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"I
like to think of myself as the dapper, dashing Nick Charles,
wisecracking my way through a murder mystery, merrily at ease
with cocktail shakers and beautiful women." |
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Take it from McFadden: America really needs
a revival of the fun-loving William Powell spirit
By
CHUCK McFADDEN
of TheColumnists.com
I don't know what got me interested in William Powell, the 1930's leading man who starred in the six Thin Man movies, but the guy just fascinates me. He could even be, dare I say it, a role model for life.
We hear a lot these days about role models. Well, okay, here's a man who:
1. Made love on the screen to the world's most beautiful women.
2. Made love off the screen to the world's most beautiful women.
3. Made pots of money.
4. Was famous.
5. Loved what he did -- and did it for 33 years.
And he even got along with his leading ladies. Powell had a 50-year friendship with Myrna Loy, the woman who was his most frequent co-star, and whose name will forever be linked with his in the Thin Man movies.
"I never enjoyed my work more than when I worked with William Powell. He was a brilliant actor, a delightful companion, a great friend and above all, a true gentleman," Loy said in a quote that sounds as if it had been concocted by a studio publicist, but probably did reflect Loy's feelings.
I first made Powell's genial acquaintance when, in a fit of curiosity, I checked out a video of the first in his series, "The Thin Man." (It's pretty dated, by the way - made in 1934.) At first, I thought he was just another sleek, mustachioed type with all the depth of a guy in a furniture commercial. But as I watched Powell and Loy move through the movie as Nick and Nora Charles, the persona of the actor emerges as he plays behind Nick, the suave former detective who returns to solve a murder.
Powell was dapper, handsome, at home in a tuxedo, sophisticated - all that. But as you watch him, you begin to absorb the Powell insouciance just beneath the surface. He keeps subliminally telling you: "Hey, isn't life fun?" It didn't come from the repartee the scriptwriter had crafted. It could only have come from the essence of the person up there on the screen.
I wish I had that. Hell, I wish we all had that. I like to think of myself as the dapper, dashing Nick Charles, wisecracking my way through a murder mystery, merrily at ease with cocktail shakers and beautiful women. Powell could take out the garbage with savoir faire. But more than that, I wish I could achieve - we all could achieve - the consistent sense of fun that Powell had. It was as much a part of him as his moustache. The world could use a lot more of it.
That
underlying Powell persona is all the more remarkable because
he endured a series of disappointments and tragedies in his private
life:
§ Two divorces.
§ A bout with cancer.
§ The suicide of an only son.
§ And a woman he was deeply in love with died just before
they were to marry.
Powell was not a stoic. When the woman he loved -- beautiful blonde Jean Harlow -- died, he was plunged into a black abyss of grief. Powell had been working with Loy on one MGM sound stage and Harlow had been working on another one nearby when she became ill with uremic poisoning, was hospitalized, and died. Powell, normally a trouper, could not work. He finally managed to come back after six weeks and finish the picture, then took a year off to travel.
When he returned, in 1938, he was diagnosed with cancer.
After months of treatment - remember, this was 1938 and cancer was regarded as a death sentence - Powell was back, humorous and slightly self-deprecating as ever.
The man didn't bear grudges. Back in 1936, he insisted ex-wife Carole Lombard be cast opposite him in "My Man Godfrey."
"Just because we couldn't live together doesn't mean we shouldn't work together," Powell said. "Besides, Carole was much better for the role than the actress they picked." (He didn't, of course, mention "the actress they picked." She was Constance Bennett.)
How could you not admire a guy like that?
"Bill Powell is the only intelligent actor I've ever met," Lombard once said.
His was a world of swank and glitter and wit. In the six "Thin Man" pictures that stretched from 1934 to 1947, he and Loy showed the world that you could be married and debonair at the same time.
It's all gone now. Way, way out of fashion. Well, martinis are supposed to be making a comeback. Maybe cocktail shakers will, too, along with satin gowns and dressing for dinner. Let's hope so. The world could use glamour that has more to it than a 17-year-old gyrating on MTV.
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For the record, Powell made 95 pictures in a Hollywood career that stretched across 33 years. He was nominated for an Oscar three times, and never won. I suspect his lack of Sturm und Drang worked against him in a profession that values onscreen tragedy. His last picture was "Mister Roberts," shot in 1954 and released the following year, co-starring Henry Fonda, James Cagney and a young Jack Lemmon. By then Powell was 63 and he decided to retire.
He had achieved a happy marriage, with a beautiful young actress, Diana Lewis. It was a three-week courtship, but they were together for 44 years until Powell's death in 1984 at age 91. He spent the last 29 years of his life quietly retired in Palm Springs.
"Mister Roberts," in which he played the tippling ship physician, is a national cinematic treasure, of course, and somewhere Nick and Nora Charles are still bantering and loving. But William Powell is pretty much forgotten now. His type of masculinity is passe, and it shouldn't be. He was proof that elegance, grace and humor are masculine traits that should never be cast aside in favor of a show business fashion that now seems to believe that menace, truculence and crudity are what make a man a man.
What
this country needs is a William Powell revival.
© 2000 by Charles M. McFadden
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