No one remembered exactly when Joan Blondell met Dick Powell, or when she stopped seeing him as a fellow contract player at Warner Bros. and started seeing him as a potential suitor. By the time they made Broadway Gondolier, they had already appeared in four movies together. They were first spotted dating in late September of 1935, less than one month after Joan’s divorce from cinematographer George Barnes. Joan began to see why Dick Powell was one of the most well-liked men in town. Powell was personable and upbeat and a great asset to any party. He had a rendition of “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” sung slightly off-key, that James Cagney said was “one of the funniest things he’d ever heard.” Dick Powell was born on 14 November 1904 in Mountain View, Arkansas. In 1914, his parents moved the family to Little Rock, where he grew up with two brothers. As a young man he discovered a talent for music. “I started out with two assets,” he once said, “a voice that didn’t drive audiences into the streets and determination. I’ve always worked like a dog.” He mastered the piccolo, sax, trumpet, and the banjo, then joined a number of bands and toured in vaudeville. His dark, wavy hair, dimples, twinkling eyes, high cheek bones, and nice smile provided him with boyish appeal. He was drawn to the spotlight, but his ambitions were stalled by an ill-advised marriage to a Little Rock native, Mildred Maund. They eventually divorced due to Dick’s constant touring.
On contract at Warner Bros. since 1932, his movie popularity had come as quickly and completely as Joan’s. He saved and invested wisely. When he had enough money, he bought a house for his parents in North Hollywood. The only scandal that accompanied him so far was his short affair with actress Marion Davies that had been oddly unnoticed by W.R. Hearst. Just as the Blondell-Powell romance began to simmer, Joan cranked out a team effort with Glenda Farrell called Miss Pacific Fleet. After her forthright letters to Hal Wallis, Joan believed this latest show-girl part was a catalyst for her career. Romance with Powell was getting serious, and it was time to meet the parents. Dick’s mother found Joan to be “a lovely girl and a perfectly beautiful one.” Joan’s parents similarly voiced their approval of Powell. Even her close sister Gloria, currently touring in It’s a Wise Child on stage, thought Dick Powell was really good for her big sister. Compared to George Barnes, Powell seemed nice and easy to live with. Warner Bros. decided to unite the pair in two more movies.
The first one, Stage Struck, was cursed with Joan’s sprained ankle and Dick’s throat problems. But Joan once again proved amusing as a temperamental actress of marginal talent who finances her way to fame in musical comedies after shooting her husband. (Echoes of Beulah Annan and Peggy Hopkins Joyce were likely to be intentional.) No one was much impressed by Stage Struck. Orry-Kelly declared Joan’s mouth the most beautiful in Hollywood. Significant, too, was the fact that Dick Powell visited her in her dressing room to go over lines. Fan mail for Blondell and Powell increased, and Warner Bros. began treating both of them like proper stars. In Gold Diggers of 1937, she played a chorus girl, while Dick was a dull life insurance salesman. Finally, their newfound mutual attraction translated onscreen.
As the last Gold Diggers musical, there were hummable tunes sprinkled throughout, including “With Plenty of Money and You,” “Speaking of the Weather,” and the lavish showstopper “All’s Fair in Love and War.” Joan and Dick frantically completed Gold Diggers of 1937 in time to stage their showy wedding. On 11 September 1936, they filed a marriage application amid hundreds of gawking civic employees at the Los Angeles County Marriage License Bureau. On 17 September, they announced that they would be married in two days on the yacht Santa Paula at San Pedro shortly before it was to sail from Los Angeles to New York. Joan’s hairdresser-confidant, Ruth Pursley, was maid of honor, and Dick’s good friend, actor Regis Toomey, was best man. For reasons never divulged, Dick’s parents were not there. The onboard reception for fifty guests was attended by Busby Berkeley, James Cagney, Glenda Farrell, Orry-Kelly, Mervyn LeRoy, and, as a business courtesy, Hal Wallis. Joan gushed, “I’m deliriously happy,” as she lifted her glass of champagne. “This is the greatest event of my life,” said Dick. Dick was a friendly guy, freely giving autographs to fans, but the stress of a fishbowl honeymoon sent him to bed with an ardor-suppressing cold. Dick had orchestrated the refurbishing of an English-style house on North Maple Drive in Beverly Hills to coincide with the honeymoon. Dick was also an attentive stepfather to Norman and won Joan’s affection when he knocked the wheels off of a trailer home in the backyard, set the body on blocks, and filled it with Norman’s toys.
