Dick Powell was considered one of Hollywood's most eligible bachelors after his memorable performance in "Blessed Event" (1932). "Dick always seemed to be in good humor. He gave the impression of always enjoying what he was doing," said his short-time fiancé Mary Brian. Out of the blue, Powell quit his commitment to Brian and fell by the spell of his habitual co-star Joan Blondell. 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, one month after Joan’s divorce from cinematographer George Barnes. On 17 September 1936, they announced that they would be married in two days on the yacht Santa Paula at San Pedro to sail through the Panama Canal. Blondell wrote veiledly about her three husbands in the last chapters of Center Door Fancy (1972). She critizices George Barnes (who started as a still photographer for Thomas H. Ince, the man who died on Hearst' yatch) for being remote and not wanting children. Later, after divorcing him, she finds out he'd suffered a terrible childhood. The most baffling reproachments against the collected crooner are quite contradictory. For example it's clear she was looking for security with Dick Powell, who was a practical family man.
In fact, Joan (Nora) leads Jim (Powell) to break up with May Gould (Mary Brian) making him doubt of his feelings. When Powell asks Joan if she still loves George Barnes: "Do you still love David?" Joan (Nora) says she doesn't. Her intimate relationship with Powell starts at this moment, when both share a kiss, and she abandons George Barnes, favoring the secure arms of Dick Powell, who had sent her a 1000$ check for her son's childbirth. Blondell also expresses doubts to Sally (Glenda Farrell) about her true feelings towards Jim, saying "he's too nice to hurt." They marry, spending their honeymoon at the Santa Paula yatch, and they consummate their marriage. She seems to find Powell charming when he gives her a playful whack on her behind. Also, she writes: "He smiled and put his hands on my shoulders. He says (naughtily): 'I'm sure that we didn't do it the last few nights because your eyes would look glassy now'." Nora (Joan) feigns not knowing: "Glassy?" "From doing it too much!" Powell jokingly says. In the mid-30s, the press took notice of the odd pairing, giving them nicknames such as "Floozie and Dopey." But Powell was no dope, as his career as a producer, director and tough guy star would prove later.
Joan rolls her eyes and tells to herself: "What did I get into?" Supposedly she was a sex enthusiast and later thinks of Powell as mechanical in bed, but it sure doesn't look like that from her initial account during their honeymoon. When Nora bumps into a table playing with her son and bruises her leg, Jim says worried: "People will say I did some weird sex thing to you, and I can't have that." So he sounds sensible and pretty knowledgeable of sexual matters. Powell wasn't just a hick from Arkansas, he was a very intelligent, amiable man and obviously he had sex-appeal. It's true that Powell was conservative politically and Blondell was a liberal, and she tries to exploit this gap too, trying to characterize Powell as racist and anti-semite. She has Powell ranting: "Damned Jews run this business! Damned niggers get some fancy salaries now. The goddamned government is killing us with taxes! I've got to change agents, the son of a bitch does nothing for his ten percent." She tries so hard to make an impression of Dick Powell as Nixon, it is not even funny. In the last chapter, Joan (Nora) acknowledges that Dick Powell and Ronald Colman (a friend of Barnes) drew up a pension fund for Joan through Lloyds of London, which would allow her to retire at the age of 47. "It's with Lloys of London and when I'm 47, I'll get money enought to live on the rest of my life," she boasts to Mike Todd. And don't get me started on her obsession towards her eternal rival, the sweet and easygoing June Allyson. Oddly, Joan (Nora) barely talks of her terrible fights with her third husband Mike Todd, who was pathologically jealous and threatened with killing her if she ever cheated with him.
