Richard Ewing Powell (November 14, 1904 – January 2, 1963)[1] was an American actor, singer, musician, producer, director, and studio head. Though he came to stardom as a musical comedy performer, he showed versatility and successfully transformed into a hardboiled leading man, starring in projects of a more dramatic nature. He was the first actor to portray private detective Philip Marlowe on screen.
Early life
Powell was born the middle of three sons of Ewing Powell and mother Sally Rowena in Mountain View, Arkansas.[1][2]
He married Mildred Maund, a model, but she found being married to an entertainer not to her liking. After a final trip to Cuba together, Mildred moved to Hemphill, Texas, and the couple divorced in 1932. Later, Powell joined the Charlie Davis Orchestra, based in Indianapolis.[3] He recorded a number of records with Davis and on his own for the Vocalion label in the late 1920s.
Stardom
Powell moved to Pittsburgh, where he found great local success as the master of ceremonies at the Enright Theater and the Stanley Theater.[3]
Warner Bros.
In April 1930, Warner Bros. bought Brunswick Records, which at that time owned Vocalion. Warner Bros. was sufficiently impressed by Powell's singing and stage presence to offer him a film contract in 1932. He made his film debut as a singing bandleader in Blessed Event.[4]
He was borrowed by Fox Film to support Will Rogers in Too Busy to Work (1932). He was a boyish crooner, the sort of role in which he specialized for the next few years. Back at Warner Bros., he supported George Arliss in The King's Vacation, then was in 42nd Street (both 1933), playing the love interest for Ruby Keeler. The film was a massive hit.
"Tough guy"
By 1944, Powell felt he was too old to play romantic leading men anymore, so he lobbied to play the lead in Double Indemnity. He lost out to Fred MacMurray, another Hollywood nice guy.[6]
Powell's career changed dramatically when he was cast in the first of a series of films noir, as private detective Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet (1944), directed by Edward Dmytryk at RKO. The film was a big hit, and Powell had successfully reinvented himself as a dramatic actor. He was the first actor to play Marlowe – by name – in motion pictures.[6] In 1945, Dmytryk and Powell teamed up again to make the film Cornered, a post-World War II thriller that helped define the film-noir style.
For Columbia, he played a casino owner in Johnny O'Clock (1947) and made To the Ends of the Earth (1948). Also in 1948, he stepped out of the brutish type when he starred in Pitfall, a film noir in which a bored insurance-company worker falls for an innocent but dangerous woman, played by Lizabeth Scott. He broadened his range appearing in a Western, Station West (1948) and a French Foreign Legion tale, Rogues' Regiment (1949). He was a Mountie in Mrs. Mike (1950).
Director
By this stage, Powell had turned director. His feature debut was Split Second (1953) at RKO Pictures. He followed it with The Conqueror (1956), coproduced by Howard Hughes and starring John Wayne as Genghis Khan. The exterior scenes were filmed in St. George, Utah, downwind of U.S. above-ground atomic tests. The cast and crew totaled 220, and of that number, 91 had developed some form of cancer by 1981, and 46 had died of cancer by then, including Powell and Wayne.[7]
He directed Allyson opposite Jack Lemmon in You Can't Run Away from It (1956). Powell then made two war films at Fox with Robert Mitchum, The Enemy Below (1957) and The Hunters (1958).
Television
In the 1950s, Powell was one of the founders of Four Star Television,[1] with Charles Boyer, David Niven, and Ida Lupino. He appeared in and supervised several shows for that company. Shortly before his death, Powell sang on camera for the final time in a guest-star appearance on Four Star's Ensign O'Toole, singing "The Song of the Marines", which he first sang in his 1937 film The Singing Marine. He hosted and occasionally starred in his Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater on CBS from 1956 to 1961, and his final anthology series, The Dick Powell Show on NBC from 1961 through 1963; after his death, the series continued through the end of its second season (as The Dick Powell Theater), with guest hosts.
Personal life
Powell was the son of Ewing Powell and Sallie Rowena Thompson.
He married three times:
Powell's ranch-style house was used for exterior filming on the ABC TV series, Hart to Hart. The estate, known as Amber Hills, was on 48 acre in the Mandeville Canyon section of Brentwood, Los Angeles.[8]
Powell enjoyed general aviation as a private pilot.[9] He and Farouk of Egypt were the only two known buyers of the Gaylord Gladiator automobile.[10]
- Mildred Evelyn Maund (b. 1906, d. 1967). The couple married in 1925, and appear on the 1930 census in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Powell was working in a theater, and on a 1931 passenger list for the SS Oriente, returning from
Illness and death
On September 27, 1962, Powell acknowledged rumors that he was undergoing treatment for cancer. The disease was originally diagnosed as an allergy, with Powell first experiencing symptoms while traveling east to promote his program. Upon his return to California, Powell's personal physician conducted tests and found malignant tumors on his neck and chest.[11]
The marker on Dick Powell's niche in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California, incorrectly identifies his year of death as 1962. Powell died at the age of 58 on January 2, 1963.[12]
It is speculated Powell developed cancer as a result of his participation in the film The Conqueror, which was filmed at St. George, Utah, near a site used by the U.S. military for nuclear testing. About a third of the actors who participated in the film developed cancer, including Powell, who directed the film, John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead and Pedro Armendáriz.[13] However, in a 2001 interview with Larry King, Powell's widow June Allyson stated that the cause of death was lung cancer due to his chain smoking.
Filmography
As actor
Features
Short subjects
- The Road Is Open Again (1933)
- Just Around the Corner (1933)
- Hollywood on Parade No. A-9 (1933)
- And She Learned About Dames (1934)
- Hollywood Newsreel (1934)
- A Dream Comes True (1935)
- Hollywood Hobbies (1939)
Features
Short subjects
Radio appearances
Powell was the first actor to play private detective Philip Marlowe on radio, in 1945.[6]
Lux Radio Theatre appearances:
Partial list of recordings
- "Is She My Girl Friend?" (1927-Vocalion 15647), the first commercially released record by Dick Powell. Although it was his first released record, it is not his first recording - "Time Will Tell" was his first recording, being for Gennett Records, however it was never pressed.[17]
- "I Only Have Eyes for You" (1934) from the film Dames.
- "Roses in December" (1937) words and music by Herb Magidson, Ben Oakland and George Jessel. (The song first appeared in The Life of the Party.) ISWC: T-070127274-3
- "Over There"/"Captains of the Clouds" (1942–Decca 4174) Issued early in World War II, the A side brought back a patriotic song that had been popular in World War I. The B side came from a James Cagney film of the same name.[18]
External links
- Dick Powell Photo Gallery
- Photographs and literature
- Cinderella's Boyfriend – 1934 article about Powell from Radio Mirror
- What's My Line? appearances:
References
- Death Takes Dick Powell The Desert Sun, January 3, 1963, retrieved February 18, 2024^
- Dick Powell Turner Classic Movies, retrieved September 12, 2012^
- "Richard Ewing Powell." Dictionary of American Biography (1981) Charles Scribner's Sons, New York^