People remember the mustachioed Powell primarily for the 14 movies he made with Myrna Loy, particularly the six Thin Man films between 1934 and 1947. The co-stars’ timing, banter and mutual ease was so convincing, audiences mistakenly assumed they were married in real life.
William Powell a Native of Pittsburgh
William Horatio Powell was born in Pittsburgh in 1892, the only child of accountant Horatio Powell and his wife, Nettie. When Bill was a teenager, the Powells moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where his high school classmates included future baseball Hall of Famer Casey Stengel.
At Central High, Bill Powell participated in school plays, the glee club, worked on the school yearbook and even was a cheerleader.
(Coincidentally, living a few blocks away was the Carpenter family, whose daughter Harlean someday would meet, co-star and become deeply involved with Bill Powell when both were movie stars. By then, she was known as Jean Harlow.)
Powell Studies Acting With Future Movie Icon Edward G. Robinson
After graduating in 1911, he briefly attended the University of Kansas, mostly to satisfy his father, who hoped his son would pursue the law. But William Powell had the acting bug and soon set off for New York’s American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
At the AADA, Powell’s classmates included Edward G. Robinson and Joseph Schildkraut. Powell’s 1912 Broadway debut was a walk-on – but soon a supporting role in Within the Law put him on the road for two years.
In 1915, Powell married castmate Eileen Wilson and they worked together in traveling stock companies until 1917. Back on Broadway, Powell found stardom as a villain in the 1920 production Spanish Love. It ran for two years and opened the door for the 30-year-old to try his hand at the emerging medium of film.
John Barrymore Film Opens Movie Doors For William Powell
In the silent hit Sherlock Holmes starring John Barrymore, Powell played a secondary villain. He came to specialize in movie heavies; his silent credits included The Great Gatsby and Beau Geste (both 1926) and The Four Feathers (1928).
In 1925, Eileen and William Powell welcomed a son, William David Powell, who grew up to be a television writer and producer.
Powell’s elegant, stage-trained voice was ideal for the emerging medium of sound film. In his first talking picture, Powell played sophisticated detective Philo Vance in The Canary Murder Case, with Louise Brooks.
Role of Philo Vance a Natural Segue to Nick Charles and The Thin Man
Vance, the subject of a dozen popular crime novels by S.S. Van Dine, was the perfect role for Powell. The actor played him in five films – leading in 1934 to The Thin Man’s equally urbane Nick Charles.
It’s no stretch William Powell’s career was defined by the role of Nick, novelist Dashiell Hammett’s witty, tipsy crime solver. As Nick’s wife Nora, Myrna Loy was Powell’s equal in the half-dozen Thin Man films.
Powell and Loy already had teamed for Manhattan Melodrama, remembered today as the film John Dillinger watched just before authorities gunned him down. But it was The Thin Man that depicted Powell and Loy as impeccably dressed, breezily boozy socialites with the kind of knowing banter most couples wished they could emulate.
William Powell Marries Glamorous Carole Lombard
Offscreen, Bill’s love life was more complicated. His marriage to Eileen Wilson ended in divorce in 1931; that same year, he married the earthy, beautiful, talented Carole Lombard, with whom he’d already made two pictures. While the marriage lasted just two years, the two remained close, even co-starring in 1936’s My Man Godfrey, which earned Powell his second best actor Oscar nomination (after one for The Thin Man).
In 1935, Powell began dating another notable blonde, Jean Harlow. According to her biographer, David Stenn, the actress regarded Powell as a father figure, while the actor eventually grew contemptuous of her – and couldn’t tolerate Harlow’s domineering mother and manipulative stepfather. (David Stenn, Bombshell: The Life and Death of Jean Harlow, Doubleday, New York, 1993)
Stenn describes Harlow as subservient to Powell, and their mutual friend, Myrna Loy, “realized how deeply she (Harlow) loved Bill, a total childlike love, full of the exuberance and wonder that characterized her.” (Stenn, p. 206)
According to Stenn, Harlow loved Powell enough to endure at least one abortion for him.
Relationship With Jean Harlow On Rocks
Powell bought Harlow an 85-carat star sapphire, which he considered vulgar but knew she’d like. People mistakenly assumed they were engaged. In fact, he had no intention of marrying her. “I learned my lesson when I was ‘Mr. Carole Lombard,’” Stenn quoted Powell as saying. “You don’t marry someone half of America wants to sleep with.”
Stenn adds his own editorial coda: “Coming from Harlow’s male counterpart, it was the height of hypocrisy.” (Stenn, p. 208)
The marriage issue became moot. After the couple made the well-received Libeled Lady, Harlow died suddenly in 1937 from uremic poisoning. She was 26.
William Powell Survives Near-Fatal Struggle With Cancer
The next year, Powell himself came perilously close to death. He was diagnosed with colon cancer and survived only due to then-experimental radiation treatments.
Afterward, Bill Powell accepted fewer roles. In 1940, he married again – to the little known actress Diana Lewis. Unlike the actor’s two previous marriages, this one lasted.
William Powell made 14 film appearances in the 1940s, including the Oscar-nominated title role in Life With Father. His 1950s output consisted of five films and he closed out his career with great flair as Doc in 1955’s Mister Roberts.
Son William David Powell Commits Suicide
Powell then happily retired to Palm Springs, resisting all further offers from Hollywood. He and Diana enjoyed a quiet retirement in the California desert, with Powell choosing to speak publicly only about his triumph over cancer.
But life was not ideal. Powell’s only child, son William, was troubled by depression and ill health. He took his own life in 1968 at age 42, leaving a four-page letter to his father, with whom he was close.
William Powell lived on until March, 1984, when he died at age 91.
Barry M. Grey - Barry M. Grey is a non-fiction TV writer-producer in Los Angeles whose love of classic film borders on the dangerously obsessive.
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