Joan always conceded that Dick made a wonderful father. Such acknowledgment did not stop her from arming herself with lawyers and filing for divorce on 9 June 1944. 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.” Norman Powell said in 1996: “My mother said she was taken with the kindness and gentleness that he exhibited toward her, and the fact that he really seemed to love me. I think that’s what attracted her to him more than any other thing.” Once Joan set her sights on Mike Todd, she proceeded to depict Powell as "corny, unsure of himself, a cold fish, a cold-assed Don Juan, and surprisingly prudish," adding that "he will make love only in the dark, furtively." Her memoirs are full of similar braggadocio: "I’ve got a new guy, and Jim [Dick Powell] would die of envy if he knew how we feel." Also, a jealous Blondell tells her mother: "Mom. It doesn’t matter about the little crumb [June Allyson] who’s after him. I heard their voices on the detectives’ recording, and she’s so corny—pleading with him to marry her, to guide her career. It’s like a cheesy B-picture. Doesn’t Jim know about his Amy? Everybody else does. Her reputation is in the public domain. She’s a tramp dressed like a little kid. She was a call girl in New York—exhibitions her specialty. Jeff Flynn [Mike Todd], and even a New York doctor, told me they knew some of the guys she ‘entertained.’ She’s using Jim [Dick Powell]—can’t he see? It would be a giant step for her to get the Star Husband of the Year.”
After Blondell announces her petition of divorce, Powell yells at her: “I, Jim Wilson, did not marry a bum!” Blondells shrugs: "Jim slammed the door shut and was gone. I was sitting up in bed, my lawyer standing by the window. He had been talking to me for over an hour about the division of property and finances. By law, everything we had should be divided, and the lawyer was urging me to use the proof I had against Amy O’Brien to get what was coming to me. I told him I couldn't prove anything. “I’ll sign it, whatever it is—let’s get it over with. I can’t stand the sight of Jim around the house any longer.” Blondell writes that Powell moved to a rented house in Beverly Hills, and Mike Todd phoned her from New York. Also, Blondell has Frances Marion suggesting that June Allyson slept her way to the top.
June Allyson wrote in her 1983 memoirs: "Joan's account of this meeting in 'Center Door Fancy', a fictionalized autobiography, is loaded against me. Most of the names have been changed, but the true identities are obvious. Joan is Nora, David is first husband George Barnes, Jim is Dick Powell, Amy is me, Teresa is Marion Davies, and Jeff is Mike Todd. She wrote that I simpered and came down the steps pigeon-toed and cooed that I slept with his letter under my pillow every night. I had no letter. I never wrote a fan letter. I had no picture or letter from him or any star. It was ridiculous, but then, so was her charge that I had stolen her husband away, starting that night. In fact, Richard recorded his own account of our first meeting in his diary, and it differs substantially from Joan's: "Why I bother to put this down I don't know except that she certainly is the cutest thing anybody ever saw. Last night, I went to catch 'Best Foot Forward' and there was this little blonde character named June Allyson who sang so loud that the veins stood out on her neck like garden hose. I sat and guffawed through the whole routine. Really a funny act although I don't know if the producer meant it that way. Anyway, this afternoon I had to attend a formal luncheon and I got stuck with the most stubborn hunk of chicken I've ever had the displeasure of eating. It took all my attention and I was struggling with it until I guess my face turned red. Then, suddenly, I felt someone's eyes on me and I looked up. And there was this same cute little character from the show last night and she was convulsed with laughter. Laughing at me! I don't know whether or not I particularly like that girl, but she sure is cute."
Once I called Richard's home, Joan did not seem interested and irritably called his husband to the phone. Then she came back on and said, with biting sarcasm: "You want my husband? Well, you can have him." Richard was on the phone and I tried to hide my embarrassment as I said, "I've got a script from MGM and they want me to do this picture called 'Two Girls and a Sailor.' Joan Blondell was convinced that I was after her husband. I wasn't, even though Dick Powell gave me palpitations and shortness of breath just to look at him. I tried not to think of him, except as my mentor. Every major actress gets whispered about. With me it was the nymphomaniac thing. "She's not Goody Two Shoes, she's Goody Round Heels," said the malicious rumors. But the only man who really made my heart flutter was, of course, Dick Powell. And he was determined to protect my reputation."
