The Star Machine

by Jeanine Basinger

  ‡ Ironically, these shoots included posing for photos that showed them cheerfully sitting around the sets, allegedly just having a good old time.

  * Stars found the sorts of hobbies they could pick up and lay down at a moment’s notice. Joan Crawford knitted. John Barrymore and Gary Cooper painted. Henry Wilcoxin carved small boats. Errol Flynn picked up and laid down in his own special way.

  * The same thing was done in the case of The Crow (1994). Leading man Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee, died when he was accidentally shot during filming. But he had finished most of his scenes, so the studio completed the movie and released it as a tribute to the fallen actor.

  † This response continues today. Madonna said about stardom, “If I had known what it was going to be like, I wouldn’t have tried so hard.”

  * She received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for The Blue Veil in 1951.

  * Not everyone agreed with Davis’s portrait of herself as a dominated little actress. John Huston described her during their 1942 film together, In This Our Life: “There is something elemental about Bette, a demon within her which threatens to break out and eat everybody, beginning with their ears. The studio was afraid of her.”

  † She could be gussied up, as in her role as a rich man’s wife in Carnival in Costa Rica.

  * The formation of the Screen Actors Guild in 1933 was the first organized rebellion. See Tino Balio for full details on the Guild, as well as the fights staged by Cagney, Davis, and de Havilland. Some actors were smart enough to avoid being put under long-term contract by any single studio after their initial development periods, among them Cary Grant, a shrewd businessman.

  † Scott Eyman’s highly readable book on Mayer also reported that Mayer, having built up the star Ricardo Montalban, once asked him for a favor and was upset when Montalban hesitated. “Listen, Ricardo,” he’s reported to have snapped. “If I can’t ask you for a favor when I need a favor, when can I ask you for a favor?”

  * In March 1954, Gable left MGM, his home studio, with a dignified statement for the press, saying he wanted to freelance and thanking everyone he had worked with. Behind the scenes, he said, “You know, those bastards in the front office didn’t even give me a farewell party or anything. They didn’t even bother to say good-bye.” Alice Faye had a similar send-off, remarking that her home studio, 20th Century–Fox, also gave her nothing—“Not even a pickle dish.”

  DISILLUSIONMENT:

  TYRONE POWER

  Tyrone Power

  Alegendary movie star is a legendary movie star. People like Joan Crawford are mythic, and time has endorsed her transcendence over the machine. Yet stars like Crawford and other so-called legends were themselves once part of that very machine. They’ve just turned out to be greater than the sum of its parts. There are, however, movie stars—famous movie stars—whose careers illustrate what the machine could do and what it couldn’t do. Their stories are the real definition of the system. They prove it and deny it simultaneously. Sometimes the star machine appeared to have been designed by Rube Goldberg, as one day it worked and the next day it didn’t. Some stars began to challenge it or suffer career limitations because of it, stars like Tyrone Power.

  Power was beautiful. Not handsome. Beautiful. Solid, substantial, and with great masculine dignity, but with the kind of physical looks that can only be labeled “beautiful.” In his prime, his looks were awesome. In the 1940 film Brigham Young, Power is lying on a small bed, his head touching a curtain that barely separates him from the luscious young Linda Darnell lying in a separate bed on the other side of the curtain. It is night. They are unwed but sleeping together in a cabin, with only the curtain keeping them apart. (To make this acceptable to censors, there are also small children nearby, wide awake and watchful.) Power’s skin shines. His eyes glow. His eyelashes are thick. His teeth are white and straight. As beautiful as Darnell is, and she was one of the great beauties of her era, she is not as beautiful as Power. Furthermore, the Hollywood system knows he’s the money shot. He is presented in the “leaning-back-against-the-pillow” pose usually reserved for the leading woman. Darnell gets hers, but the camera lingers over Power. In a series of close-ups, each shot becomes tighter on his face until finally the viewer is right on top of him and can really see him. Tyrone Power was beautiful.* No one ever received this kind of treatment more than the stunning Tyrone Power. He was the ultimate male sex symbol of his day.