Joan was thrilled that Dick wanted more kids as Joan had “no intention of letting her one child grow up without brothers or sisters.” Joan was enjoying domesticity like never before, in part because Dick, unlike George, was a fully participating spouse. Joan wanted nothing more than stability without overwork, and to keep a stable address. Dick had other plans, since he saw their house as an investment besides a home and this brought considerable friction to the marriage. There were arguments about where to move, whether to buy or lease, add a wing here, knock down a wall there. In March, the Powells moved to a 1920s Tudor-style house on Selma Avenue near Fairfax, previously owned by actress Fay Wray and her husband, writer John Monk Saunders. It was one block from Schwab’s drugstore and next door to screenwriter Frances Marion’s huge estate known in Hollywood as “the Enchanted Hill.” The house was set among eucalyptus trees, with a broad front lawn framed by low hedges. Joan did not grieve Maple Drive long and got busy applying her eclectic taste. They were by all appearances happy, committed to their children, and delighting in a shared sense of humor. With him in a purple dressing gown and her in lounging pajamas, and coffee percolating on the mahogany side table, they fielded softball questions from high-ranking New York Times film reporter Bosley Crowther.
Dick had recently completed Naughty but Nice and singing royalties kept him awash in money. His ventures into real estate were exceedingly rewarding, as property values rose exponentially during the great twentiethcentury migration into Southern California. Joan appreciated that Dick’s boyish charm belied a clever businessman. As for movies, he was frankly demoralized by seven years of playing the All American crooner. Contract playing in Hollywood held little appeal to him. Thanks to Dick’s skill with savings and real estate, the Powells invested in vacation property. In honor of their love of the sea, they signed a ninety-nine-year lease on an old Irvine Ranch house in Newport Beach. It was not large, just three bedrooms, but it was open and airy, and it included a private dock. The outside was painted in gunmetal blue-gray and adorned with yellow flower pots filled with geraniums. Model Wife was the last movie Joan made with Dick.
They play employees of a hoity-toity salon run by an imperious biddy who prohibits her staff from being married. But Joan and Dick secretly are—and to each other. All’s tidy until the boss’s son woos Joan and enrages Dick. After rumors spread about Joan seeing Broadway impresario Mike Todd, Dick Powell went to see Broadway musical comedy Best Foot Forward at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and was taken with sprightly young cast member June Allyson, who sang the praises of the barrelhouse, blues, and boogie-woogie in the “Three B’s” showstopper. Dick went backstage to meet her, and she was agape that a star of his rank would single her out. Joan began going solo to the exclusive Cub Room of the Stork Club, that see-and-be-seen nightclub on East Fifty-third frequented by the café society of Broadway, Hollywood, and Washington. Mike Todd frequented the Stork Club as well. The man was singularly charismatic. He could walk into a room and suck up all the available oxygen with his bear-trap mouth, ubiquitous cigar, and rattling voice. Beat the Band was an incidental moment in an outsized life, except that it offered him an introduction to Dick Powell’s wife. Mike Todd was used to getting what he wanted.
And right now he wanted Joan. Dick usually kept a sunny disposition at home. He tinkered around the house, helping the kids build model planes or play musical instruments. Dick had installed an advanced music system and alternatively played ’78s of classical music or the up-to-date Bing Crosby and Sammy Kaye.The unraveling of the Powells marriage began in early 1943, when Joan ventured to New York. Mike Todd’s pursuit of Joan had been delayed by the onset of the war, but when she wound down her work in the North Atlantic, he made his next move. Born Jacob Hirsch Goldbogen in 1907 to Polish immigrants in Minneapolis, Todd was part P. T. Barnum, part Houdini, and part huckster. He was one of nine children born to a poor rabbi, but somehow his powers of fund-raising and risk-taking were astounding. He once bet a man that he could raise one hundred thousand dollars in one night. He won the bet. Abel Green of Variety noted, “He may parlay himself into the poorhouse or Fort Knox, but in either case he will sup on caviar and champagne.” When he came to show business producing, he had transformed into the Gentilesque Mike Todd.
