Dick Powell (From Emcee to Philip Marlowe), Marion Davies (Captain of Her Soul)

In Pittsburgh, Dick Powell was a stage show emcee — a now defunct species that flourished during those halcyon days of the American movie palace, from around 1925 to 1932. In those frenetic years, the city's "super deluxe" theaters were invariably "vaudefilm" houses, patrons getting for their money not only a first-run film together with assorted celluloid featurettes but from four to seven "live" acts of vaudeville. In point of fact, what brought Dick Powell to Pittsburgh early in 1929 was the decision made by Warner Brothers' zone headquarters to revamp the weekly vaudeville bills at their Enright Theater in East Liberty. They had in mind incorporating them into stage shows over which Powell, as the resident master of ceremonies, would preside. And though Powell considered his very first show a disaster, he was "going strong" the second week. What was the secret of his success? As expressed a critic from the 1930s:"We all had fun with Powell" — and this because "he painted the clouds with sunshine." 

No mean feat in a Depression-haunted America. His efforts and energies had gone into singing in several local church choirs and into playing the saxophone, the cornet, and the clarinet. Indeed, Powell's decision to put school behind him seems to have been prompted by a desire to transform an avocation into a professional career. Toward this end, he joined the Peter Pan Orchestra in Little Rock in 1923, playing the cornet and singing with the fourpiece group, which played dance engagements locally and between the reels of silent movies at The Majestic Theater on Main Street. Then, in 1924, Powell graduated to a review unit that was appearing in small-time vaudeville houses in the St. Louis suburbs. Returning home to Little Rock, he went to work in the commercial department of the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company. Presumably, he was determined to be a prudent professional man in his father's image. What he had not counted on was the appearance in Little Rock of the Royal Peacock Orchestra, playing an engagement at the Rainbow Gardens Ballroom in December 1924. 

Powell, who had come to dance with a girl from the phone company (Mildred Maund, who would be his first wife), was given the opportunity to sing with them on more occasions. His days at the phone company are recalled by Vera Harvill, a retired employee. She describes him as a happy person who had dated another company employee, Blanche Hart. According to Mrs. Harvill, they went to the movies and out dancing frequently. By February 1927, Powell was back in Indianapolis. He did get the chance to sing at the Apollo Theater, but his financial situation and professional prospects seemed so bleak that he took to selling insurance with determination, if little enthusiasm. Charlie Davis, not unaware of Powell's plight, at length relented and took him back —but at a reduced salary. At first, Powell displayed some early awkwardness, but in his Pittsburgh years Dick Powell matured into a poised personality —one a national audience would soon be applauding on their movie screens. Powell had his big opening in the Stanley Theatre affiliated with Warner Brothers studios on November 4, 1929. The downtown audience, enchanted with Powell, literally took to their hearts his opening song, "You Were Meant For Me." 

Afterwards, he was Hollywood-bound, destined to appear in more than thirty musicals in the next thirteen years. Films like Cowboy from Brooklyn (1938), Going Places (1938), and Naughty But Nice (1939), were made toward the close of his association with Warner Brothers. However, it was Powell's good fortune at the very outset to be featured in what movie historians number among the finest musicals made at Warner Brothers — 42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1933, and Footlight Parade all released in 1933. Of course, it was not only Powell's presence that made them "amazing pieces of entertainment" but rather the kaleidoscopic production numbers of Busby Berkeley, the epitome of the Warner musical of the 1930s. Fully aware that he was at a career crossroads in the late 1930s, Powell began importuning Warner Brothers to cast him in straight dramatic roles. 

Then, in the face of the studio's reluctance to do so, he purchased his contract release. Subsequently, he signed with Paramount, only to find the roles offered him were again singing juveniles. Determined to break out of the stereotype, Powell lobbied hard in 1944 to get the lead in James M.Cain's Double Indemnity. When Paramount turned him down, he quit the studio, signing with RKO only after they agreed to his playing the cynical detective in the 1945 screen version of Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely, which was released as Murder, My Sweet. Audiences took to the "tough" Powell, for he was wonderfully convincing as the glib, sardonic Philip Marlowe. So, too did Edward Dmytryk, the film's director. In his autobiography Dmytryk speaks of trying to work the actor into his character, saying Powell accepted direction "competently and effortlessly." 

Indeed, in Dmytryk's  judgment, Powell comes closer to the essence of Marlowe's character than Humphrey Bogart, Richard Montgomery, and Robert Mitchum — other distinguished portrayers of Chandler's fictional creation. By way of explanation, Dmytryk wrote, "I wanted Marlowe played as I believed Chandler visualized him — really an Eagle Scout, a do-gooder, with a patina of toughness only skin deep." The director goes on to identify this "good-guy" characterization with Dick Powell himself; and if his point is valid, it suggests interesting affinities between the tough detective and the stage show emcee. In the late 1940s, Powell would reinvent himself as a producer and executive, becoming the president of the prestigious Four Star Productions. 

