Tyrone Power

Robert Osborne once wrote that two men stood out as if they were born on Mount Olympus the first was MGM’s Robert Taylor and the other is our Star of the Month for December 20th Century’s heartthrob Tyrone Power. In his time he gave mega stars Clark Gable and Errol Flynn a run for their money as Hollywood’s resident sex symbol. 

First though let’s trace his beginnings. Born in May of 1914 born to a family with  a long lineage of stage and screen actors. Tyrone began acting at age 7 and before his father died in 1931 he appeared with him before he was 17 in Chicago on stage in a production of The Merchant of Venice. 

After heading to California his father’s name opened a few doors but yielded not much more than jobs as an extra so it was back to Broadway to sharpen his skills and he landed one as an   understudy  to Burgess Meredith and it was there that  talent scouts from the West Coast brought him back to Hollywood where he signed with 20th Century Fox in 1936. After his first disaster in Sing Baby Sing he was undaunted and with Hollywood angel’s Alice Faye and Hedda Hopper by his side Tyrone continued to find regular work in light comedies like Girls Dormitory and Ladies in Love. With his two influential supporters  and his striking good looks Power would receive his landmark role that same year that minted his stardom in Lloyd’s of London. Within 6 months of that film’s release Power had his hand and footprints in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater and was #2 Box Office behind Mickey Rooney.   

He was finally off to the races as Power proved a bankable star in two big musicals Thin Ice in 1937 with Sonja Henie and then Alexander’s Ragtime Band in 1938 in which he sang the title track. Tyrone Power singing? He was no Sinatra but his voice was mellifluous enough for studio executives.  Then Tyrone went Western as he began to stretch his acting capabilities first in Jesse James in 1939 and Noir in 1940 with Johnny Apollo. Things then turned to the romantic side for Power as he reeled off The Rains Came, The Mark of Zorro and Blood and Sand the latter two costarring with the strikingly beautiful 17-year-old Linda Darnel and then The Black Swan  with Maureen O’Hara. It was these films and  the double edged sword of success  that rocketed Tyrone to superstardom yet kept him typecast in roles that prevented him reaching his true desire to be taken as a serious actor.

When WWII came Power joined the Marines in 1942 and although he remained stateside until 1945 he finally he became active in the War when he flew cargo and troop missions to Iwo Jima and Okinawa. When he returned home he was a changed man and after an affair with Judy Garland and a terminated pregnancy with her Tyrone was through with musicals and he sought more serious roles the first being Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge in ’46 and then very dark Nightmare Alley in ’47 the story of a con man’s rise and fall against the backdrop of a carnival. It was this role that proved his mettle way beyond his good looks. Studio bosses kept the film on the down low and after it’s release pushed hard with the release of  The Captain from Castile which was more in keeping with their image of who they thought America wanted to see.  So often when heroic stars take on roles that are so atypical it’s a risk for their career and the studio but Power pulled it off. In 1957 in what most critics agreed was his most acclaimed role opposite Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich in Witness for the Prosecution, Power plays a U.S. War Veteran accused of murder. It was a landmark film for its time garnering 6 Academy Award Nominations including Best Picture.    

Tyrone Power was one of the best swordsman in Hollywood and in what was to be his final film Solomon and Sheba in 1958 starring opposite his friend George Sanders while engaged in the film's sword fight Tyrone would exclaim: Must Stop! It was then he would drop to the floor then in seconds he fell supine  and expired  of a heart attack at age 44 a disease similar to his father. Yul Brynner was to take his place and if you look closely you can see Power in the long shots but this role would be just be an unaccredited one. 

Tyrone Power would sire 3 children 2 with second wife  Linda Christian and 1 with his companion of 6 months Deborah Minardos who gave birth to a child 2 months after his death. All 3 have pursued acting albeit to minor success including his namesake Tyrone Power Jr. 

Tyrone Power dead at age 44 November 15th 1958.  

