Well, it turns out that at least some of you know a lot about Tyrone Power. We also suspect a lot more of you do but just aren’t saying.
In any case, lets get to the answers to our TP Quix:
1) Question: Power began his movie career at this prominent Hollywood studio, and was considered the protege of the studio’s mogul. Identify from the following the studio and its boss: 1) Monogram Pictures, Herbert Yates; 2) MGM, Louis B.Mayer; 3) Warner Bros., Jack Warner; or 4) 20th Century Fox, Darryl F. Zanuck.
1) Answer: 4) Zanuck and Fox. It almost didn’t turn out that way. While viewing the screen test of a 23-year-old Power, then a $60-per-week aspiring stage actor, Zanuck barked: “Take it off. He looks like a monkey.” The actor sported long eyebrows and hair that grew low on his forehead. Zanuck’s then wife, Virginia, made a suggestion: “shave his eyebrows.” They did and the “monkey” was converted into a star. True story.
2) Question: Which of Power’s movies was later remade by Bill Murray? 1) 1936’s Ladies in Love; 2) 1940’s The Mark of Zorro; 3) 1948’s The Luck of the Irish; or 4) 1946’s The Razor’s Edge?
2) Answer: 4) The Razor’s Edge. Yup, hard as it is to believe today, Bill Murray recreated Power’s role, as Larry Darrell, the young man who goes off to find himself, in 1984’s version of the film based on the Somerset Maugham novel. Both Power and Murray were in their thirties when taking on the role. Murray was fresh off the huge Columbia Pictures sci-fi comedy hit, Ghostbusters, and was hot at the time. Columbia couldn’t say “no” to his decision to go in a different direction. Perhaps they should have.
3) Question: Power married three times. His first wife went professionally by just one name. Who was she? 1) Cher; 2) Annabella; 3) Charo; 4) Bjork; or 5) Falconetti.
3) Answer: 2) Annabella. She was seven years older than Power, born in Paris in 1907 as Suzanne Georgette Charpentier. She married three times. Power was her last husband, from 1939 to 1948. It was felt that she qualified for the short list of European actresses who could make Hollywood films, a list that more notably included Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman and Marlene Dietrich. Although she never achieved comparable fame, Annabella did appear in some 50 titles in Hollywood and Europe. She remained friends with Power after their divorce, and visited him while he was making his final film. She died in her late 80’s, nearly double the years allotted to Power. She’s pictured below with Power and his frequent co-star Loretta Young.
4) Question: In which branch of the military did Power serve in World War II? 1) the Navy as a sailor; 2) Marines as a pilot; 3) Army as an infantryman; 4) or the Coast Guard as a customs inspector?
4) Answer: 2) Marines as a pilot. Power was genuinely courageous, flying in the Pacific Theater including transporting supplies into and the wounded from Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
5) Question: Which of the following did NOT have an affair with Power? 1) Joan Blondell; 2) Judy Garland; 3) Lana Turner (seen in the photo atop this blog) ; 4) Loretta Young?
5) Answer: Certainly 1) Joan Blondell and, we believe, 4) Loretta Young. Some suspect Young may have been involved in the action, but we believe she saved her offscreen hijinks for Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable. By the way, Blondell was Power’s costar in his most interesting outing, the 1947 film noir Nightmare Alley.
6) Question: One of Power’s three marriages was actually blessed in Rome by the Pope. True or False?
6) Answer: True. In January of 1949, Power and second wife Linda Christian were married in the Church of Santa Francesca Romana in the Eternal City, not far from the Colosseum. Power’s international fame drew thousands of fans outside the church. The event was fulsomely described as ‘the wedding of the century.’ The newly married couple was even received by Pope Pius XII, who blessed the union. Such grandly launched unions often turn out badly, and this one was no exception. The couple divorced in 1956. (A photo of the happy couple is above.)
7) Question: Who was Power’s second wife (clue, she was an international playgirl) and where did he meet her? 1) Barbara Payton in a Santa Monica bar; 2) Christina Onassis while swimming off the Greek Islands; 3) Linda Christian in a hotel in Europe; or 4) Deborah Ann Smith in New York City.
7) Answer: Ok, ok, we know we just gave away the answer above. But here’s more. In 1948, Power was having an affair with Lana Turner after separating from his first wife Annabella. The actor and international playgirl and sometime actress Linda Christian met in a hotel they just happened to be sharing in Rome. Romantically speaking, Turner suddenly was history.Yes, 3) Linda Christian is correct.
8) Question: How old was Power when he died? 1) 37; 2) 54; 3) 44; or 4) 61?
