TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1956)

(Continued from page 73) frequently portrays on Four Star, Powell has been willing to gamble his crown — at the peak of each of these careers — to tackle something new in the entertainment industry. As an actor, he is equally willing to tackle almost any role. On Four Star, he has played a policeman, pilot, taxi driver, doctor — and night-club proprietor Willie Dante. The hard work has paid off in acclaim. Already voted "best actor in a network series" by the country's leading TV critics in the annual Billboard awards poll, Dick Powell is now the 195556 winner of TV Radio Mirror's nationwide balloting, as the favorite TV nighttime dramatic actor of the American TV audience itself. TV's Four Star Playhouse began four years ago, when Dick Powell found himself among the unemployed, after successfully playing the part of Richard Diamond on the radio series of that name. Dick and his agent, Don Sharpe, had adjoining offices. "Don always wanted me to get into TV," says Dick. "I was sitting in his office one day when he brought up an old radio idea he had called 'Four Star Theater.' "Joel McCrea and Rosalind Russell, who had done the radio series, were not interested in TV at this time, so we used guest stars for the first year. Then I asked David Niven, an old friend, to do one show — which was such a success that David wanted to become a full-time partner. Charles Boyer, another of Don's clients, joined us and, with our lawyer, Bill Cruickshank, we were in business." In addition to the three producer-actors, there is a fourth weekly guest. This season, it is Ida Lupino. Dick swears by Ida, not only because she is such a fine actress, but because she knows production values so well that she is as "cost-conscious" as producers Niven, Boyer or Powell. Four Star would like Ida's services indefinitely. It's just possible that TV Radio Mirror readers have a mental picture of Dick living in real life like 'Willy Dante', the unemotional gambler — or Powell, the costconscious producer. Nothing could be further from the truth. In television, a high-pressure industrial boiler which breathes an exhaust of ulcers and temperament, Dick Powell is a study in contrasts. Betty Burns, a young actress who has worked in the Dante series, says: "Mr. Powell sings on the set. It keeps everybody smiling." Kiva, Dick's make-up man for eleven years, says, "He's a human being. When he was producing and directing RKO's 'The Conqueror' in New Mexico, the temperature was around 115 degrees. After every difficult scene, he always came over to thank players individually for their hard work. It makes a difference." And Leslie Raymaster, Dick's stand-in for fifteen years, says, "Mr. Powell is that rare combination of administrator-actor. He knows how to get people to work with him — not for him. He plays no favorites. Everybody on the set gets his attention and a sympathetic ear. I'd give up an arm for him." Dick's social life away from the set is confined to his family — wife June Allyson and their children, Pamela, who will soon be eight, and Ricky, who was born Christmas Eve, 1950. Dick reads a lot, usually in bed, has a large record collection, classical and popular, and still tootles a saxophone, an instrument he learned at an early age. He dresses comfortably with jaunty good taste, likes people, and his 74 home (fifty-seven acres in Mandeville Four Star Triple Threat Canyon) is a popular meeting place for the Hollywood elite. Actress June Allyson and Dick Powell married in 1945. At that time, Dick's hobbies were flying and his yacht, the Santana. "Yachts hold a special fascination for me," says Dick, "because — at home in Little Rock, Arkansas — the biggest body of water I ever saw was the Saturday-night bath." June and Dick spent their honeymoon on the Santana. "After the kids came, June wasn't too happy with the boat," Dick recalls. "We didn't want to run off and leave the kids, and we couldn't take Pam and Ricky along for fear they'd fall over the side." Dick sold the Santana to Humphrey Bogart. "Then I went back to my first love, flying," says Dick. "June wasn't too nervous about my flying — she just wouldn't get in a plane. Then came my crack-up. I was over Las Vegas one day when the motor literally exploded. I landed in an old cow pasture by the grace of God and a prayer. "Next week, I put a new motor in the plane and flew home. But, after that, June was a nervous wreck every time I left the house. She would ask, 'Where are you going?' I would say I was going to the office, and she would call the airport and there I was. After this happened two or three times, I sold the plane and went back to golf. June loves golf . . . it's a game that keeps both feet on the ground." Dick Powell's Horatio Alger story began in Mountain View, Arkansas, a town of 900 people and no railroad. When Dick was five, his family moved to Berryville, the county seat, and later to Little Rock. "We had," Dick says, "a wonderful American family life. My father was head of the International Harvester Company for the five