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William Powell William Horatio Powell was an American actor.
He typically played highly confident characters, with a sophisticated sense of humor and wit.
A major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he was paired with Myrna Loy in 14 films, including
the popular Thin Man series based on the novels of Dashiell Hammett in which Powell and Loy
played Nick and Nora Charles. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three
times: for The Thin Man (1934), My Man Godfrey (1936), and Life with Father (1947).
Childhood An only child, Powell was born in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, the son of Nettie Manila (née Brady) and Horatio Warren Powell, on July
29, 1892. His father was born in West Middlesex, Pennsylvania (where Powell spent his boyhood
summers), to William S. and Harriet Powell. Powell showed an early aptitude for performing.
In 1907, he moved with his family to Kansas City, Missouri, where he graduated from Central
High School in 1910. The Powells lived just a few blocks away from the Carpenters, whose
daughter Harlean also went to Hollywood, under the name Jean Harlow, although she and Powell
did not meet until both were established actors. Film career
After high school, he left home for New York and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts
at the age of 18. In 1912, Powell graduated from the AADA, and worked in some vaudeville
and stock companies. After several successful experiences on the Broadway stage, he began
his Hollywood career in 1922, playing a small role as an evil henchman of Professor Moriarty
in a production of Sherlock Holmes with John Barrymore. His most memorable role in silent
movies was as a bitter film director opposite Emil Jannings' Academy Award-winning performance
as a fallen general in The Last Command (1928), which led to Powell's first starring role
as amateur detective Philo Vance in The Canary *** Case (1929).
Powell's most famous role was that of Nick Charles in six Thin Man films, beginning with
The Thin Man in 1934, based upon Dashiell Hammett's novel. The role provided a perfect
opportunity for Powell, with his resonant speaking voice, to showcase his sophisticated
charm and witty sense of humor, and he received his first Academy Award nomination for The
Thin Man. Myrna Loy played his wife, Nora, in each of the Thin Man films. Their on-screen
partnership, beginning alongside Clark Gable in 1934 with Manhattan Melodrama, was one
of Hollywood's most prolific, with the couple appearing in 14 films together.
He and Loy also starred in the Best Picture of 1936, The Great Ziegfeld, with Powell in
the title role and Loy as Ziegfeld's wife Billie Burke. That same year, he also received
his second Academy Award nomination, for the comedy My Man Godfrey.
In 1935, he starred with Jean Harlow in Reckless. Soon a serious romance developed between them,
and 1936 found them united again in film and with Loy and Spencer Tracy in the screwball
comedy Libeled Lady. But Harlow died from uremia at the age of 26 in June 1937 before
they could marry. His distress over her death, as well as a cancer diagnosis, caused him
to accept fewer acting roles. Powell's career slowed considerably in the
1940s, although he received his third Academy Award nomination in 1947 for his role as the
cantankerous Clarence Day, Sr. in Life with Father. His last film was 1955's Mister Roberts
with Henry Fonda, James Cagney, and Jack Lemmon. Despite numerous entreaties to return to the
screen, Powell refused all offers, happy in his retirement.
Personal life In 1915, he married Eileen Wilson, with whom
he had his only child, William David Powell, before an amicable divorce in 1930. Powell's
son became a television writer and producer before a period of ill health led to his suicide
in 1968. On June 26, 1931, Powell married actress Carole
Lombard. The marriage lasted just over two years. They were divorced in 1933, though
they too remained on good terms, even starring together in the screwball comedy My Man Godfrey
three years later. He had a close relationship with actress Jean
Harlow beginning in 1935, but it was cut short by her untimely death in 1937. It is reported
that a single white gardenia with an unsigned note was placed in her hands before she was
interred, presumed to have been written by Powell. The note read, "Good night, my dearest
darling". He also paid for her final resting place—a $25,000, 9×10-foot private room
lined with multicolored imported marble located in the "Sanctuary of Benediction" of the Great
Mausoleum, Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale. In 1937, Powell was diagnosed with cancer
of the *** (although some news accounts at the time, given to decorum, described it
as colon cancer instead). He underwent surgery and experimental radium treatment which put
the disease in full remission within two years. Given his own health and sorrow over Harlow's
death, Powell did not undertake any film roles for over a year during this period.
On January 6, 1940, Powell married actress Diana Lewis (27 years his junior), whom he
called "Mousie," three weeks after they met. They remained married for forty-four years,
residing primarily in Palm Springs, California, until Powell died at the age of 91.
Death Powell died of heart failure in Palm Springs,
California, on March 5, 1984, at the age of 91, some 30 years after his retirement. He
is buried at the Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California, near his son William David
Powell and wife Diana Lewis. Honors
Academy Awards nominations 1934 Best Actor – The Thin Man
1936 Best Actor – My Man Godfrey 1948 Best Actor – Life with Father
Other William Powell has a star on the Hollywood
Walk of Fame at 1636 Vine Street. He won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best
Actor in 1947 for Life with Father and The Senator Was Indiscreet.
In 1957, Powell was awarded The George Eastman Award, given by George Eastman House for distinguished
contribution to the art of film. In 1978, influential proto-punk band The Dictators
recorded a well reviewed rock ballad "Sleepin' With The TV On" in homage to William Powell
and The Thin Man films. In 1992, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs,
California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him.
Filmography Short subjects
Screen Snapshots (1932) Hollywood on Parade No. A-12 (1933)
Screen Snapshots: The Skolsky Party (1946)