Oscar Profile #485: William Powell

Born July 29, 1892 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, William (Horatio) Powell was the only child of Nettie and Horatio Powell. He moved with his family to Kansas City, Missouri in 1907 where he graduated from Central High School in 1911. He then moved to New York where he entered the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1912. He married first wife Eileen Wilson in 1915, made his Broadway debut in 1917, and his film debut in 1922.

Powell’s first screen role was as a villain in Sherlock Holmes starring John Barrymore. In his second film, he supported Marion Davies in When Knighthood Was in Flower. He appeared in featured roles throughout the 1920s, most memorably in 1926’s Beau Geste in support of Ronald Colman, the same year’s The Great Gatsby in support of Warner Baxter, and 1928’s The Last Command in support of Emil Jannings. His son, William Powell Jr. was born in 1925.

The actor’s first starring role was as detective Philio Vance in the 1929 “talkie”, The Canary Murder Case. He would play the character four more times through 1933. Divorced from his first wife in 1930, Powell married actress Carole Lombard in 1931. The marriage would last just two years, but the two would remain friends.

Powell’s performances in three 1932 films, Jewel Robbery, One-Way Passage and Lawyer Man, solidified his reputation as one of Hollywood’s most popular stars. In 1934, he shared star billing with Clark Gable and Myrna Loy in the smash hit, Manhattan Melodrama, followed by the even more successful The Thin Man in which he and Loy starred as Dashiell’s Hammett’s Nick and Nora Charles, for which he was nominated for an Oscar for the first time. He and Loy would repeat their roles five times through 1947. They would co-star in fourteen films altogether.

In 1936, Powell starred opposite former wife Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey for which both received Oscar nominations. That same year, he also starred in The Great Ziegfeld opposite Loy and Luise Rainer, as well as After the Thin Man, the first of the Thin Man sequels, and Libeled Lady with Loy, Spencer Tracy and Jean Harlow, the actress to whom he became engaged at Christmas.

Harlow’s sudden death in 1937 and his own successful battle with cancer in 1938 slowed his career down but did not dampen it. In 1940, he married third wife, Diana Lewis to whom he would remain wed for the rest of his life.

Powell’s most successful films of the 1940s, aside from the remaining Thin Man sequels, were 1947’s Life with Father for which he received a third Oscar nomination and The Senator Was Indiscreet, as well as 1948’s Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid.

As actor’s roles diminished, he played in support of Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall in 1953’s How to Marry a Millionaire, but had a memorable swan song in 1955’s Mister Roberts, sharing the screen with Henry Fonda, James Cagney and Jack Lemmon.

Powell’s son, a TV writer and producer, committed suicide in 1968 at the age of 43. William Powell lived comfortably in retirement in Palm Springs, turning down all offers until his death on March 5, 1984 at 91.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE THIN MAN (1934), directed by W.S. Van Dyke

Powell and Myrna Loy, the screen’s most durable romantic couple, first co-starred as two-thirds of a triangle with Clark Gable in 1934’s Manhattan Melodrama. Gable would go on to win the year’s Best Actor Oscar for It Happened One Night opposite Claudette Colbert while Powell would be his chief competition as Nick Charles in The Thin Man opposite Loy. It was the interplay between Powell and Loy as his wife Nora, that made the Dashiell Hammett murder mystery so popular, resulting in six sequels through 1947 and a career total of the stars’ 14 films together.

THE GREAT ZIEGFELD (1936), directed by Robert Z. Leonard

Powell was at the top of his form as Flo Ziegfeld, the master showman, in this three-hour musical extravaganza that would win the Oscar as the year’s Best Picture. The film, the longest yet made, featured many thrilling stage performances, but at the heart of the film were Ziegfeld’s romances with the women who would become his wives, singer Anna Held, played by Luise Rainer, and actress Billie Burke, played by Myrna Loy. The film’s most famous scene features Rainer as Held holding back tears while congratulating Ziegfeld on his marriage to Burke, a scene largely credited with Rainer’s winning the year’s Best Actress Oscar.

MY MAN GODFREY (1936), directed by Gregory La Cava

Powell received an Oscar nomination of his own in 1936 for his portrayal of the millionaire masquerading as a bum who becomes a butler for a scatterbrained heiress and her loopy family in this screwball comedy classic. Playing the scatterbrained heiress was Powell’s former wife, Carole Lombard, who earned her only Oscar nomination in the role. This was the first film in which there were nominees in all four acting categories including the newly awarded supporting ones. Rounding out the film’s Oscar nominated players were Alice Brady as Lombard’s daffy mother and Mischa Auer as Brady’s protégé in a gorilla suit.

LIFE WITH FATHER (1947), directed by Michael Curtiz

The screen version of the then longest running play on Broadway, was a box-office sensation, earning Powell his third and final Oscar nomination as well as the year’s Best Actor award from the New York Film Critics. Time, however, has not been kind to this turn-of-the-century comedy about a wealthy New York City family whose father refuses to be baptized. Irene Dunne hated playing the part of the mother which she considered an addle-brained character, taking the part at the insistence of director Curtiz who desperately wanted her to keep Mary Pickford from getting the part which might have resurrected her career.

MISTER ROBERTS (1955), directed John Ford, Mervyn LeRoy

This was Henry Fonda’s first film in seven years, having left Hollywood to star in the Broadway play that led to the film. After a falling out with John Ford who had directed Fonda in some of his most famous roles including Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, Fonda had him replaced with Mervyn LeRoy (Random Harvest) who brought more gravitas to the project. Great acting by Fonda, James Cagney, Jack Lemmon in his first Oscar-winning role, and Powell in this World War II naval comedy/drama classic keeps it afloat. It was Powell’s last film leading to a long and happy retirement.