Medford mail tribune., May 11, 1958, Image 48

Here is Tyrone Power with his second wife, ac
tress Linda Christian. They are now divorced.
Tyrone Power with Ava Gardner in
a scene from "The Sun Also Rises."
Tyrone and Annabella during his first marriage.
BY TYRONE POWER
It's one thing to make love on the screen,
in real life .. . .
DTTDODU SID D
I n 1942 I left Hollywood and en
listed in the Marine Corps.
During my induction in San
Diego, Calif., I was interviewed by a
psychiatrist.
"Do you have a fear of heights?"
he asked.
"I'm not fond of them," I said.
"Are you afraid of crowds?"
"If they're a preview audience
very," I admitted.
"And how do you get along with
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women?" he wanted to know next.
"Doctor, they scare me to death!" I
exclaimed.
"The Marines are the place for
you," he said. "Next man!"
It's been some time since I served my
3 years in the Corps, but women
still scare me. They always have, and
I guess they always will. Some people
think this is peculiar, because they
mistake me for an authority on the
female sex. "On the screen you've
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made love to most of the leading
glamour girls," a friend said recently.
"You must know all about how to
handle women."
. Nothing could be farther from the
truth. I admit I've worked with women
most of my life, in motion pictures
and on the stage. I've been involved
like every man in the real-life battle
of the sexes, and I've passed the age
of 40, when a man has learned how
to solve most problems. But most
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women go on terrifying and baf
fling me to this day.
' I think the modem female scares
most men, but she doesn't realize it.
Someone ought to tell the girls what
they're doing to us, so I may as well
stick my neck out. At least I'll give
wives and husbands something new
to argue about! '
If you want to know the various
kinds of mid-20th-ceritury women I
. fear most, here's the list: ,
Career girls, actresses
they are the type
I know best. The
male who must com
pete with them had
better keep feeling
his back for dagger
wounds.
Beautiful dolls'
they think the
world owes them a
living because they
were bom with a
face and a figure. I
get away fast.
Gossips
some people say
they're worse in
Hollywood, but I've
found them every
where. Romantic dreamers
these girls live
in a crazy world
they've made up all
by themselves. It's
not for me.
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Those are four' types that make me
run for cover, and I'll probably think
of more as I warm up.
In one of my early pictures I played
opposite an actress who was a perfect
example of today's competitive me
first career girl. When she spoke of
"my Career" you could tell she spelled
it with a capital C. I soon found out
that a love scene with her was a mili
tary maneuver a jealous battle for
position in front of the camera. She
threw passionate arms around my
neck and, with the lovelight shining
in her eyes, pulled my head around
so that only my left ear remained,
visible to the camera.
Later I learned to defend myself in
this kind of battle. I let the lady up
stage me and deliberately turned my
back to the camera. Then one of two
things happened. The director some
times stopped the action and moved
us around so we shared the camera,
or he let her play most of the scene,
her way, then moved the camera
around and gave me a closeup. It was
passive resistance on my part but
few leading men in Hollywood are
foolhardy enough to tangle with this
breed of female.
I discussed the subject recently with
a friend in the publishing business.
"If you think actresses are hard to
handle," he told me, "try dealing
with women writers!" Another man
I know is married to a woman ex
ecutive. "What she'll do to get ahead
is scary," he said. A really determined
career woman is a fearsome creature
wherever you find her.
The. beautiful-doll type, who makes
me head for the hills, is dangerously
attractive at first sight and can trap
a man before he realizes what he's
let himself in for.
Some time ago I worked with a star
let who had a perfect figure and a
peach-blossom complexion a living,
walking dream. I thought she might
be nice company for a quiet evening.
But when we started on the picture
I found not only that she couldn't act,
but that she wasn't even smart enough
to know she couldn't.
"I've been assured I have the nat
ural attributes for stardom," she told
me. In other words, she expected to
get ahead with her figure and her big
blue eyes. Or maybe they were brown.
I don't remember, because I kept as
far out of range of her charms as I
possibly could.
