Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1919)

Above we see Mr. Powell and the only bu«t he ha Inown jinoc July 1. A little south-by-south-east, a pair of studies proving that he swings a mean look. HE looks like an Englishman en profile — but when he turns to you and smiles, you are sure he must be French, .^s a matter of fact he is neither, but Welsh. He was bom in Scotlanil of Welsh parents; and until he was seven and his family moved to this country, hed never spoken and seldom heard anything but Welsh. "I can remember," said David Powell, as we waitetl upon the will of director Chet Withey, in the New York Famous Players studio, "when I was a tiny shaver and they took me to the cr>-5tal Palace. I was awed into silence for a lew minutes — then I began to prattle and ask questions. Two women standing near spoke: 'What fine French that little boy is talking !' As a matter of fact. Welsh is not at all like French." He twisted his mustaches. They are pointed, like the Frenchman's in musical comedy. There is a certain psycholog> about Mr. Powell's mustache. "Of course, a musuche makes a man look like a villain. No matter how many good kind hings I do in pictures, small boys will always point at me and say. He's bad." I have been bad — but lately, well. I e.xpiated all my screen sins in "The Firing Line" when I ended my futile life that Irene Castle and Vernon Steele might be happy. And in The Teeth of the Tiger" that I'm doing; now I am a merr> French Robin Hood — we had to change the stor> because he killed seven men in the original version and Withey said it would begin to be funny after the fourth murder." He lives in New York — a splendid sort of existence he has. too. He is not a furiously rr.iTct •..> rr.-n: he has a continental laziness whi.h :■::,] :..-5ts itself in slow speech and a • that begins in his eyes and spreads of his mustaches. He likes to work. ric 15 at it. but he does not believe in rig a great fuss about it. "l liked "The Firing Line' because I wasn't in ver>* much of it and I had such a corking time do«-n in Florida between scenes. You know?" Rieht now— or when I ulke<l with him— he wai having his troubles. His troubles: one burly Irishman whom he calk his trainer. He Powell : Chapter II More aKuit the IianJsome Wclslinian wIidiii riK)to play Magazine once liailcd as *'the military hcart brcakcr." By Frances Denton hired him to come every morning at .seven o'clock sharp and give him a massage and put him through a lot of exercises. "And — he comes." saiil Powell worriedly, "that's the sad part of it — he always comes." Every once in a while he docs something like that. Just as he answers his fan letters: "I get so many after a successful picture I read them all and pick out the most interesting and answer those myself, in long hand. I don't have a secretary — that's rot. Someone told me I shouldn't answer them myself because it will look as though I don't get many. What do you" think?'' He has a delightful apartment in Manhattan and so many friends that he never gets lonesome. He has books and likes good ones and collects first editions. .Another hobby of his is photography, but I don't believe he has much time to practice it. David Powell is one of these perfectly useless persons — from an interviewer's standpoint. He is much too busy living and working to have cultivated any idiosyncrasies that you can write about. Mr. Powell, director Chet Withey. and that perfectly adorable child. Marguerite Courtot. all in "The Teeth of the Tiger " 47