The Powells were nearing the crucible of their marriage, and both knew it. Certainly, Joan looked guilty of carrying on a torchy affair during those long months back East, leaving Dick feeling justified in pursuing his own extramarital agenda. According to next-door neighbor Frances Marion, Joan was informed by thirdhand sources of “a certain young lady, dressed like a prim and proper school girl though she had long since emerged from her school days, who came for dinner and left just before the milkman arrived.” She was June Allyson, the Bronx-born hoofer who bewitched Dick Powell on the stage in Best Foot Forward. Mike Todd phoned constantly, telling her that his love and the road show of Something for the Boys would cure her anguish. She was not ready for the 20 January opening of the show in Philadelphia, and the backers were impatient to recoup, so Merman stepped in for three weeks. Dick meanwhile followed the Hollywood wisdom that says a marital split should be accompanied by Dionysian revelry.
In the early months of 1944, he was seen with June Allyson at Romanoff’s, Ciro’s, Chasen’s, and Mocambo. Joan announced publicly her separation from Dick: “I am going to file against Dick as soon as he returns from the East. . . and after I have talked the matter over with him. The matter of a divorce is final, however.” Dick had moved out, Mike was hot on her heels, and a showdown seemed inevitable. June Allyson further complicated the romantic geometry. While Joan was touring Boys in early 1944, Dick made Meet the People at MGM, conveniently featuring his girlfriend in a supporting role. Later Allyson said it hurt to play the heavy in a marital split, telling Dick, “I didn’t think I was taking you away from anybody.” Powell comforted her by saying that he had been “a chump. Joan came home with a fur coat and she said Mike Todd gave it to her because he couldn’t afford to pay her a salary.” Once again Joan's behavior suggests that she wanted freedom from Dick Powell, who now seemed drab and tightfisted compared to Mike Todd. Whoever was first unfaithful indeed will never be known.
In one of the great miscalculations of her life, Joan told Norman the truth of his father on the eve of her second divorce. She believed telling Norman that Dick was not his “real” father would soften the pain of a split home. This decision was a tactical catastrophe. Todd was spending time at the Selma house, and whenever Dick intruded, there was screaming and slamming doors followed by the screeching of car tires. On 15 July 1944, Joan went to court to win her freedom from Dick Powell. Dick did not fight for custody, choosing rather to settle out of court to prevent further hurt to the kids. He agreed to pay one hundred dollars each for Norman and Ellen every month and Joan’s divorce settlement money was over $100.000. Joan marveled at Mike Todd's bedroom stamina. In contrast, love making with Dick had been affectionate but somehow routine-like. She had admitted that Dick “made me feel secure,” but Todd brought about her erotic awakening. As a result she rationalized a certain neglect of her children, and a certain burden on her mother. According to Art Cohn, Todd did not gamble to win, he gambled to gamble. “He was a psychopathic loser. He had no card sense,” he wrote. “Why is it that three of the shrewdest gamblers in show business—Sam Goldwyn, Jack Warner, and Mike Todd—are probably the three poorest card players in town?”
With Joan’s career attenuated, the family had to rely exclusively on Mike’s earnings as a producer. Todd was gripped with an irrational possessiveness, perhaps because fluctuating professional success threatened his identity, selfesteem, and manhood. He and Joan still generated tremendous passion; a casual glance could trigger a blood rush to the loins. But she dreaded having a child by him. In contrast to the George Barnes's multiple (six or seven) abortions, Joan was diligent in practicing conventional birth control, wearing a gold IUD recommended at the time. Norman was given a .22-caliber pump-action rifle and a motor scooter by Dick Powell for his fourteenth birthday, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he was supposed to use the rifle on Mike Todd, then flee on his new set of wheels. Joan socialized only with already established friends, including actresses Betty Bruce and Glenda Farrell. She was still close to Gloria in California, they talked at least once a week, and she was thrilled when her sister met, courted, and wed handsome ad man Victor Hunter.
