'd done, they fired the both of us.
A Long Shot
"We were saved by 1,000,000-to-1 shot," continued Ford. "The same week we have chased off the premises by Carl Laemmle, justifiably irate, a group of bankers arrived at the Universal lot to check on their investment in the company. They told Mr. Laemmle they wanted to view some completed film ready for the market.
"The only completed film was our five-reeler. Mr. Laemmle showed it to them. They loved it. So I was re-hired at $125 a week and Harry Carey's contract was picked up at $1,600 a week."
Fourteen year ago, in 1941, John Ford's formula for a hit picture was this:
"Louse up your hero," he explained to me. "Get him thrown in jail, as quickly as possible, even if you just picture him stealing a horse, or something. Heroes shouldn't be clay statues, mind you, but for popular acceptance, it helps if the hero's feet are made of clay. Recognition of that fact made Harry Carey a great western star. He was never a holier-than-thou cowboy, like most of his western colleagues."
Ford felt, in 1941, that it was easier to do a picture with competent actors, NOT stars. "Stars have their own ideas," he explained, wryly. But in 1954, Ford teamed up two important stars, Tyrone and Maureen, with happiest results. And Tyrone gets into plenty of trouble-but don't steal a horse; all he steals is Maureen, who is a classy filly.
June 4, 1955 Columbia has decided Carmen Cavallero will record the piano music for Music for Duchin, the biography of the late Eddy Duchin, popular pianist and orchestra leader.
The studio at one time thought of using Duchin records but discounted the idea when it was felt the arrangement
and recording techniques were out of date. Tyrone Power will finger a dummy piano keyboard on the screen as Duchin, much as Cornell Wilde did for the studio a decade ago in A Song to Remember. Jose Iturbi supplied
the recordings for the earlier feature a life of Chopin.
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. July "The Tavern on the Green" in Central Park is scheduled for a face-lifting operation with a reverse twist. Columbia Pictures has obtained permission to redesign the exterior of the restaurant so it will resemble the old Central Park Casino.
The Casino, which figures prominently in The Eddy Duchin Story, flourished as an after-dark oasis 25 years ago. The late musician go this start there as a pianist with Leo Reisman's orchestra. Tyrone Power will impersonate Mr. Duching.
Walter Holscher, Columbia's art director, and John Roche, of the studio's construction department, will leave Hollywood Tuesday to await the arrival by train of 49 pre-fabricated set units. These when assembled, will duplicate the facade of the casino. The sets are designed to fit as a shell over the Tavern on the Green.
The picture will go before the camera July 25 with the filming on location sequences in various parts of Manhattan, including the Starlight Roof of the Waldorf Astoria, the Rodin Room of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grand Central Terminal and the basement piano storage room Steinway Hall. George Sidney is the director.
NEW YORK. New York Memorial Hospital. As the Boston musician who succumbed to leukemia at the peak of his popularity, Mr. Power was revealing the grim medical diagnosis to the English girl he later marries.
"The real tragedy of Duchin's life, and of the picture," said the actor while the pipe-smoking Mr. Sidney arranged another camera angle, "was his dying at such a young age, only 42. Most people don't remember that....Yes, I knew Eddy quite well. Working right here across from the Hospital reminds me of how I used to visit him over there when he was a patient, toward the end.
"But this isn't a tragic picture, by any means. Call it a serious drama with music, intended to follow Eddy as he comes down here form Boston, joins up with Leo Reisman's band, and attains success on his own.
Miss Novak is, of course, the young woman Columbia has groomed for stardom in such predecessors as "Pfffft" and recently "Picnic." Mr. Whitemore appears as Duchin's long-time manager, Wally Weber, and the 13 year old Rex Thompson plays Duchin's son. Miss Shaw has been in the United States exactly three weeks. Encouraged by Bob Hope, during a recent Australian tour, to "look him up some tine� in Hollywood, she did so exactly fourteen days later. The actress was promptly trotted to Columbia by Hope's agent and placed under contract. And she received her current assignment the same day.