Shirley Temple

Our Golden Age Star is truly a Golden Star. Shirley rocketed to fame at age 4 and unlike most child stars whose fame had an expiration dates like milk Shirley lives on forever in film and in our hearts. Many factors contribute I suspect to that fact, talent being the number one ingredient and like Gary Cooper once said no one rises to stardom without the help of a person of influence and that man was David O. Selznick who guided her successfully from age 4 until age 21.  Of course Shirley’s ambitious mother Gertrude played a huge role in gaining the exposure Shirley needed to land her the first movie contract but her Mom never impeded Shirley’s success but also kept a watchful eye on her daughter’s global stardom. Her father George as if by serendipity a bank employee became her financial advisor. However what I think was the number one factor the real key to Shirley’s longevity was that everyone that worked with her or knew her loved her. Stars like Gary Cooper, Cary Grant and Bill Robinson (Mr. Bo jangles) were never threatened by her stardom because she was genuinely humble, naturally charming on screen and off and one of the most charitable Hollywood stars of any age. 

Shirley born in Santa Monica California on April 23, 1928 got her start at just 3 years old in movie shorts called “Baby Burlesques” and her Mother Gertrude spotting her natural flair for dancing enrolled her in dance lessons at 3 ½.  These two factors the low budget films and dance classes landed her a contract with Fox Film at age 6.  Her first celluloid was the smash hit Little Miss Marker in 1934 costarring Adolphe Menjou that began her 4 year meteoric reign as the top box office draw for the Studio. Next came maybe one of her most famous musical numbers in Bright Eyes wherein she performed The Good Ship Lollipop. This tune is timeless.   Her parents hoped she would do just 3 films a year but relented to 4 and we are so glad they did because in 1935 The Little Colonel, Our Little Girl, Curly Top and The Littlest Rebel followed wherein we witnessed her spectacular dance number with Bill Robinson. Eye popping for it’s time a little white girl dancing with a black man but audiences embraced it with a fervor that was unparalleled for that time in history.  Her friendship with Bill lasted until his death in 1949. 

One of this writer’s favorite came in 1937 Heidi. Most of you know the story. The grandfather played by Jean Hersholt a curmudgeonly old man hated by the town is transformed by the magic of his granddaughter who is thrust upon him unceremoniously by the wicked Aunt Dete played perfectly by Mady Christians. Ripped apart and happily reunited this film had all the makings of a classic that proved to be the exclamation point on a childhood stardom that will last from here until eternity. 

As her childhood slipped away so did the roles being offered to Shirley however one that still stands out is the 1947 The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer where she starred with the aforementioned Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. When roles she tried for were being offered to other stars Shirley knew the handwriting was on the wall and she bowed out gracefully.  Her personal life featured two marriages one unsuccessful to John Agar who she starred in one film Fort Apache in 1948 with John Wayne and Henry Fonda. Her second time around found longevity and happiness followed for more than a half-century to Charles Black. Mr. Black recounted had the surf not been flat that day he might not have met Shirley. Instead he went to that cocktail party and that’s when he met Shirley Temple still just 22 he was 31 at the time.   A veteran of WWII living in Honolulu at the time and son of the president of Pacific Gas and Electric he was in the eyes of the World the man who married Shirley Temple.  That mattered little to Charles he had met the love of his life and their offspring Charles Black Jr. said of his parents they never spent more than a couple nights apart from each other in the nearly 55 years they were married until Charles’ death in 2005 to a bone disease. 

Shirley made guest appearances albeit grudgingly from time to time more for her fans than for herself. She had some bouts with cancer and Robert Osborne who met her in the 1990’s was surprised that she still continued to smoke cigarettes. The fact that she smoked at all he felt was incongruous to her pristine life and not to mention deleterious to her health.    

She ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for congress in 1967 and Shirley the diplomat’s career began in 1969 when she represented the U.S. for the General Assembly of the United Nations. Next she was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Ghana from December 1974 until July of 1976, then for Czechoslovakia in 1989-92. Appointed to many Board of Directors concurrently after that but that’s just boring filler Shirley Temple our Star for October was one of a kind and when her light went out on February 10, 2014 at age 85 it was as if Luna Park went dark. 