But Joan’s world was narrowing. By 1949, Todd’s rages were occurring at least once a week, and the children were witnesses. “I am sure he never struck her, but his verbal abuse was so loud that it seemed more intimidating than a physical assault,” said Mike Junior. As the Girls Go company manager David Lawlor noted that she did not always negotiate Mike’s temper. He said, “In my book each gave the other the devil’s due.” Lawlor was in the Irvington kitchen before a Broadway opening when the Todds had a huge altercation, and Joan finished it by shoving her homemade cheesecake, which was reputed to be delicious, into Mike’s face. She then plastered the mess into his dress shirt and tuxedo. She left the room, he followed, changed, and then got into a waiting limousine with Lawlor but without Joan. When Joan believed she caught Mike fleetingly leering at Ellen’s newly adolescent body, at that moment she knew it was time to leave him, she said.
Mike Todd was in the midst of a grand movie experiment in widescreen projection called This Is Cinerama, which became the third-highest-grossing movie of all time and made Todd a multimillionaire. Dick Powell was enjoying success on an equally high level. He was one of the founders of the pioneering Four Star Television Production Company and was living in show-business splendor in Bel Air with June Allyson. Joan was currently unemployed, visiting New York after the Brooklyn tour and apartment-sitting for a friend in Manhattan. She found an apartment with a terrace for $395 a month on the nineteenth floor at the corner of Sutton Place South and East Fifty-seventh Street along the East River. It was in a large and weighty building, with a facade of red brick and pseudo-classical detailing of the quoins. She gave Ellen the master bedroom and bath, while Joan’s wardrobe, makeup, business file folders, and various other professional necessities were well organized in the second bedroom. Joan also found a captivating group of friends and companions. There was talk of marriage to millionaire sportsman and architect Hal Hayes, but nothing came of that. She was seen repeatedly in the company of lawyer Charles Mintz, and was delighted when he secured more child support from Dick Powell. She went out with the great New York Post sports columnist Jimmy Cannon, occasionally double dating with heiress Gloria Vanderbilt and Frank Sinatra.
Vanderbilt recalls the conversation was always all about Sinatra, leaving her and Joan to do little but smile over their cocktails and cigarettes. Cannon’s open adoration of Joan was not returned. “Jimmy Cannon has a big crush, but I haven’t,” Joan wrote to Gloria. “Talks an ear off me and is a short fat bore—but a gent in good standing around town, so I go out to dinner with him a couple of times a week.” Joan was hurt when Ellen announced her wishes to live at the huge Mandeville Canyon ranch of her father and stepmother. Ellen could exercise her love for horses there, but it was excruciating for Joan to let her go. She was most afraid of Todd’s anger, but her second greatest fear was June Allyson’s potential to undermine her mothering. Ellen’s departure was also a demonstration of an unhealthy dependence Joan had acquired for her daughter. If they were apart, Joan would call daily, express her worry, and unwittingly instill guilt in Ellen for developing independence. On January 10, 1956, it was announced that the company formed by the Powells, Pamrick Productions, would adapt the Robert Wilder novel And Ride a Tiger into a film. Allyson would co-star and Powell would produce and direct with the film distributed by RKO. In the meantime, she returned to MGM to play the top-billed role in the Metrocolor musical comedy The Opposite Sex (1956) for producer Joe Pasternak. The film was praised by Variety; Bosley Crowther in The New York Times wrote that Allyson did an excellent job, but the film was not a box office success.
Allyson has group scenes and a one-on-one scene with Joan Blondell who plays Edith. Allyson reported that the latter scene was very awkward since Blondell had called Powell to say his wife had tried to keep her out of the film. Allyson said this was not true; she didn’t even know that Blondell wanted to be in it. Allyson thought Blondell was great in the film. Blondell was also reportedly insecure because she had not been in a film since 1951’s The Blue Veil, having only worked on TV in the meantime. Members of the publicity department prowled the set for days but it turned out that all the women liked one another (except Joan Blondell's irrational dislike of Allyson), boosting each other in private and praising each other on the set. David Miller told Allyson that they were going to use the first take, no matter what happened. It seems Allyson's slap knocked Joan Collins out cold and she fell to the floor with a black eye while Allyson burst into tears and ran to her dressing room. Joan Collins was a long time coming to, but when she did, Allyson approached her diffidently and they cried together.