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Another time, June writes "Richard was taking me to Ciro's and I was ready. But when he saw me, he was speechless with my new sophisticated look. He slumped on a couch in the living room. He pulled me down on his lap. Richard grabbed me and started smooching. "Whew, you scared me this time," he said. "I'm here because being around you is like being in a fresh breeze. So don't go dramatic on me, right?" "Yes, sir," I said. "Goody Two Shoes reporting for duty." "Let's go," he said. "No, wait a minute." He kissed me again. "Monkeyface, I love you." In 'Center Door Fancy', Joan gave me the name of Amy, possibly after the selfish sister in 'Little Women' who steals Jo's boyfriend and marries him. How bitter she must have been to have written about me: "Doesn't he know about his Amy? Everybody else does. Her reputation is in the public domain. She's a tramp dressed like a little kid. She was a call girl in New York, exhibitions her specialty." I could not believe it. How untrue, and how cruel."
Center Door Fancy: So it went—a week of school in Trenton, Dallas, Sioux City, Denver, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Washington. . . “I don’t think she’s really learning anything, Johnny,” Cecilia said. “For instance, what is there to learn? Is arithmetic anything to laugh at? What’s so funny about grammar? History she’ll make. She can read every marquee and billboard we’ve ever
passed. Geography she knows. What other kid of her age has been all over the world, and across the U.S.A. sixty-seven times?” On days when there was no school Johnny would see that I was free to walk lovely, tree-lined streets, to peer into shop windows. My own security came from the theater dressing room, its smells, colors, and sounds: greasepaint; L. T. Piver lotion; Cashmere Bouquet soap; Smith Bros, cough drops; putty; Yardley’s sachet; the towels heavy with the scent of makeup; Mum; tobacco; Yankee Clover toilet water; Fels Naphtha. With fascination I watched Mom “bead” her eyelashes with a toothpick dipped into the black wax, Cosmetique, heated in a pan held over a candle. Lump after lump, and presto-chango her lashes looked a foot long. Then she dipped her pinky into a jar of red greasepaint and painted her full lips and rubbed them together until they were smooth and perfect. And that skin! Wherever Cecilia went, people would speak of it. Looking at my mother, I yearned to be beautiful, too. My eyes shifted to my father’s mirror. My skin is dark—so is his. People mentioned the “bigness” of my eyes so often that I wished I could take a needle and sew them up on the sides. Last night Mom said to Johnny, “It doesn’t seem possible Nora’s grown up so fast. Men are starting to look at her. She’s too darned developed for her age.” David (George Barnes) grinned. “Jim takes May Gould (Mary Brian) to the Clover Club every Saturday night.”
Joan Blondell: "Honestly, I don’t think men should be movie actors—it isn't natural." He smiled. “Shush, here he is. Hi, old pally!” They whacked each other on the back. I picked up the ice bucket to stave off a Jim Wilson hug. “How’d you get here?” I asked. “I took a plane to Palm Springs—Frank McHugh had an extra ticket he gave me. Taxi wanted twenty-five clams from there, so luckily a fan picked me up and dropped me off about half a mile down the road. You turtle doves having fun?” “Have a drink.” David gave Jim a Coke that had been thoroughly spiked. “I never touch the stuff,” Jim quipped. After a swig and a “Wow!” he turned to me. “Brought my new script, sweetie, thought you could cue me on the ride back.” “I will,” I promised. They fixed their fishing rods. Faye (Frances Marion) lit a cigarette and exhaled swiftly. “Nora, the name Amy O’Brien ring a bell?” “Nope—Why?” “Amy O’Brien is a new contractee here from a New York City musical. I’ve been coaching her for months, so I know her pretty damn well.” “And what, Faye?” She spoke rapidly. “She’s after your old man, but I mean after. She’s beaded down, and she’s gonna leave no stone unturned. I’ve watched her operate. I’ve listened to her phone work, her set work, her commissary work, the whole megillah. This dear little starlet is a nose-to-the-grindstone hustler. No more than she was signed up, she got the lay of executive-land and laid it. Now she’s started to work on Jim. She’s got a small role in his picture, but she’s on-the-spot every minute. I tell you, she’s a dangerous, determined tomato.” I protested: “Jim’s too wise not to see through that. He’s always had fans drooling over him.” Faye insisted: “Take my word. This one’s no fan, she’s got an overall plan.” “Amy O’Brien,” I repeated. “Thanks, Faye.” We parted, and I continued to Stage Ten.
