Dick Powell (Screenland magazine, 1934)

Dick Powell—Scared of Movie Women: Dick Powell always plans ahead. He realizes you have to invest a considerable sum to draw adequate dividend checks. Having no rich uncle, he is fated to earn his own security. Warners have contracted for his services for the coming two years, with no options attached. Such an arrangement is exceptional these days and it illustrates how optimistic his studio is about his prospects. "By 1936 I should have enough saved to marry," Dick amplifies. "I have no wish to become a Beverly Hills plutocrat or to live expensively." He only does anticipate sensible comforts. This next summer he expects to build a home, a modernized American farmhouse being his pet dream. It'll be in the Toluca Lake district, a modest section of Los Angeles. Those publicized appearances at parties and premieres with Hollywood lassies are fun for Dick. They're a perpetual temptation, he feels, these beautiful actresses. But, waxing confidential, he acknowledges that he honestly hasn't thought of marriage since he arrived in movieland. "I've been too worried about myself. After all, this is my big chance. The talkies are the peak of show business and I want to make a permanent place for myself here. Of course I've had twinges of 'puppy love.' But I've stopped short whenever I discovered I can't afford a wife yet. Anyway, I'd probably be a heck of a husband at this stage of the game. I'm too interested in amounting to something in this industry!" 

Read between the lines and you'll gather that Dick isn't the least bit selfish. He is the most considerate actor I have met and is so selfless that he condemns himself for realizing that there is a climbing period in everyone's life when concentration demands its toll. The future Mrs. Powell won't be an actress, Dick thinks. She may be when he courts her, but after the ceremony she'll go domestic. He doesn't seem to have no doubts of this. "I'm prehistoric, maybe," he elucidates, "but I think a man should be the provider. Nothing could be more appalling to me than to have my wife proclaim, 'Well,  I'm earning more than you!' Hell, I'd bust up the furniture! And then there's the professional jealousy which is bound to creep in. One or the other will be more popular and that provokes insidious trouble. All actors are exhibitionists in nature. Why, I can see that jealousy problem without getting married. You date a prominent girl and either you or she garners the most spotlight wherever you go. Naturally nothing is said between you, but the one who's received the lesser flattery is a little hurt inside. Besides, if an actress had the time to be a wife—as should be—she wouldn't have time to be much of an actress. And what could a husband talk to his actress wife about? That would be hell if both had studios hassle."

"How many business men fret over their better halves' bridge club squabbles when they come home at night? I don't know any who does." Dick contends that part of the appeal of Hollywood women is mainly due to the success they have attained. "Take the same girl and the same clothes and remove her fame and so what? She would be no more stunning than many non-professionals." "I'm still a movie fan at heart, though," he confesses. "Somehow the screen magically enhances and builds up charm." Recently he was asked to be Mary Pickford's escort at a dinner and theatre party and he frankly admits he was adither with excitement. There are other famous women he'd like to meet—Myrna Loy, for example. Ann Harding is another secret favorite. He saw her once at a big party and regrets that he wasn't introduced. 

When Dick Powell speaks of love and marriage it is not with the bland assurance of a greenhorn. At twenty-eight he looks forward and weighs values through experienced eyes because he can glance back at his initial joust with Cupid. Few recall it, but he impetuously married when he landed his first job. "I was twenty-two and making $70 a week, singing daily with a hotel orchestra in Louisville." He is too well-bred to rehash a personal matter which affects another. His wife was a non-professional, from a modest family. One day Dick commented to me, "My marriage was the only really influential event in my life." Despite his zeal for a career, you'll perceive, he seeks the perfect love just as everyone does. Behind his laughing face there are memories too painful to discuss. I have been told that his wife could not understand the whirlwind existence his rapid rise necessitated. She disliked the stage and opposed his show business career. But personalities such as Dick's could hardly be hidden in a commonplace, humdrum life. "You've heard how I started. I came from an average American family and began singing in the church choir in Little Rock, Arkansas. 

The fact that folks liked my singing turned me towards the footlights. I studied voice and got that job in Louisville. I stayed there for ten months, delivering light opera melodies. Gradually it dawned on me that popular music was more profitable. I got myself a banjo and jazzed my tunes. That boosted me. I became a master of ceremonies when I'd learned to tell jokes." His remarkably cheery manner and his ability to delight audiences with his splendid voice soon led him to Pittsburgh. There he quickly wowed one and all. When a crooner with personality plus was required for "Blessed Event," Warners sent for him. In his first picture Dick spoke only one line of regular dialogue, but the songs he rendered immediately made us all aware of him. Since then he has evolved into our leading screen vocalizer. Crazy about music, he hopes eventually to follow in the footsteps of his idols, Lawrence Tibbett and Richard Crooks. To this end he faithfully continues his singing lessons. Now he has become anxious to click as an actor. 

In "Convention City" he came through with a straight juvenile performance that demonstrated he doesn't have to rely on singing. "What a kick I got at the pre-view when they laughed at my comedy scenes!" he remarked to me enthusiastically. "You know I've only done ten pictures and I've an awful lot to catch on to. It seems to me I'm still a little too 'broad.' On the stage you over-emphasize, but close-ups the size of a wall demand subtlety." He figures he benefited more from the small role he played in Arliss's "The King's Vacation" than from any other part. His stepping out is astonishingly unsystematic. He may not date for two entire months, and then he's calling on our local ladies two and three times weekly. Here's a tip to them: you have to encourage him! He's not the flip, fresh sort who'll request a date after one meeting. Rather he waits until he has encountered you five or six times and is certain you relish his company. If he is absent-minded, don't conclude he's giving you the big good-bye. "I learned the hard way that no woman wants to be taken for granted," he bawls himself out.

He's on the skip-and-jump continuously. But he's used to the high-pressure gait, for he did four shows a day during the three years he headlined in Pittsburgh just prior to his Hollywood break. Dick Powell's vacation this year is arranged for April, May, and June, and he intends to travel through Europe. No stage appearances as in '33. Don't imagine he's hunting a riotous romance when he voyages away from Hollywood's million dollar queens. He came to us aware of the errors one can make in marrying precipitously, and he's determined to shun the slips of the past. And if you suppose this Dick Powell can't cool himself off at the psychological moments, listen to this: he actually found an actress here whom he could adore—and she would have given up her public in order to be his missus.  —Interview by Dickson Morley for Screenland magazine (April 1934)