One. reason I fear such vain and
lovely beings is that one pf them is
the wife of a friend of mine. He and
the lady recently came to my small
penthouse in New York City, where
I live when not traveling or making
a picture. I like the place because it's
small and cozy and obviously de
signed for single occupancy. After two
. marriages which lasted a total of 16
years, I have reverted to bachelor
status more wary of women than
ever before.
My friend, Fred, and his beautiful
wife, Brenda, inspected my 10-by-12-living
room, the bedroom and kitchen,
and the little glassed-in terrace where
I have dinner on a card table and
watch the glitter of the Manhattan
skyline at night.
"Brother, you've got it made," Fred
said. "This is all a man needs."
Brenda looked suspicious. "So you'd
like this, would you?" she asked
"single blessedness again!" The truth
is that Brenda has never bothered
much with homemaking. She's too
busy visiting dressmakers and beauty
salons, preserving her status as a
beautiful doll.
Ooon after I went to Hollywood in
1936, I got acquainted with
the kind of female I call the ro
mantic dreamer. This one can throw
a real fright into a man.
I've acted many romantic scenes in
which desirable women fall madly in
love with me, and I with them. But I
wasn't prepared at first to have women
in the audience mistake this illusion
for reality, and fall for a celluloid
lover who doesn't exist. It shook me.
One woman offered a studio telephone
operator $500 for my unlisted num
ber. Another wrote and threatened to
throw herself in front of my car un
less I made a date with her. I didn't,
and she didn't.
Other male stars have . had even
wilder experiences. I've never found
a strange woman under the bed or
had my clothes torn off by frantic
females in the street. But I still won
der why some women can't live in
the real world, which is a pretty nice
place after alL
"Our life together could be one long
blissful dream," a girl wrote to an
other, handsomer actor I know.
"Blissful dream, my eye!" he said."
"I want a wife who'll get up and
change the baby's diapers when he
hollers at 4 in the morning."
Fortunately, not all women frighten
me. There are and have been a few
exceptions hard-working successful
women who are warm-hearted, gra
cious, and generous. . "
Take my mother, Patia Power, for
example. She was an actress who
played Shakespeare, taught dramatics,
and at the same time made a fine
home for me and my younger sister,
Anne. She didn't believe in letting
children behave as they pleased. Anne
and I were responsible for making
our beds and keeping our rooms neat.
In company we were seen and not
heard, and we didn't get up from the
dinner table until we'd been excused.
The neighborhood theater in Cin
cinnati was my childhood play
house, where I went after school to
watch mother teach and rehearse.
Every evening she read us poetry,
novels, and the best dramatic liter
ature. But she never once suggested
that I ought to make acting my career.
She wasn't the kind of "stage mother"
. I run from whenever I see one com
ing. Too often such women only want
the tot on the stage to satisfy their
own ambition. I believe youngsters
should choose their own work, just
as I made my own decision to carry
on the family theatrical tradition. -
At 17 I was graduated from Purcell
1 high school in Cincinnati, and the day
after commencement I announced
that I was leaving home to go on the
stage. I headed for Chicago, where I
landed a job as a spear-carrying ex
tra in the Civic Theater's Shakes
peare Company. .
All I knew about girls at this time
was that they alarmed me and made
me vaguely uncomfortable. In grade
school I had been in poor health and
very shy. While in high school I was
busy working behind a soda fountain
. during vacations and ushering in the
aters at night. I had no time for dates.
Then in Chicago I met another ex
ceptional woman who didn't scare me.
Her name was Lucretia.
It was a queer, romance. Lucretia
was a waitress in a restaurant where
I dropped in one night for a sand
wich. Soon I was stopping by two or
three nights a week after the theater.
When there weren't many customers,
we talked. Or rather, I talked about
my ambition to become an actor, my
hope to get to New York or Holly-,
wood. She let me rave about my
problems . and future, and although
I must have been an awful bore she
never let it show. '
....
Family Weekly, May 11, 1958
Family Weekly, May 11, 1958
9