Incidentally, the entire week's work on the local scenes will run roughly twenty minutes out of a total length of two hours.
NEW YORK. Tomorrow, having framed its protagonists
against authentic local scenery, the seventy-man location unit for Columbia's The Eddy Duchin Story goes home. Last week found director George Sidney, his technicians and cast, headed by Tyrone Power, Kim Novak, Victoria Shaw, James Whitmore and young Rex Thompson,
briskly setting up shop for the Cinemascope color project in such random sites as Central Park, the residential upper East Side and the Warldorf Astoria (where amid today's Sabbath quiet Mr. Power will conduct a ban in the Starlight Room, piano-and Duchin-style.)
Tuesday morning, Mr. Power and Miss Shaw, an Australian television actress making her film debut as the musician's second wife (Miss Novak plays the first), went through a tense scene at the foot of the Seventy first Street ramp before New York.
I had to travel 6,000 miles to interview Tyrone Power, who has been away from Hollywood so long I haven't had a chance to really talk with him since I saw him while I was in Rome last summer.
An untidy, grimy Ty greeted me at the Shepperton Studios in London where, as the main figures in Seven Waves Away, he wears a soiled shirt and trousers that have seen better days. He is the captain of a luxury liner which floundered and sank, much as the Andrea Doria did recently, taking to death a number of the passengers.
The title of Richard Sale's story is based on the famous sea legend, Death rides the Crest of the Seventh Wave, Richard, who also is directing it, wrote it some years ago and it is a coincidence that it was being produced ands was within three weeks of completion when the Andrea Doria made sea history by her tragic disaster.
Ty and I sat facing the most extraordinary set I have ever seen in a studio. It is a huge tank filled with 300,000 gallons of water, so deep it can drown any of the lifeboat occupants who fall into this perfect replica of the sea.
"We get wet a dozen times a day," Ty said, "and I wear this one costume and never have to comb my hair."
The artist responsible for the backgrounds of Moby Dick changes the clouds to fit the time of day.
There was so much action on, with Lloyd Nolan dying in the lifeboat which saved only 37 out of the 1,156 unfortunate souls, that I had to work fast to get my story with Ty.
"Are you going to re-marry Annabella?" I asked Ty, having heard that he and his former wife were seeing each other very often.
"It's funny that you should mention Annabella now, because I just talked to her today and she wants to come and see the children before they return home," he said. "But as for marriage, that's not for me. I have had two, and that's enough. I see Annabella often and we are good friends, but you can take my word for it, I am not marring anyone.
"I won't say that I don't go out with women," Ty's eyes twinkled. "I hope to take many beautiful ladies to dinner and the theater, but as for serious intentions--I have none. Incidentally, my children were here just a while ago. They wanted to see the big tank where the lifeboat flounders," said Tyrone.
Ty was so happy to have the little girls with him a while longer this summer. He was hoping to get permission from Linda Christian for them to stay with him a little longer, but up to the day I visited him he had no word from her. He has a nice house and they play in the park with their little friends every day. Romina has become a fine little horsewoman and she and Ty go riding every opportunity he gets. They spend the week ends in the country and both have a great time riding and swimming.
One by one Tyrone summoned his cast of Seven Waves Away, made up of some of London's finest talent, to meet me. Of course, I already knew Lloyd Nolan, who was a sight to behold after is death scene. He was covered with fake blood and wore a tattered old shirt. He is appearing every night on the London stage in Caine Mutiny Court Martial. He told me they did absolutely no business until he went on television and since that day they have had a sellout business.
Moira Lister, who is a real beauty, is another who works by night at the theater and by day at the studios. She said she also does a live television show every Sunday night. In spite of this she looked fresh as a daisy.
