Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1936)

Dick Powell Lost His Voice — and Discovered His Own Soul NOW that he is sure he is coming back well and happy — now that these last few months of worry and doubt have dimmed in his memory to a grotesque nightmare— Dick Powell can talk for the first time about the throat affliction that robbed the screen and radio of his singing for two months. If he were not convinced that he was, at last, on the high road to complete recovery, that his voice would be free and strong and beautiful again, you would not be reading his own story of what he went through during those darkest moments of his career. Men do not talk about their own deaths. And to be robbed of his voice forever would be just that to Dick. If this ordeal has taught Dick nothing else, it has proved to his own satisfaction that his correct place in the world of entertainment is as a singer, not an actor. He smihd ruefully, said: "Any notion* I might have been entertaining that I was getting by on my skill as a dramatic junior Barrymore, have been knocked into a cocked hat. Yes, many reviewers have been kind about certain of my screen performances — particularly have they complimented my ability as a comedian. But I know better now. I know that without my voice, I am lost. I wouldn't last six months! Except for the slight stab at my vanity, this knowledge hasn't upset me. After all, I am happy in my work only when I am singing. If I couldn't sing, I wouldn't want any other part of it." The summer leaves rustled lazily on the trees near the opened windows of "Estate 18," Dick's address in North Hollywood valley. Many times I have talked to him in this enormous room when both the room and Dick's career were in various stages of change or remodeling. Somehow, this beautiful valley home he has built will always be part of Dick's career to my mind. It started out as such a modest little farm house; then, as his prestige, his popularity and his value at the box-office grew by leaps and bounds, this house grew and sprawled out with additional wings and rooms until now it is one of the show places of the colony — just as Dick is one of the most valuable box-office properties in the industry. I've seen this room alive with the color and gaiety of one of Dick's informal little parties. I've seen it dismantled of drapes and furniture as Dick, with one of his quick changes of mind, ordered the interior decorators to "take it away" even before they had hardly had a chance to get furniture placed and drapes hung. The room has resounded with the Powell laughter and the Powell voice when Dick was in a happy mood. And its far corners have thundered back the echo of his indignations when he had a chip on his shoulder about something. But now, the house was strangely quiet. Quiet as though it, too, reflected this new, relaxed mood of Dick's. He had just returned from the Warner Brothers Studio where he had gone to tell Jack Warner that he would be able to start work in "Stage Struck" after being twice cancelled from the cast, lie was happy about it, yet with a difference. Heretofore, a happy Powell has been an exuberant one. But now there was a subtle change. His manner reflected more the quality of a triumphant-but-calm conqueror who has wrestled too strenuously with a formidable for to gloat over any victory. " Yes, I think all this has changed me in many ways," he agreed as I suggested the point, "in so very many ways thai I hardly know which is the most important. I've just come 34 By Walter Ramsey through a little private hell of worry and doubt. And yet I have experienced so many wonderful things, so many unexpected kindnesses from my friends and so much generosity from people I do not know that it has given me an insight into human nature that I might never have attained — if all this hadn't happened. "Technically, the thing that was wrong with my vocal cords was the simple matter of a growth — 'singer's nodes' they are called. This small growth is similar to a 'corn' on the foot. They are brought on by strain and forcing during periods of great fatigue or huskiness. If they are ignored — as I ignored them — the penalty is complete loss of voice. It is impossible to speak above a whisper because the growth will not permit the cords to touch and vibrate. The solution, of course, is an operation. The voice must have weeks of rest. And after that, the vocal cords must have months of care and freedom from strain to avoid a recurrence of the condition. That is the brief medical history of my case in cold facts. But it is only part of the story. "When the doctors told me that I must submit to an operation and that I would not be able to sing for weeks, perhaps months, I thought they must be out of their minds. I had to sing! I was under contract to a studio to sing, to the radio to sing. I couldn't take time out to coddle either myself or my throat. I guess I was pretty arrogant about it, in the beginning. This couldn't happen to me. I wouldn't permit it. " CO the doctors merely shrugged and did what they could to fix me up. I managed to get by with my studio work. But the radio was more difficult. By having treatments just before stepping to the microphone, I somehow got past the problem for a while. As I felt my voice grow weaker, I'd strain and shout all the louder. In time, it took its toll. One night I went down to the station and the temporary treatments had no effect whatsoever. I couldn't speak above a whisper. The jig was up. I was licked! "After that, you know pretty much what happened in the way of rumors. They were ten times worse than the truth — and to me, the truth was heartbreaking enough. On top of the terrific nerve strain I was already under, I was forced to hear hints that I had every malignant throat disease from cancer to tuberculosis — that everyone knew it but me and that the doctors were keeping it from me. In my distraught frame of mind, I wondered if this could be true. Could the doctors be holding the truth from me? I begged them to tell me the truth and when they did, 1 refused to believe them. I was tortured with doubts. "Of course, some of the rumors were so silly that I could laugh them off; one was that I was merely on a vacation-honeymoon with Joan Blondell whom I had secretly married. Since Joan wasn't as yet free to marry until her divorce became final, this rumor was merely silly. Another story hinted that I was merely using this so-called ailment to break my contract. As I said, 1 might have been able to laugh those stories off — if I'd been in a laughing mood. " I was miserably unhappy and made more so by the knowledge (always-too-latc-to-do-any-good) that anything and everything that had happened had been my own fault. I knew, even before the doctors warned me, that I was putting too