Article - If You Had a Date With Ty Power

Motion Picture
February 1948

Could you compete with Lana?

Take a few tips from our Alyce -- and you just might.

If you had a date with Tyrone Power, you'd be agreeably surprised -- for despite his rough and tough swashbuckling roles, Tyrone's main attraction for the opposite sex is an unexpected gentleness of manner.

He isn't crass; his voice doesn't boom; he isn't, roughly speaking, one of the boys. He has, instead, a nice sensitivity, a quiet poise. He has a strictly American type of male courtesy. No hand kissing, no bowing, no extravagant compliments -- but he gets up when a woman enters the room, he opens the car door for you, he listens attentively to what you have to say. He is, in a word, a gentleman. And that's a more unusual tag around Hollywood than the Chamber of Commerce would have you believe.

Not that he isn't very masculine. He is. But it's the kind of masculinity that doesn't depend on braggadocio to be effective. You have a feeling that should some querulous wolf molest you while you were out with Ty, there would be a certain deadly effectiveness to Ty's voice as he advised the wolf to move along. The strange thing about this quiet authority is that the wolf would move, and fast. For Ty packs a wallop in a glance that can turn as cold as an icicle when the occasion demands. Not that he throws his weight around and makes noises like a hero, but neither does anyone ever push him around.

The first thing you would notice about Tyrone is his sense of humor. It brushes everything he does. It flickers in and out of his conversation. He kids himself and takes you along with him. Of dates, he'll say, "If you had a date with Tyrone Power, you would be disappointed. That's No. 1. Right away you would be disappointed, and that's a new angle because you would be disappointed before and not afterward!" Of picnics, he'll remark, "I have steadfastly hated picnics since the age of 5!" The things he says aren't funny in themselves; it's the way he says them. Like Bob Hope, he has perfect delivery.

If you had a date with Tyrone Power, you wouldn't go dancing. Tyrone can dance, but he doesn't like to. If you'd ask him why, you'd get the typical Power answer: "Just like some people don't like asparagus, I don't like dancing. Not that there's anything wrong with asparagus."

So what would you do? What would be a big, bang-up evening? First of all, you'd better not be late. "You'd better be ready," says Ty, and he isn't kidding. "That keep-him-waiting routine has blighted more romances than anything else. I don't mind hanging around for a decent length of time, but none of this business of half to three quarters of an hour late. You know? You've been working all day, and you rush like hell, get all dressed, look in the mirror to see if any cops are following you as you leave, hurry to your date, and then they say, 'Miss Krosobrak will be right down.' Now Miss Krosobrak hasn't had a thing to do all day long, while you've been budgeting every minute. You sit down at the bar and sip your cocktail. You sip and you sip and you sip. No Miss Krosobrak. By the time Miss Krosobrak arrives on the scene, you're like Rhett Butler -- you just don't give a damn!"

First of all, then, you'd be punctual. Next you'd be dressed for the occasion. Ty doesn't care whether your hair is up or down, whether you wear furs and jewels or blue jeans. But he distinctly does care that you are appropriately dressed. If he were taking you to his favorite spot to dine, i.e., Romanoff's, and thence to a movie, he'd like you to be dressed in black. Something well-cut, not too flashy. Unless you were Mocambo-ing, he wouldn't be especially intrigued with a restaurant hat. Simplicity, good taste, no geegaws -- that does it.

You'd discover, if you had a date with Tyrone Power, that the kind of date wouldn't depend on him, but on you. If he felt you were the kind of girl who would fit in with a lively and scintillating crowd, he'd like to get together with a small group of friends and shoot the breeze.

He likes intelligent discussions, not particularly about picture business, but about anything else under the sun. Perhaps you love movies? Then, after dinner, Ty would take you to his favorite neighborhood theater. Or maybe you like traveling? Then he'd prolong that dinner hour and make traveling seem the most adventurous thing in the world.

When he speaks of places he has been, his words make pictures for you. All at once, you aren't sitting in Romanoff's having your smoked salmon, onion soup and split minute steaks. You are in Rio. With magically descriptive words, Ty makes you yearn for Brazil. The only catch is that he can also make you yearn for Paris, or Buenos Aires, or Monte Carlo or any other place he enthuses about. He has the gift of words plus the gift of expression. Together, they are dynamite. He's a wonderful conversationalist, with the gift not of dramatization -- nothing so planned as that -- but of description.

It would dawn on you, if you had a date with Ty that he is a much deeper person than you had suspected. He is much more mature than before he went away. Then, comparatively speaking, he was just a kid. Remember the old, old days when he frequented the night spots? That was a Tyrone to whom success was new, to whom life was new, exciting, untried. Then remember the Tyrone who went to war, feeling his responsibilities, looking a little stern in uniform? Well, that Tyrone grew up while in the Marine Corps. After three and a half years at war, Tyrone's values are steadier. He knows what he wants, and they aren't the things he wanted as a kid.

Perhaps once upon a time he got a kick out of being photographed wherever he went, out of going to premieres and flashy Hollywood parties. Not any more. In fact, he doesn't like to have his evening interrupted by a barrage of flash bulbs. "It doesn't particularly add to the enjoyment of the evening," he says frankly. "Just at the minute they snap the picture, you are invariably at the crucial point of your story. That's when the bulb goes off, or somebody wants an autograph. I'm sure I'd rather be home with friends than out on display. Still, since part of your career as a movie personality is living in a goldfish bowl, you can't really resent intrusion, but you can go places where it isn't with you every minute."

If you had a date with Tyrone Power, you'd have to be a spontaneous sort of person. He would be just as apt to whisk you away in his plane as he would to laze around with you on the beach. He might take you to Palm Springs since, by plane, it's only forty minutes away. Or he might challenge you to a game of tennis, whereupon he'd descend on some friends of his in Brentwood who have a tennis court. One thing is sure: you wouldn't sit around doing nothing. Tyrone is a guy with a lot of nervous energy. Although he seems as relaxed as a panther, he is also as tense. And he likes to keep moving.

Another thing' for sure. Your date wouldn't be on a week night, not while Ty is working. Ty learns his dialogue at night. He works until 6, doesn't get home until 7. By the time he's had dinner and studied his lines, it's 11 o'clock. Like the rest of Hollywood's working stars, he's in bed before 12. And that doesn't allow even a fast-hour for a week-night date.

But week end -- that's different. Beginning with Saturday night, he relaxes and prepares to enjoy himself. What do you want to do this particular week end? Fly to Mexico, just across the border? Go to a movie? Sunbathe on the beach? What do you want to do, Ty? Let us know, so we can make our plans!

from the same Motion Picture issue (Feb 1948) comes the following:

Speaking of old romances, Sonja Henie, I hear, still has a very soft spot in her heart for Tyrone Power. Ty once told a friend: "You'll never know how close I came to marrying Sonja."

They were a steady twosome before Ty surprised Hollywood with his marriage to Annabella. Now Annabella will get a divorce ant Ty -- maybe -- will marry Lana Turner.