Mai Zetterling, and I do wish she would change her name, it's so difficult to remember, plays the lead. She, too, is an attractive blonde with the ;pink and white complexion seen so often in England. Her clothes were soaking wet because she had just been practically drowned in the open boat by the huge waves.
There seems to be a real esprit de corps among the cast and they all told me of Marie Lohr's bravery. She plays a frail opera singer, and although she cannot swim she refuses to wear a lifebelt for her scenes in the water.
One young man Richard Sale believes will go far is Stephen Boyd, who was with Clifton Webb in The many Who Never Was. He probably will be in Hollywood by the time this is in print. He goes there for Island in the Sun for 20th Century Fox, and he is a most attractive young man.
It seemed as if a steady procession of actors, executives, staff, etc., came up while I was interviewing Ty. Among them was Ted Richmond, Ty's partner in this and other Copa Productions. Ty had told me he will be over here for some time because he does The Devils' Disciple next.
"We toured fifteen weeks with it," he said, "and now I am going to make the picture, an dafter that we go to Italy for Lorenzo the Magnificent; so you see," he said, "I'll be pretty busy."
"Will Ted be with you all this time?" I asked. "He will be with me much of the time," said Ty, "but if he's a good boy we'll let him go home for awhile."
Richard Sale, between directing scenes, explained the mechanics of his picture which is made with a smaller camera carried right on the boat. There is only this one scene in the entire picture. They had the advice of the British Admiralty so they know their sea scenes are correct.
Richard told me they usually use drops, but there are no drops in this picture. They had the advice of the British Admiralty so they know their sea scenes are correct.
I'd gone to the studio with Mary Anita Loos (Mrs. Richard Sale in private life). She has just finished a short story called Deep Purple, the title of which probably be changed to Five women and One Man. It's a very cute idea, with a surprise ending.
As we left, Ty walked out to the car with me. "Don't you get lonesome so far away from home?" I asked him. He said, "Making pictures is pretty much the same in any country. It just happens that all the pictures now scheduled for me need a foreign locale. But I'll be seeing you in Hollywood," he added as he waved goodbye.
To me, Ty is amazing. I've known him ever since he came to Hollywood 20-odd years ago, and he has aged surprisingly little in all that time.
Tyrone Power, who arrives in New York Wednesday in a stage production of Bernard Shaw's
"Back to Methuselah," in which he plays six roles, looks upon the stage as a sort of catharsis,
Or purification, after all the years he spent in Hollywood making movies he had contempt for and
Letting his talents go to waste.
In the formidable Shaw work, which expounds the dubious thesis that men would be much smarter if
Their term of life could be lengthened to 300 years, Mr. Power plays two Adams (an innocent Garden of
Eden one and morose middle aged one after the Expulsion), two Church of England divines (one a
whinnying, bucktoothed young rector and the other a dignified Archbishop), a 100-yeard-old called
Zozim and a practically disembodied old party named the Ancient who is centuries old and does nothing
But think austerely.
This will be the second appearance of "Back to Methuselah" on Broadway. In 1922 the Theater Guild put on a version that had a few cuts and took three evenings to play.
It ran nine weeks and lost $20,000. The Theatre Guild is also putting on the present show in association with Arnold Moss,
Who has condensed the massive play, which Shaw thought his masterpiece but nobody else did, into two
hours' running time.
Appearing with Mr. Power are Faye Emerson (who plays Eve and three other roles) Arthur Treacher (three roles) and Valerie Bettis (the snake and two other roles).
Mr. Power, who is forty-three, has obviously taken on a tough assignment that would tax any actor, let alone one who has lain almost fallow in Hollywood for so many years. It has been made even more difficult for him by the three month tour, during which "Back to Methuselah" played in forty-two cities and towns in the South and East before its New York opening.