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Amy O’Brien, Amy O’Brien, I said to myself as I walked toward the lights of the scene they were rehearsing. Jim was standing in front of the camera while the makeup man banged powder on his nose. “All right, everybody, we shoot,” called the director. It was a long dolly shot. As Jim sang, the camera pulled back, and I saw someone who looked like a little child with a pink babushka tied under her chin perched on the camera stand below the lens. In all my years in pictures, through all the years of Berkeley shots, I never saw anyone sit there before, I thought. I turned to a member of the crew standing next to me. “Who’s that sitting on the camera, Bill?” “Amy O’Brien.” He paused. “A pain in the butt.” After the take Jim called to me, “One still, and I’ll be right with you, sweetheart.” Then added: “Everyone knows my beautiful wife; beautiful wife, this is Amy O’Brien.” Halfway through my “How-do-ya-do,” Amy clapped both hands over her mouth as if terrified, and ran off the stage. “What was that bit with Amy O’Brien?” I asked after we had ordered our lunch. “She’s some kind of a nut,” Jim answered, saluting Joe Schenck as he passed our table.
“Hey, Jim—who calls you ‘James?” I asked. “What?” He looked up from his dinner plate startled. “We’ve gotten a dozen or more phone calls here in the last couple of months. The voice is always the same, and so is the conversation—or lack of it. ‘James?’ it says hopefully even when I answer. ‘James who?’ I generally ask. An ‘Ooooh’ or ‘Oh-oh,’ or ’Sorry,’ is hastily muttered, then it hangs up.” “I have no idea,” Jim answered, tackling his salad. “A crank or a fan.” “But you’re ‘Jim,’ not ‘James’—world-famous Jim—and we have a very unlisted phone number.” “I don’t know,” he snapped. We ate our dessert in silence. Those calls from Amy O’Brien are designed to affect no one but me—just bitchiness, I thought, stabbing the apple pie. With an exaggerated hip roll I slunk out of the dining room. “Hey,” Jim called, “what’s with you?” In 1943 Joan Blondell had began going with Mike Todd 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. Joan socialized only with already established friends, including actresses Glenda Farrell and Betty Bruce. 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.
Dick Powell was one of the co-producers of Mrs Mike through his company Regal Films. Powell had personally requested Evelyn Keyes for the leading female role of Kathy Flannigan, after their successful pairing in the previous Johnny O'Clock. Evelyn Keyes, like Claire Trevor in Murder, My Sweet, seemed to harbor a big crush on Dick Powell. Keyes alludes in her memoirs to a brief affair with Powell, but, unlike other actors she had dalliances with, she doesn't offer many specifics. While they shooted Mrs Mike in 1949, Dick Powell was reportedly burn-out due to the rumors spread by Confidential magazine of an affair between his wife June Allyson with Dean Martin. In her 1977 autobiography, Evelyn Keyes said Mrs Mike was her best film. She had to fend off studio boss Harry Cohn’s advances during her career at Columbia. Among the many Hollywood affairs she recounted was one with Dick Powell. Evelyn Keyes: "I was voted N#1 Star of Tomorrow in 1946. I was ranked as one of Columbia’s most reliable leading ladies. “Johnny O’Clock”, Robert Rossen’s first directorial job, became another highlight in my career. Dick Powell played an honest gambler in trouble and I was his girlfriend." Amidst the production of Johnny O'Clock, she married impulsively John Huston in Las Vegas. Back on the set, she felt Dick Powell acted somehow jealous. "It was weird. Perhaps it was just the hyped-up, spaced-out mood the benzedrine caused, or maybe only imagination. But it seemed strange, all around me that day. There were congratulations, but with distinct lack of enthusiasm. Dick Powell was particularly lukewarm, almost resentful, as if I had double-crossed him."