The Merry Mailman

There are many people in our lives that we like to call friends. But are they really? Truth is the word friend is a somewhat an ambiguous term. We have Facebook friends for example but are they in reality? Most I would venture to say are not more than Hallmark acquaintances that we rarely or never see. This is a story about someone and I like to think of him as my friend that carries letters and is more significant to me than most of any follower on Instagram or Facebook.  Each day I ride my bike through my neighborhood and invariably if my timing is right I pass the Merry Mailman. With this man I experience someone who retains a demeanor that never wavers. He is cheerful, loquacious, funny and never in a bad mood. And what’s even more unusual he’s not my friend on the aforementioned Facebook, or a follower on Instagram and I don’t have his email. On top of that I don’t even know his name.*But this Merry Mailman typifies something more than just a someone with a sunny disposition he is professional that performs his vocation with a discernment unlike many of his counterparts not only in the postal service but in many other career callings as well. Delivering mail on foot particularly in hot humid South Florida is not exactly and excuse the pun a walk in the neighborhood. He does it with pizzazz and you don’t often see your postal carrier with gesticulating moves like this man. No disrespect but the mail carrier on my route delivers our posts in perfunctory fashion no smile no emotion no vitality and certainly no animation. Not my friend every step is bounding and his energy is reminiscent of a lithium battery. 

With this man I experience someone who retains a demeanor that never wavers. He is cheerful, loquacious, funny and never in a bad mood. And what’s even more unusual he’s not my friend on the aforementioned Facebook, or a follower on Instagram and I don’t have his email. On top of that I don’t even know his name. But this Merry Mailman typifies something more than just a someone with a sunny disposition he is professional that performs his vocation with a discernment unlike many of his counterparts not only in the postal service but in many other vocations as well. Delivering mail on foot especially in hot humid South Florida is not exactly and excuse the pun a walk in the neighborhood. 

The Merry Mailman is an exclamation point on my ride and I look for him each time I clip into my bike and we always have something to say to each other. It’s rarely a matched tete a tete in fact rarely so but it matters not but it’s an exchange that is often invigorating and always spontaneous and extemporaneous. Sometimes I hear him laugh when my words spill out and that makes me smile as words can have a lasting affect bouncing off one to the other.   However his natural charm doesn’t need any assistance and when he drops his letters in each box they have an extra postmark on them “From Your Merry Mailman”.  

*His name is Arnie

Jimmy Stewart

Robert Osborne started off his tribute to Jimmy Stewart by telling us roles he didn’t portray. He donned full makeup for the part of an Asian in The Good Earth when he was but 27 but thankfully as he points out that role went to a much shorter Keye Luke who actually was Chinese. Then there was over a 100 others including North By Northwest that actually Alfred Hitchcock had him in mind for but, as fate would have it Cary Grant landed that iconic role instead. But let’s turn to this actor’s fabled career as we leave behind movies he didn’t star in shall we?  

Alfred Hitchcock and he would team up for four films Rope, The Man Who Knew Too Much (which was a remake of one of Hitch’s earlier films) Vertigo and probably his most famous of all Rear Window where he costarred with Grace Kelly before she would become Princess Grace of Monaco. The latter film remains in the top 10 films of all time no small feat in view of all the magic of CGI of late mainly because the story is singular in nature and it’s premise of Stewart being held hostage with a broken leg (they had plaster casts back then) inside his hot apartment overlooking the courtyard of his residential complex and everyone’s rear window had never been done. 

James Maitland Stewart born May 20, 1908 in Indiana, Pennsylvania to English-Scottish parents who owned a hardware store. Jim was educated at a prep school and excelled in football and track he also sang played the accordion and acted on occasion. At Princeton where he studied architecture Jim got more exposure to acting with the University Players, which took him around the country and a small stint on Broadway. Here he would meet his lifelong friend Henry Fonda. 

In 1934 his first screen appearance in a short titled Art Trouble actually starred Shemp Howard of Three Stooges fame but it was his collaborations with the legendary Frank Capra in roles like You Can’t Take It With You costarring Jean Arthur in 1938, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington in 1939 and after WWII in the holiday classic It’s A Wonderful Life that launched Stewart into superstardom and his iconic “everyman” persona with that Pennsylvania “aw shucks” demeanor so many Americans loved him for.  It was George Cukor however that directed him in his only competitive Oscar win in 1940 The Philadelphia Story opposite the luminaries Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant.  After that film Uncle Sam played a hand.  