It was a gruelling succession of one-night and two night stands--the hardest kind of theater campaigning. Mr. Power worked seven days a week, travelling 11,000
miles, mostly by a bust which was so cold at times that he had to warp a blanket around his legs. He ate in mediocre restaurants. (This perhaps was the hardest of all because he likes, after the performance, to eat a fine filet mignon charred on the outside and blue on the inside, and it takes a sophisticated restaurant to provide one of these done the way he likes it.)
The other night in Philadelphia, where "Back to Methuselah" spent a week before its New York opening, Mr. Power was devouring a succulent charred filet at Frankie Bradley's restaurant. He was asked why in the world a man who had it made in Hollywood would subject himself to all the discomfort and hard work of a frantic tour and, moreover, risk his reputation in Shaw's difficult play.
EXPLANATION
"Working in a five day week in Hollywood going home to a beautiful house with a lovely swimming pool, having a well stocked larder and a well stocked bar--and having a lousy script at the studio to work on, "that's tough", said Mr. Power. "Compared to that, this is enjoyable."
Of the forty three movies Mr. Power has appeared in since 1936 he can contemplate only four with satisfaction and pride. The bad movies have apparently left him with a feeling of guilt that he feels he must make amends for. "Is this tour your way of expiation?" he was asked. He accepted the word as applicable.
Mr. Power's female fans who have thrilled to his handsome face with its large expressive eyes, his raven hair and his fine physique in swashbuckling costume dramas like "The Captain from Castile," "Prince of Foxes" and "The Black Rose" will perhaps be shocked by their hero's contempt for more than 90 percent of his product. The unworthy ones were, he said, "dishonest." They pandered to a taste that the studios themselves had created."
The four "honest" ones, he said, were "Nightmare Alley", "Blood and Sand", "Seven Waves Away" and the current "Witness for the Prosecution."
Mr. Power has a conviction that the stage is the place for a man who really wants to act. This is why he is on the stage. This does not mean that he had renounced the movies. He has respect for the medium--he thinks, for example, that Alec Guinness's performances in the "Bridge on the River Kwai" was a marvelous thing--and he will continue to make movies, at least part of the time. He has his own company now--Copa Productions--and this will give him an opportunity to make only the films he believes in. For twenty two years he was under contract to 20th Century-Fox and made the films they believed in.
But most of the time he wants to be on stage.
He believes that an actor proves himself by taking on the toughest challenges. "Nobody ever developed muscles by doing the easy things," he said. "You have to reach out in life. You have to build up friction. There has to be an abrasive."
UNDER FIRE
A reporter said he hoped Mr. Power wouldn't be abraded by the New York critics.
"I wouldn't let that deter me in the least,
he said. He is a hard man to deter. A year or so ago he had the leading role in "A Quiet Place," a play which died on the road before it got to New York. In New Haven, where it tried out, audiences howled with laughter at scenes between Mr. Power and Leory Dana that were supposed to be touching but didn't come off.
"This is the sort of thing that tries an actor's soul" said Mr. Power. "But if you're at all perceptive you're bound to profit by such an experience. I wouldn't have missed it for the world, but I wouldn't want to go through it again."
Mr. Power was born to the theater. His father was an actor, and so was his great grandfather. He made his acting debut in Chicago in 1931 when he was seventeen in a minor role with a Shakespearean repertory company of which his father was a member.
Four years later young Tyrone played Benvolio in Katharine Cornell's Broadway production of "Romeo and Juliet," and the next year he was De Poulengey in her "Saint Joan." In 1936 he made his first screen success in "Lloyd's of London" and after that he was Hollywood's man, with the unhappy results we have seen above.
In 1950 he took the leading role in the London stage production of "Mr. Roberts." His contract with 20th Century allowed this. A couple of years later he barnstormed in a highly successful dramatic reading of Stephen Vincent Bennet's poem "John Brown's Body." Mr. Laughton directed it. The company toured 28,000 miles in 46 states.
When the troupe appeared in New York in 1953, the New York critics applauded.
In 1954 Mr. Power's contract with 20th Century Fox ended. The next year he appeared with Miss Cornell in Christopher Fry's "The Dark is Light Enough." One critic called his performance "lightweight."
