A couple of weeks ago, I posted an old piece about Myrna Loy. The following article about William Powell originally appeared in the same publication.
Debonair.Urbane.Witty.Sophisticated.Irreverent.William Powell wore all of these superlatives like a very expensive,hand-stitched glove.In the era of the young and overpowering Clark Gable and Gary Cooper,Robert Taylor and Tyrone Power,the slightly bug-eyed,lanky Powell was already middle-aged.Distinguished in appearance,with a to-the-tuxedo-born aura,he found leading man success.His attitude,however,was more street savvy,fast-talker than drawing-room polite.He charmed,cajoled and double-talked his way through dozens of films in a career that lasted more than thirty years.His characters were always willing to be a little shady if it furthered their purpose;indeed,they seemed to revel in being sly and less-than-straightforward,their misdeeds often accompanied by a wink.
He was immortalized as Dashiell Hammett's hard-drinking,wise-cracking Nick Charles,a role that he played to acerbic,dissipated perfection in half-a-dozen films. In what is perhaps the most sublime pairing in cinema history,he flirted,argued,bantered and,occasionally,solved crime opposite the incomparable Myrna Loy.As fresh and sexy today as they were an unbelievable 7 decades ago,the proof of their physical chemistry and verbal syncopation is in the watching.
Nick Charles was not his first successful foray into detective-portrayal.He brought Philo Vance to life in four films from the late Twenties through the early Thirties.Lest we try to pigeon-hole him as a suave city-dweller,it pays to remember that he started his celluloid career as a silent film villain in,of all things,Westerns.Silent films enabled actors to readily and believably play characters of various nationalities without the need to master a foreign accent.In this vein,Powell portrayed both King Francis I and The Duke of Orleans.Although,as a former Broadway actor,he had a wider range than the ironic,tippling,slightly ruthless characters that he is most famous for might suggest.
Myrna aside, he starred with the likes of Jean Arthur,Lillian Gish,Louise Brooks and Marilyn Monroe. On the home front,he was married to one co-star and engaged to another.His second wife was the elegant,brash Carole Lombard. He was engaged to tragic sex-symbol Jean Harlow at the time of her death from uremia poisoning in 1937.He ultimately settled down into one of Tinseltown's rare long marriages,to starlet Diana Lewis,in a union that lasted from 1940-1984.He died in 1984,at 91.
He was nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award 3 times but never won.His career steamed through the 1940's with nearly as much momentum as in the 2 previous decades.Still occasionally starring with Loy,he also performed with such up-and-comers as Ann Blythe and Elizabeth Taylor.He received his final Oscar nomination for the 1947 classic "Life with Father" and finished his film career 8 years later as part of the all-star "Mister Roberts".
William Powell's portrayals remain one of the indelible factors of 1930's cinema.He never took himself too seriously on film and his characters,whatever their situation,always seemed to be having a good time....and a good laugh at life's expense.
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