 Jimmy Stewart drafted into the Army in 1940 would begin another starring role this time for his Country. He began army life as a private but during the course of the war rose to the rank of colonel and he because he had learned to fly in 1935; he flew combat missions in Europe. Jim remained in the U.S. Air Force Reserve until 1959 where he rose to the rank of brigadier general. And as one of my favorite database notes it was after the war that his career really took off.  

The lighter fare continued in 1950 in one of his favorite roles Harvey where his companion is an imaginary rabbit that has his relatives and friends completely bollixed with except of course Jim. But Stewart wanted grittier roles and they started to follow. Winchester ’73 and Broken Arrow both in 1950 then as we alluded to earlier Alfred Hitchcock came calling with his 4 productions. Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder in 1958 also found rave reviews for Jimmy’s resume. 

Stewart in the ‘70s tried his hand at television The Jimmy Stewart Show a sitcom which had a short run a drama called Hawkins and then opposite Lauren Bacall and John Wayne The Shootist in 1976. Jimmy Stewart married to his wife Gloria since 1949 had largely disappeared from the public eye showing up for various awards and with the loss of his wife in 1994 he was deeply affected. They had twin daughters and he had become father to her two sons by her previous marriage. Jimmy Stewart left this earth at age 89 and he was as most will recall a good man.  

Humphrey Bogart

Martha Vickers in the opening scene of 1946’s The Big Sleep says to Humphrey Bogart: “You’re not very tall are you?”  He looks askance at himself and responds: “Well I try to be!” A metaphor if there ever was one for this months Golden Age Star. Entertainment Weekly has called him The Greatest Movie Star of All Time and The Greatest Screen Actor by the American Film Institute. 

As Robert Osborne noted a male movie star had to be tall dark and handsome. Leading men like Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power, Robert Taylor and Cary Grant come to mind to name a few that would fit that bill easily but Humphrey Bogart? Well hardly. He had a craggy face, somewhat of a lisp, he stood but 5 foot 8 inches and when he spoke his mouth looked like a man with a twisted lip. 

Born on Christmas day in 1899 in New York.  His father a successful heart surgeon and his mother an accomplished painter and illustrator and artistic director of a woman’s fashion magazine The Delineator. Oddly enough one of his mother’s drawings of him as a baby was used in a national advertising campaign for Mellin’s baby food and Humphrey was a brief national sensation.  Never a grade A student he ended up being expelled for poor grades from and exclusive boarding school. Often derided by his name in school Humphrey was glad to get away and he enlisted in the Navy at 17 and it was rumored that in a scuffle with a prisoner and a pair of handcuffs that gave him that iconic scar above the right corner of his lip. When he came out at age 19 he became a manager with a touring company and two years later he broke in with his first   role with one line playing a Japanese waiter. He thrashed around Hollywood for 10 years before he landed his breakthrough role in 1934’s The Petrified Forest. Humphrey with his dead stare, dangling arms, and bent body shocked the screen audience and cemented his nook as the arch villain of the screen.  Roles in The Great O’Malley 1937, Dead End 1937 which featured Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall, Crime School 1938, and King of the Underworld 1939 emblazoned his image across the screens of America. 

But even with this great success he felt typecast and the perfect transitional role came to him in The Maltese Falcon in 1941. Often called the first film noir masterpiece Bogart playing the detective Sam Spade a slightly less than reputable shamus gets involved with some shady characters in pursuit priceless "Falcon". In the films climax Bogart’s character turns virtuous and turns in his love interest murderer Mary Astor and departs his villainous portrayals albeit for a time  for maybe his greatest role in 1942 Casablanca.  The film winning Best Picture to this day carries memorable quotes often used in everyday speech. Ten years later in 1951’s The African Queen alongside Katherine Hepburn he would finally win his Oscar. His final films all notable The Caine Mutiny 1954, Sabrina 1954 co-starring with Audrey Hepburn and William Holden and The Harder They Fall in 1956 would round out his glorious 80 film career.   