Keyes's onscreen interactions with Powell in Johnny O'Clock show that an intimate spark lighted between them. Mrs Mike was released on December 23, 1949. That had been a bad year for Powell & June Allyson due to the incessant rumors of her affair with Dean Martin, so it's very likely Powell succumbed to Keyes' charms. As surmised by Nick Tosches in Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams, Martin could be a bona-fide weasel and was bent on wooing Allyson, the America Sweetheart. Evelyn Keyes: "Variety described my performance in “Mrs. Mike” in its review of December 12, 1949, as a ‘portrayal that has excellent emotional depth and just the right touch of humor.’ So Louella Parsons thought I should have won an Oscar for “Mrs. Mike and lobbied for me.” Unlike Joan Blondell, who clearly came to detest Mike Todd (whom she divorced in 1950), Evelyn Keyes described Todd as attentive, generous and ambitious. In 1953, Evelyn Keyes became the constant companion of the brash, flamboyant and often volatile producer Mike Todd, who lavished Evelyn with attention, gifts and journeys to far-off locales. She worked very little during her time with Todd. Evelyn Keyes states in her memoirs: "Thanks to Mike Todd, I never had to worry about money again. He gave me a 15-carat diamond engagement ring while we worked on our wedding details [late 1956]. All was going well until the day I picked up the phone and Mike blurted out: 'I'm in love with Elizabeth Taylor'. Anyway, I always maintained a fondness for him." Keyes compared Todd favorably over John Huston ("an irredeemable womanizer") and she thought Todd's main faults were his poor manners and a streak of jealousy. Keyes philosophized in 1977: "The good part was that I invested all my money in Around the World in 80 Days, and that set me up for life."
Indeed, Keyes owned 5% of Mike Todd's film company. "I vaguely knew who Mike Todd was, a producer of shows in New York. I had seen Star and Garter with Gypsy Rose Lee doing her strip act right there on Broadway. A promoter, I believe they called him," she wrote when she was first introduced to Todd. "He was busy getting together a new film technique to be called Todd-AO, a combination of his chutzpah and a scientist at American Optical: a new wide lens camera, to replace the recently introduced Cinerama." Accustomed to neurotic and possesive partners, Dick Powell appears in I'm a Billboard as that rare specimen who didn't ever try to manipulate Keyes, a chivalrous old-fashioned man who was so gentle with her that she didn't know how to respond to that kind of man. Philip Grimes (the producer whose company has purchased the rights of a best-selling novel) is probably the stand-in for Dick Powell. Grimes displays "a deep sincerity, the kindest smile." What is known is her odd obsession with Mrs Mike and her vague allusions to a courteous romance with Powell seemingly out of a fairly tale, in stark contrast with her other lovers. Powell seemed to have regretted the affair, according to Keyes.
After his divorce from his first (alcoholic) wife Mildred Maund, Dick Powell was going to marry Mary Brian, but Joan played her cards well. When Powell, who was thinking of marrying Brian, asked Blondell for advice, the blonde bombshell made him doubt of his true feelings. Powell broke up with Brian in 1933 and dated Margaret Lindsay, while he initiated a romance with Blondell in late 1934. Center Door Fancy: Jim continued: "You have good common sense, Nora. I’m considering marrying May—what’s your advice?” “Do you love her?” “Well, hell, she’s a hell of a gal—not many around like her.” Jim continued: “I picked her up the other Saturday morning to grab some chow, and she wanted to know if I’d park by the Bank of America on Highland for a minute, as she had to clip some coupons. I sat out there for two solid hours while she clipped and clipped,” he leaned toward me. “My!” “We didn’t wrap our lips around a bite until after three-thirty. What do you think about a lil ole wedding?” I paused. I frankly didn’t care much about either of them. My one evening as a guest at May’s home was barren: no cocktails, barely enough chicken to go around, no butter for the air-holed bread, weak coffee, lumpy ice cream, and every lamp in the house had strips of cellophane covering the shade, though she had lived there for over ten years. I answered his question as truthfully as I could. “I might just take your advice. After all, a gal with her—er—qualifications—well, the first one drank a lot.” “I didn’t know you’d been married before!” “Neither does the press department. Remember me? America’s most desirable bachelor?” He playfully grazed my chin with his clenched fist. “What was she like?” “A beauty—dark, and from my home town. She was seventeen when I took the leap. She was from a wrong-side-of-the-tracks family, but they were okay. Damn glad about the catch their kid made! After all, Nora, I was a thousand-bucks-a-week MC in Detroit, and you know dames. So the little babe was in luck, she didn't have a dime.” I don’t think I like you, I thought. “What happened to the marriage?” “It lasted four years. The first two were fair, and then she started to drink. Jesus Christ, what drinking! I had an important reputation to live up to, so I sent her to one of those cure places—and a pretty penny that was!” He paused. “I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch if she didn’t stop drinking the minute she registered, but as soon as she got home, she’d drain every bottle that wasn’t tied down. “I’ll tell you something, Nora, a guy shouldn't be single in this town. The gals expect too much and the married babes can hound a guy to death.” “Two can live as cheaply as one,” I deadpanned.