Quite evidently his was a talent for all seasons. The point is surely worth making, but the Powell we are most apt to remember is not the ambitious businessman, but that friendly young fellow, that fine, decent, and wholesome man —full of life and fun— who is with us whenever his classic films of the 1930s and 1940s are revived. Powell made the audience believe that they too could succeed with hard work and diligence and a little good luck. But then it was his particular genius to make a generation experience anew from week to week the possibilities as well as the fun of being smart and optimist. They may not have succeeded but, remembering Powell, they believed they might have done just that. —"Remember a Local Singer Named Dick Powell?" (1976) by Howard Caldwell and "Dick Powell: The Indianapolis Years" by John L. Marsh (Indiana Magazine of History, December 1985)

Marion Davies’s Warner Bros. contract was reminiscent of most at this studio in the 1930s. The practice of extending time on seven-year agreements was found illegal in 1944, when Olivia de Havilland toppled the procedures at Warner Bros. in the landmark De Havilland Decision. In this ruling, the Supreme Court of California clarified that a seven-year contract meant seven calendar years, not seven years of time worked, under California law. But for Marion, and others at the studio in the 1930s, refusal to make a movie meant extra time was added. In early April 1935, Marion began work on her first Warner Bros. film, Page Miss Glory. She took to co-star Dick Powell right away, and he to her. Powell felt that Marion might be developing a crush on him, and with W.R. Hearst on the set constantly, he feared what this might mean for his career. 

As with all of Marion’s flirtations, it is difficult to know when the line crossed between a romantic friendship and a sexual interest. Marion was very tactile and demonstrative in her affection, hugging, kissing, and touching freely. Despite of it, it was clear for the crew who worked in her films with Powell that they didn't misinterpret their romantic relationship. Also, however harmless Marion’s potential crushes were, they frightened her co-stars, who were all too aware of the power that Hearst wielded over their careers. As at MGM, elaborate lunches for the cast were held at Marion’s bungalow. Much like the picnics at San Simeon, there was chicken and champagne, and W.R. kept a watchful eye on Marion throughout. At one of these lunches, given for some Hearst higher-ups from the East Coast, W.R. was busy talking to guests when Powell entered the bungalow. When Marion caught a glimpse of Powell coming through the door, she gleefully welcomed him by blowing exuberant kisses across the room, beckoning with both her arms for him to come over and sit in the seat she had saved next to her. Powell, afraid that W.R. Hearst would turn around and catch the whole scene, gestured to her in no uncertain terms that she should be very careful. In addition to the fear that Powell had of W.R. Hearst’s jealousy, he also knew that “the Chief” had the power to ruin his career in a single blow if Powell displeased him. 

“You always felt Mr. Hearst’s possessive attitude toward Miss Davies,” Powell recalled for the Hearst biographer W.A. Swanberg. “I remember feeling that he had a possession complex—that Miss Davies was his possession and had to be guarded.” Given W.R. Hearst’s all-encompassing need for control, Powell was allegedly approached once about what was going on between Marion and himself. W.R. just laughed at the insinuation that he was jealous of Powell, but still he warned him, "just watch your steps, Richard." To Dick Powell, Marion Davies was the “best-hearted woman in the world,” whose interactions with him on the set were "endearing." Marion, in turn, remembered Dick Powell with tenderness. “I really adore him,” she said. “He’s a darling, a gentleman. He’s one of the sweetest persons I’ve ever met.” Hearts Divided, co-starring once more with her beloved Dick Powell. 

Hearts Divided was set during the Napoleonic era, with Marion playing Elizabeth “Betsy” Patterson, the wife of Napoleon’s brother Jêrome. With many emotional scenes and plenty of comedy, the movie appeared to be headed toward success. Marion looked young and beautiful in her Napoleonic garb and hair that seemed more platinum with every passing movie. Marion and W.R. planned to leave for San Simeon as soon as filming was finished, but those plans were held up when Dick Powell came down with laryngitis and couldn’t complete his final number. After several days of inactivity on Hearts Divided, Powell finally consulted with doctors to see what they could do. One put a tincture of silver on his vocal cords, allowing him to sing the final number and get Marion and W.R. off to San Simeon. However, Powell said that he developed a vocal cord nodule due to the silver, and couldn’t sing for four months afterward. —Captain of Her Soul: The Life of Marion Davies (2022) by Lara Gabrielle