TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1963)

GODFREY— POWELL (Continued from page 47) fortunately, the growths turned out to be non-malignant) and one on the kidneys (infection set in afterward, and she almost died). Later, after June recovered and she and her husband were reconciled, she said, "I was stricken with kidney trouble up in Monterey, and he was down in Hollywood making a picture. Well, he flew up there — about 300 miles — every day after work for ten days, just in case I needed him. A girl doesn't find a man like that very often." A man doesn't find a girl like June very often, either. She sat next to him at the press conference, smiling confidently, showing none of the fear and anxiety for him she must sometime feel. She helps him with his shirt (he is unable to button it around his neck). She cheers him up. nurses him, sustains him. Onslaught and history of Dick's illness: Powell first became aware that something was wrong while in New York for guest appearances on the "Today" and "What's My Line?" TV shows. He woke up one morning but couldn't open his eyes. "My face was all puffed up." he says, "but I went on and did the shows. I went to a doctor who told me I had some kind of allergy. "The same thing happened later in Cincinnati." he says. "I went to see another doctor who also said I had an allergy. He gave me some pills. Then I cancelled some other engagements and came home." At home he checked into a hospital for seven days. His personal physician ordered laboratory tests and biopsies taken, which disclosed the malignancies on the right side of the neck and in the chest area. Treatment and prognosis: Powell is receiving radiation therapy (the so-called Linac treatment by means of a linear acceleration device) and reports that his doctor "is pleased with my progress and told me he expects to eliminate the condition." Present activities and future plans: "I feel healthier now than I ever have." Powell informed his press conference. "I get eight or nine hours' sleep a night. Formerly, I was getting five hours. "Do I look like a terminal case? "I'd rather have cancer than pneumonia. I'd miss more work if I had a cold. What the hell good does it do to complain about a small cancer I'm going to get rid of? When I told NBC about it, they said, 'What's the difference? Stop talking and keep working.' "I've got six more shows to act in this season and a lot more to produce. I'm going right back to work. I feel healthier now than I ever have. "There's no reason for bothering people with your problems. I would never have said anything about it if some newspaperman hadn't forced me into it." Powell did go right back to work. He'd swallow a few pills, kiss June goodbye, and speed off to the studio. And he even had the time and the energy left over to take in a baseball game. "I just came home from a Dodger night game." he informed a newsman who reached him with a late phone call. "I feel wonderful. It's the first time I got out to watch a game at night. I enjoyed myself and all I thought about was: The Dodgers are going to lose." But Powell was more interested in talking about winning than losing. "June feels wonderful," he said. "She was worried, of course, but it's fine now. Dr. Stein is very encouraging and he thinks we can eliminate this condition completely. I know I'll beat it. "I'm looking forward to the spring now. I've got a 63-foot cabin cruiser and I'm going to Seattle from Los Angeles. "It should be a wonderful trip." A brave man. Dick Powell, a courageous woman. June Allyson. the reporter thought. He put away the notes and went out to meet Arthur Godfrey's plane. He climbed into the Convair at Godfrey's invitation. A big smile lit up Godfrey's healthy face as he shook hands firmly. But his expression became grave when he was asked to comment on Powell's illness. Yes. he'd heard about Dick's having cancer. No. he wasn't aware of Dick's trouble when he'd had dinner with him a month before in a "wonderful reunion in Hollywood.'" "I've since heard of his trouble." Arthur stated. "«and have written him a letter welcoming him to a club he never thought he'd join — the Cancer Club. I hope to get him into the graduate club — Cured Cancer." All at once it was silent in the plane. It was obvious that Arthur Godfrey no longer heard the lash of the rain against the wings or the whoosh of the wind against the cockpit. Perhaps he was listening to words in his own head — words that had been said to him and words that he had said to others four years before when he. too, was initiated into the Cancer Club. . . . How cancer starts "I was in Hawaii doing a telecast when I first noticed the pain. It wasn't severe or steady, but it made me uneasy. I decided it was my heart. So whenever it got out of hand. I'd dive into the Waikiki surf, swim out, and tell myself: 'If it's a coronary, okay, let it come now.' "Since it didn't. I changed my diagnosis to gas pressure. I thought it was indigestion." But the chest pains, recurring and frequent, increased in severity, and he checked into a hospital for X-rays. The doctor said that "there was a spot on my lungs and that he didn't know what it was. The doctor told me. after the examination, that there were only two chances in a hundred that it wouldn't be malignant. I thought that, if I didn't do anything about it. I would be dead in six months, anyway. Maybe less. But what's the sense of living six months and being sick and wasting away? I said to my doctor friends. 'Let's go to work.' and they sent me to a surgeon they thought was one of the finest in the world. He examined me and said that it looked rough but he would operate. That was the greatest news to me— for then I knew I had a chance." Now it was time to put his house in order and to say farewell to his radio and TV audiences, just in case. . . . After breaking the bad news on a TV show — "This old Irish ruin has got some ivy growing in the chest. Next weekend I'm going to a hospital and maybe get it trimmed out" — he taped a final telecast from his Leesburg. Va.. home. Standing next to his wife Mary, he said, "Mary and I love every blade of grass and every little heart that beats on this farm. . . ." At the end of the program, his eyes misty and his voice breaking, he signed off by saying. "Thanks for your prayers and good wishes. God bless you and I'll see you again soon." To his radio listeners he said simply, "You never know what it is until you operate and go in there and get it. So that's what we're going to have to do next week." He signed off by asking his audience to "keep your fingers crossed." In the hospital shortly before the operation, several reporters asked him, "How do you feel?" In the answer which he pecked out on a typewriter himself, he insisted that he felt very well physically but added. "Mentally, however. I'm a mess. You've heard of mixed emotions? Man. this is rough. No pain anywhere — look good — feel good — but some of the best brains in the medical profession have discovered a 'thing' in my left lung. Can't tell what it is — this 'thing' — but. whatever it is. it doesn't belong there. It must be removed. If it's a benign tumor of some sort, hurray for our side — no more sweat. If the damn 'thing' is malignant — cancerous — then there's real trouble. Maybe have to take the whole lung out. "All the things we had planned to do and now there is this 'thing." Suddenly, out of nowhere. Never felt better in my life. Then, boom: this 'thing.' This horrible, skulking "thing.' visible only as a ghostly shadow on an X-ray negative. This 'thing' that no longer gives pain probably because I can't feel it through the cold, clammy, clutching fear that's gnawing at my vitals." Under the knife One more question. One more answer. Just before he was wheeled from his tenth floor room in Harkness Pavilion through a corridor and into Presbyterian Hospital, a reporter asked, "Are you worried about the operation?" He snapped back, "Sure, I'm worried. Wouldn't you be?" 7:25 a.m. Pre-operative preparation begins in the operation theater. In attendance are three doctors, three nurses and an anesthetist. 8:25 a.m. Exploratory surgery starts. 10:20 a.m. Tissue from the lung has been rushed to the laboratory for tests, and one of the attending surgeons has T informed the patient's wife, Mary, of v the findings. Now comes a terse medical R bulletin : "The lesion in Mr. Godfrey's left lung has been identified as being 81