Allyson reported that Ann Sheridan was lovely but since she was also friends with Joan Blondell, Allyson kept away from them when they were together. Blondell also asked that Allyson not be on set to read lines off-camera for her in their scene together. Allyson insisted that she do it, and later Blondell thanked her for it. Despite June Allyson's good intentions towards Joan Blondell, Joan would prove to be losing touch with reality and she would try to justify her loneliness convincing herself Dick and June also had serious problems or extramarital affairs; the latter Allyson denied in her autobiography, claiming Dick never gave her motive for suspecting of unfaithfulness. However, when a crisis gripped their marriage and Allyson thought of divorcing Powell, Allyson's lawyer Giesler got in touch with Powell’s lawyer and worked out a deal. Powell sent word through his lawyers that the divorce would not be contested. She was unaware of the property settlement until she saw a cartoon in the newspaper: A husband told his wife, “I don’t know why they’re worrying about the national debt. Dick Powell just settled four million dollars on June Allyson.” That was an exaggeration because, with the aid of transatlantic phones and cables, the lawyers worked out the agreement that she would get $2.5 million.
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When Powell flew back, Allyson met him at the airport with the children. She kissed him as if nothing had happened, the children clung to his hands, and he smiled benignly. Allyson and Powell went home and made love half the night, after which the man told her that was what she would be missing, since he insisted "there is a lot of lovemaking but real love like ours is rare." On January 18, the Powells were photographed at their Beverly Hills home with Powell saying, “If people will only leave us alone, maybe we’ll be able to work out our situation.” The Powells then reconciled and had their delayed second honeymoon with the family sailing his boat to Mexico. In the summer of 1962 Dick Powell was diagnosed with cancer of the lymph glands. When he resigned as president of Four Star and accepted the less demanding post of chairman of the board, it was common knowledge in Hollywood that the cancer was probably inoperable. Powell was ashen but cheerful when Ann and Norman visited with their infant daughter, Stephanie, born on 26 September. During his decline, Dick and Joan enjoyed a convivial if not close relationship. Old animosities were retired. Dick scribbled a note to Joan on Four Star stationery: “Dear Joan: Loved your card. You know somethin’?—I’m gonna fool ’em and make it! Best as ever, Dick.” Three days later, he wrote to her again: “Dear Joanie-Poo, the doctors tell me the tumor in my chest has shrunk about 85% and that in two more weeks I’ll be just as obnoxious as ever. Lots of love, Dick.” As a favor to Joan, he cast her in an affecting episode of The Dick Powell Show, even though her role would have been better served with a plain-faced actress.
“Joan was a standout during the long days and nights,” June Allyson wrote diplomatically. “Once she stood talking to Norman, she sobbed and said, ‘I should never have divorced Dick.’ The words cut like a knife.” Now Dick was dying, and June accommodated Joan’s visits for a time, but eventually barred her from their apartment. The actress didn’t want to give up one minute of precious time with her husband, and when Blondell saw the look on Allyson's face, she headed for her car without speaking again. Powell was fading away before Allyson’s eyes, his lucid moments interspersed with confused states and periods of morphine-induced coma. Powell would hallucinate, once reminding her to get Marion Davis’ clothes off the foot of the bed, and she went through the motions. He wanted a normal Christmas so June wrapped presents and made the children deliver them. He was pleased she had found things he could use, and not the usual wild ties. There were gadgets to make it easier for him to read by holding books and papers. January 2 would be his last day. As Powell seemed to be coming out of a coma, Allyson sat on the bed and cradled his head against her shoulder, he hanging onto her sweater. Suddenly she was aware that the room was full of people and she became angry. At the foot of the bed was Ellen, her face wet with tears. Powell opened his eyes and Allyson moved him a little so she could look at his stunning blue eyes for the last time. Powell took a deep breath and said he loved her and he was sorry. ―Sources: June Allyson: Her Life and Career (2023) by Peter Shelley, Joan Blondell: A Life between Takes (1993) by Matthew Kennedy and Confessions of a magazine writer (1981) by Jane Wilkie
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