8) Answer: 3) 44. George Sanders was a Power costar in director King Vidor’s biblical epic, Solomon and Sheba, filmed in Spain and released in 1959. After several strenuous sword-fight scenes with Sanders, Power — who also co-produced the picture — collapsed complaining of pains in his chest and arms. The end came on Nov. 15, 1958, before the movie was completed. Sanders later wrote: (Power) spent his money freely. He had a yacht, a private aeroplane, and gave lavish parties. And women, who are usually more expensive than yachts and aeroplanes, found ways of spending his money when he ran out of ideas. Ty didn’t seem to mind. Perhaps he had some premonition that he did not need to save for his old age.
9) Question: Who was the actor who took over the leading role in Power’s last movie? 1) Yul Brynner; 2) Steve McQueen; 3) George Sanders; or 4) Maximilian Schell?
9) Answer: 1) Yul Brynner.
10) Question: Which actor was considered Power’s closest competition at the beginning of his movie career? 1) William Powell; 2) Mickey Rooney; 3) Robert Taylor; or 4) Ronald Colman?
10) Answer: 3) Robert Taylor. Power was hired as Fox’s answer to MGM’s Taylor (below with, you guessed it, LanaTurner).
I didn’t proffer my guesses because I didn’t want to be wrong. Turns out I would have only missed one. I would never have guessed Bill Murray starred in the remake of The Razor’s Edge. Power deserves more attention than he receives these days. Maybe if he had lived a bit longer and had the chance to make more movies of his own choosing, He would be as famous as Gable or Grant.
5) Question: Which of the following did NOT have an affair with Power? 1) Joan Blondell; 2) Judy Garland; 3) Lana Turner (seen in the photo atop this blog) ; 4) Loretta Young?
As both Joe & Frank were in the business like me, we all know how it REALLY operates.
I still suspect Mr. POWER had affairs with all those mentioned above, and many more… Including the woman he got pregnant whilst on location in Pineville, Missouri for JESSE JAMES.
But question 5 would’ve been more representative of TYRONE POWER’s love life, if some male stars were included along with his female affairs…
This is just one of many sources on that-
gayinfluence.blogspot.com/2011/09/tyrone-power-hollywood-bisexual.html
“Power was liked and admired by men and women alike. His group of gay friends included director George Cukor and actors Clifton Webb, Lon McCallister (and his lover William Eythe), Cary Grant, Reginald Gardner, Van Johnson and bi-sexual billionaire Howard Hughes. Books and articles written about Power relate that the great gay love of Power’s life was a lowly technician at 20th Century Fox, with whom he had a sexual and romantic relationship that lasted for decades.
Like most bi-sexual and homosexual Hollywood stars, Power lived in fear of being “found out.” Although studio head Darryl Zanuck liked Tyrone, he was afraid of losing Fox’s resident matinée idol and biggest moneymaker, should the truth of his homosexual activity become public. On the set of Suez (1939), Tyrone played opposite a French starlet named Annabella, who was older, self-assured and possessed of a frankness and down to earth attitude. Power liked her, and much to Hollywood’s and his mother’s surprise, they married. It was difficult to satisfy Zanuck, however, who was now worried that Power’s female fan base would be adversely affected by news of the marriage. Nevertheless, Power continued to have dalliances with both men and women alike. For a while in the early forties, he carried on a passionate affair with the young Judy Garland, which some felt led to the first of her many breakdowns.
By 1946 he and Annabella had grown apart, and their marriage was over. He took a six week trip to South America with his on-again off-again male companion, gay actor Cesar Romero.
The fashion critic Mr. Blackwell had romantic moments in Power’s dressing room, as detailed in his 1995 autobiography From Rags to Bitches. In his book, Errol Flynn: The Untold Story, author Charles Higham reports that Power had a sexual relationship with Errol Flynn. According to William J. Mann, in his book Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969, Power was involved in numerous same sex relationships. In his book, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s: A Gay Life in the 1940s, Ricardo J. Brown confirms that Tyrone Power and Tallulah Bankhead were among thespians and movie stars who were bisexual. In Oops, I Lost My Sense of Humor, Lois M. Santalo writes that “many stars of the silver screen, dating back to Tyrone Power,” had been gay or bisexual. In Robert Aldrich and Garry Wotherspoon’s (both of Sydney University) Who’s Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History: From World War II to the Present Day, Power is listed among the “Top box office stars who were gay or bisexual”.”
But in the end, does any of this really matter?
Well it seems it does if you’re one of those that just blindly worships and idolizes any movie star, because more often than not you’re going to be disappointed and even shocked to who they really are off-camera.
Again, to use HUMPHREY BOGART’s famous quote- “All you owe the audience is a good performance.”
Whether that includes your ‘performance’ in bed with whoever, I don’t know. But he certainly had a lot of ‘affairs’ before Lauren Bacall came along,but who’s counting!