Married four times but there was only one and that one was Lauren Bacall. When they met on the set of To Have and Have Not she was only 19 he was more than 20 years her senior but the electricity jumped off the screen and even the audiences knew that these two were headed for a love that would be heralded as one of Hollywood’s iconic ones that would rival any you could name. They had two children together.  Often in almost every film Bogart  could be seen with a cigarette dangling from his lip and even lighting one for his costar but ultimately that habit would hasten his death at 57 succumbing to esophageal cancer. He and Bacall had 10 glorious years together.  

Humphrey Bogart didn’t fit your typical tall dark and handsome movie start but he certainly acted like he did

Break Time

I have taken a break from politics as it has become too virulent for me. Discourse has turned into name-calling and profanity. Its not spirited debate anymore it’s an attack on me personally which fortunately for me I don’t take personally because the attackers don’t know anything about me except their perceived notion of the politics I represent. Too bad too because I am a reasonable man and when confronted in a reasonable way with a cogent argument I will think about it and if there is merit to it either respond with my view or even change or modify my own. Isn’t that what debate is all about? No it seems my antagonists and I have to frame them with that word because they have determined in advance that they think they know who I am. It’s sad because they don’t. One thing I think I have determined though is that some of the friends that have departed my company have decided that any view that doesn’t coincide with theirs is a personal attack on them. This epiphany has made it all the more clear why some have reacted the way they have. Everyone isn’t a racist, a misogynist, a fascist, a white supremacist simply because you say so. Yes a break I need until the Country if ever let’s go of the diatribe they seem hell bent on.  I am just too old for this crap.  

Robert Osborne

I am taking a departure this month and instead of honoring a Hollywood Golden Legend I’m choosing instead to pay homage to a man that introduced so many of them for over 22 years as host of TCM or for the uninitiated Turner Classic Movies, Robert Osborne. 

Robert Osborne passed away last month on March 6th and I admit unabashedly that it was an emotional day for me. He became part of my life in such a visceral fashion because he made the movies I love so much come alive in a way not many could ever do. He did it in the vernacular no hip speak without the dreaded metaphors even his successor has deemed necessary. Robert spoke of people in loving tones without being insipid and if he didn’t have something positive to say he said nothing at all. He never engaged in gossip and when his guest hosts veered away from the topic of movies he gently steered the conversation back to the narrative of what the viewer had tuned in for in the first place the back story of how the movie was made and what made the story stand out in that particular moment in time. There was never revisionist history, as so many actors love to engage in. You know what I mean taking the mindset of today and trying to make it apart of what was. I see that often in movies today. 

For many years on Saturday night at 8 pm Robert along with a season long guest co-host featured a show called The Essentials. A Hollywood star would kibbutz with Robert before and after each movie that they both (most of the time) agreed was an “Essential” movie in Hollywood History. Alec Baldwin and Drew Barrymore grand offspring of the Barrymore legends each stayed several seasons and had particular great chemistry with Robert. Baldwin loved and respected Robert and he was more than happy to spend 3 seasons introducing with Robert these classic films often trying to keep up with Robert’s insane movie historical film knowledge. Although as I alluded Osborne was never arrogant about the depth of his screen acumen and he deeply impressed the young Drew Barrymore especially when the two would introduce films featuring her Grandfather John and Grand Uncle Lionel and Grand Aunt Ethel Barrymore. Although she knew and had seen those films her relatives have starred in she wasn’t up to speed on the history Robert brought to her in the seasons she spent with him.  

Another trait that I loved about Robert was that he never brought his personal life into his work. We never knew if he was a Conservative, Liberal, Republican or Democrat and when his co-hosts questioned him on who his favorite stars were he would let you know but it never clouded his judgment on their individual performances. He just had a gentle way about him and when Golden Age stars would talk about him they swooned but it was never syrupy sweet it was genuine love. 

Robert actually started in movies but it was another legend Lucille Ball that convinced him he should write about Hollywood instead and his book 85 Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards is the exclamation point about the Annual Awards Show. His DVD featuring 30 conversations with Hollywood legends some who has already passed away is a treasure trove of information about stars and their lives.  These past luminaries are so forthcoming about their lives as Robert gets them to reveal secrets as easily as taking candy from a baby. 

Robert Osborne was one of a kind he will never be repeated and although I will continue to watch TCM it will never be the same.