Joan (Nora): I was seated at the dressing table in my lacy lingerie looking into the mirror at Sally brushing my hair. “Sally, I can’t—I can’t go through with it. I don’t love Jim, really love, and he’s too nice to hurt.” “Did you ever tell him you loved him?” Sally asked, still brushing my hair. “No, never. When he asked me if I did, and my answer stuck in my throat, he said, ‘Nora, I love you enough for both of us—your honesty is one of the reasons I want you for my wife, and because you’re a helluva good actress, and you’re beautiful! What more could a guy ask for?’ Will I love him in time, Sally? Does that happen?” “I can give you wisecracks, pal—no answers.” Joan (Nora): “Bring on the wedding drag—I’m getting married!”
In the New York Times, Bosley Crowther wrote: "Cry Danger is a tidy package of fictional extravagance. Usually you don't find much occasion for laughter in a picture that is concerned with revenge and murder. But in "Cry Danger" scenarist William Bowers has found room for some sardonic lines that are tossed off most effectively. This is the story of a man who was framed into a jail term and gets out when a former marine comes up with a convenient alibi. The marine just wants a cut of the $100,000 swag Rocky Mulloy is supposed to have stashed away. Dick Powell plays Mulloy with an air of cocky toughness that inspires confidence in his ability to run down the sleazy characters who fingered him as the fall guy for a big robbery and murder rap. As the chief feminine interest, Rhonda Fleming turns on the charm effectively and Jean Porter is amusing as a blonde pickpocket. This report will not disclose anything more about the plot details of "Cry Danger." Inside intelligence; Mr. Powell is in town—he appeared on the Paramount's stage yesterday—and he can be pretty rough on squealers." The first bump happened around 1949, after the rumors floating about a dalliance of June Allyson with Dean Martin. The Paramount stage could allude to the set where Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were filming My friend Irma (1949), which was produced by Hal B. Wallis and released on August 16, 1949, by Paramount. A jilted Powell and a conceited Martin may well have exchanged some heated words at that time. After reconciling with Dick Powell following a brief separation in 1957, triggered by a frustrated romance with Alan Ladd, June Allyson filed for divorce in 1961, citing his workaholic nature.
June Allyson was granted an interlocutory divorce in January 1961, which would become final in a year. But Powell had other plans; on the day following the court hearing, Allyson said, “he was sitting at the little breakfast nook, having breakfast and reading the paper.” “And I said, ‘What are you doing here? We just got a divorce,’” Allyson recalled. “He said, ‘No, you didn’t—you just got a paper that said you can have a divorce in a year.’ And he said, ‘You know, I’m never going to let you go. And you’ve spent all that money for no reason at all.’ And he went right on eating his breakfast. And we never did get the divorce. For which I’m very grateful.” —Sources: "Center Door Fancy" (1972) by Joan Blondell, "June Allyson" (1983) by June Allyson, "June Allyson: Her Life and Career" (2023) by Peter Shelley, "Joan Blondell: A Life between Takes" (1993) by Matthew Kennedy, "Glamour, Glitz, & Gossip at Historic Magnolia House" (2019) by Danforth Prince, "Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir" (2003) by Karen Burroughs Hannsberry and "Talking to the Piano Player: Silent Film Stars, Writers and Directors Remember" (2004) by Stuart Oderman
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