states around Arkansas. We had a musical family. My mother played the piano. She gave lessons to me and my brother, Howard. Howard was so much better than I that I got disgusted and quit, and started studying the clarinet, trumpet, and saxophone. As kids, we spent a lot of time singing around my mother's piano. "From sixteen to twenty-one, my brother Luther and I sang in the Jewish Synagogue on Friday night, the Scottish Rite Consistory on Wednesday night, the Episcopal Church Sunday morning, and the Methodist Church on Sunday night. Between the two of us, we had every tenor job in town tied up. Luther is now general freight agent for the Illinois Central Railroad. I don't know why he went into business — he had a better voice than I did." When he was eighteen and in Little Rock College, Dick went to work in the summertime installing the "new"' dial telephones. "Next summer I was promoted," he says. "I collected the nickels out of pay stations." He landed his first professional job as vocalist with the dinner orchestra at the Kentucky Hotel in Louisville. Dick sang classical and semi-classical ballads which pleased the hotel patrons, but the young tenor was not flooded with fat offers to go on to bigger and better things. Later, he reached a larger audience over Station WHAS, which carried the dinner music. Then Dick began adding a little patter between the songs and built a reputation as an emcee. In those days, the best way to get a job as emcee was to have a background as vocalist with a name band. So Dick did considerable angling and finally had his first and only nibble from Charlie Davis, then conducting the orchestra at the Ohio Theater in Indianapolis. There was only one hitch: The sing er Davis wanted had to double as banjoist. "I played saxophone, trumpet and clarinet," Powell says, "but I didn't know one banjo string from another. So I wired Davis I'd join him in thirty days, went out and bought a banjo — and went to work with Charlie a month later, with the sorest set of finger-tips you ever saw." A year later, Dick had his own band and played at the Indiana Ballroom. Dick's first big-time break came as emcee and vocalist at the Enright Theater in the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh. He was billed as "Richard E. Powell— Tenor." He was there for a year, and then went to the Stanley Theater in the heart of town, then back again to the Enright. Between the two theaters, he was held over for three years. Warners' offered Dick a film contract and he left the Stanley for Hollywood. His screen debut was in "Blessed Event,'" starring Lee Tracy and Mary Brian. Powell played a down-and-out band leader. "I got a shock when I read that script," Dick recalls. "I spoke one word, 'Hello,' to Lee Tracy. He didn't answer." But Dick sang three songs in the picture, in a way that set the Brothers Warner scurrying for scripts for movie musicals. That was in 1932, and it saw the start of a cycle of musicals never equalled before or since. By 1935, the tenor from Little Rock was one of the top ten box-office names in movies, and one of the hottest things on radio. "Yet I was in a rut," he says. "I'd decided I wanted to stay in this business the rest of my life, and, obviously, I couldn't spend the rest of my life being a young crooner in musicals. So I set my sights on becoming a director, eventually a producer." Dick went to work to un-type himself. He asked Warners' for a dramatic role. His bosses smiled tolerantly, and their manner intimated that a psychiatrist might prove helpful for these spells Powell seemed to be having. Finally, Dick left Warners' and looked for tough guy roles. Ihen RKO studio head Charles Koerner heard of Dick's quest, called him, and offered him the lead in a fast, tough Raymond Chandler mystery, "Farewell, My Lovely." The movie version was titled: "Murder, My Sweet." The movie and the new Dick Powell were a decided hit. All at once, every film and radio producer in town wanted Dick for tough or dramatic roles. He became a private eye in two highly successful radio series, first as Richard Rogue, then as Richard Diamond. The movie which marked another milestone in the Powell plan, and finally gave Dick his first chance to-.direct, was "Split Second," a taut dramatic thriller which won critical acclaim, made money, and firmly established Powell as a director. Since "Split Second," Dick has directed and produced RKO's "The Conqueror" and Columbia's musical version of "It Happened One Night," starring his wife, June Allyson. To top his career and climb to success, Powell has just been signed by 20th Century-Fox as producer-director. Busy as he is, Dick says he will never give up Four Star. "I like the people too much," he says. Besides that fact, hard work has always been a part of Dick's philosophy of life — it's part of his Arkansas background. Yes, Horatio Alger would have been proud of the Little Rock boy who grew up to be an internationally famous actor-director-producer. Says Powell, with a wry grin, "I still haven't given up the saxophone. In this business, you never can tell."