Mr. Power believes that "Back to Methuselah" will make the grade. But if it should not he will keep trying.
MADRID, Sep. 23.�Looking biblical in a three-cornered beard, Tyrone Power has arrived here for his filming star in "Solomon and Sheba" opposite Gina Lollobrigida. Old Testament saga in Technirama, financed and to be released by United Artists, is the actor's first in a series of five films abroad.
Power and his Copa Productions partner-producer Ted Richmond are associated with Edward Small in the upcoming religioso spectacle. As currently credited, "Sheba" will be an Edward small presentation produced by Ted Richmond.
Actor failed to confirm stateside reports of his Broadway appearance next spring with Ingrid Bergman in "Anna Karenina." Impressed with the Moscow Art Theater's dramatization of the Tolstoy novel and admitting he will continue to devote a semi-annual portion of his time to stage the spring, Power unbearded a "no definite commitment yet." He said he presumed the "Karenina" announcement was a Gregory Ratoff trial balloon. (Ratoff is slated to stage the venture.)
Power said his next film, tentatively titled "One Against Tomorrow," would be done entirely in Stockholm beginning February, possibly with Leet Thomson ("Ice cold in Alex") as director and a Swedish actress in one of the two femme roles.
"Back to Methuselah," in which he plays six roles, looks upon the stage as a sort of catharsis,
Or purification, after all the years he spent in Hollywood making movies he had contempt for and
Letting his talents go to waste.
miles, mostly by a bust which was so cold at times that he had to warp a blanket around his legs. He ate in mediocre restaurants. (This perhaps was the hardest of all because he likes, after the performance, to eat a fine filet mignon charred on the outside and blue on the inside, and it takes a sophisticated restaurant to provide one of these done the way he likes it.)
LEGIT PLANS HAZY
Hollywood is taking the whole kit and caboodle to this island scene of the Ira Wolfert novel--a mere 7,800 mile location jaunt. Starring Tyrone Power and Micheline Prelle, with a supporting cast of 1,000 Filipino extras and bit players, the film directed by Fritz Lang, will depict the role played by American and Filipino guerrilla fighters in helping pave the way for Gen. Douglas MacArthur's eventual return to the archipelago. Power will represent a composite of various American guerrilla leaders--servicemen who chose to continue to fight rather than surrender to overwhelming enemy forces.
males, and Ava Gardner, female class, by 150 of Hollywood's most beautiful movie stars.
in "21."
the filming of "The Prince of Foxes," gave Tyrone Power a bad case of homesickness.
stars Ty as Chuck Palmer, an American who organized guerrilla warfare on the enemy right after the fall of the Philippines.
star who is now at the Century theatre, created a sensation on the
stage of the Park Theatre, New York City, as long ago as 1833. In coming of
stature in Stephen Vincent Bennet's "John Brown's Body," the great-grandson
finally has attained the dramatic distinction of the Tyrone Powers who went
before him.
femmes and their mothers. They took one look at him and rushed to buy tickets.
Instead of going inside, they just hung around the entrance and kept looking at
Ty.
we'll think about it a little
longer."
late Tyrone Power, and petitioned
in their behalf for a share of the actor's estate. She estimated it at
$5,000,000.
interviewing
just to show her how a columnist has to dig for her
bread and butter. So, when I found Katy Jurado in Tyrone Powers dressing room in
Mexico City, where he was making "The Sun Also Rises," I said: "Give with the
questions, girl; I'll take care of the notes."
with Marlene Dietrich.
After this, he's going to look for a play in England. He's not lonely, and his
marriage with Linda is washed up.
the suffering of the wounded in Korea as well as accounts of the heroes, W. E. White, author and journalist, said yesterday at the Book and Author Luncheon at the Astor.
sued film star Tyrone Power for divorce today. She charged grievous cruelty.