  The career development of Tyrone Power illustrates how limiting the star machine process could become and how a great star could be both an asset and a problem. On the one hand, he was made into one of the most glamorous and successful movie stars of the studio era, a top-ranked box office bonanza with hordes of adoring fans, both male and female. He became the epitome of 1930s glamour for men. On the other hand, being made into a glamour boy stifled him. The machine process glorified him and then stunted him. He was shaped easily and efficiently into his type, and fit it so well that he couldn’t become the serious actor he wanted to be. Tyrone Power is never listed among the Cagneys, Gables, Stewarts, Grants, Coopers of his own era, because the star machine made him too well. Just as he was a perfect product, he could never be more than a perfect product. He couldn’t be a legend. He could only be beautiful.

  • • •

  TYRONE POWER DID NOT NEED the usual detailed star preparation the studio machine provided. He came from a distinguished acting family, and he had significant stage experience. Furthermore, no one who set eyes on him imagined that he would ever be anything but a movie star. With his looks, his future in Hollywood was guaranteed. As a result, his climb to stardom was brief, and the machinery was used only to polish his beauty and construct his image, cleverly directing him forward following the signals the fans sent the studio.

  The first Tyrone Power was a popular Irish actor. His grandson, who dramatically billed himself as Tyrone Power the Second, was the father of the movie star we know as Tyrone Power. Ty’s father, born Frederick Tyrone Power (1869–1931), was a successful theatre star, a matinee idol with a strong voice and the good looks he passed on to his son. He was known as a man who could play in any type of melodrama without losing his dignity, something else he apparently passed on. Power’s father played opposite the grandes dames of his day—Mrs. Leslie Carter, Julia Marlowe, and the famous Mrs. Fiske. His son, named Tyrone Edmund Power III, was born on May 5, 1914, to an Indiana girl who had changed her name to Patia Power and willingly embarked on the touring theatrical life alongside her husband. The Powers were a serious theatrical couple who worked steadily at their craft, although their marriage fell apart while Power was still a youngster. Ty Power continued in his family’s tradition, making his theatrical debut at age seven in a road company version of La Golondrina, with his mother playing the lead.

  Tyrone Power’s father appeared in movies as well as plays. When his teenaged son came out to Hollywood for a family visit, he was naturally invited onto his father’s set. The movie was the 1931 talking version of The Miracle Man, and as legend has it, on December 20, 1930, Power’s father collapsed while filming and died in his son’s arms. If this is true, the traumatic event would have taken place when Power was about seventeen years old. Whatever the exact order of events, the elder Power did die while making Miracle Man, and his son was in Hollywood, virtually penniless and trying to break into movies himself. Power stayed on after his father’s death and obtained one small bit part in Tom Brown of Culver in 1932, billed at the very bottom of the credits. Discouraged, he returned east to the theatre, learning his craft by touring in summer stock with the famous Katharine Cornell. A worthwhile theatre career seemed to elude him, however. Feeling lost and rootless, he went back where everyone told him his looks should take him—to Hollywood, in late 1934. Shortly afterward, he got a one-day bit part, playing a West Point cadet in Warners’ Flirtation Walk, a musical starring Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler.

  Power made two screen tests in mid-1935, both for the newly formed 20th Ce
ntury–Fox, but was again losing heart when he was suddenly called by the studio head, Darryl Zanuck. Zanuck’s wife had seen one of the tests and said, “Shave his eyebrows and he’ll be a star.” (This seems to have been the full extent of his “star assessment.”) Zanuck listened to his wife and cast Power as Count Valais in Girls’ Dormitory, an early-1936 release. Near the end of the movie, a handsome young man suddenly appears and asks the leading lady, Simone Simon, “Could I have this dance?” He could, audiences thought. He definitely could. Power had only one close-up, but it allowed viewers to see clearly an extraordinarily good-looking young man. Preview cards immediately told the studio what they needed to know. Audiences noticed the guy in the tuxedo, the one who wanted a dance, what was his name? And when would they see him again?

  That was all it took for Tyrone Power Jr., as he was first billed. With only a tuxedo, a royal name, one line of dialogue, shaved eyebrows, and his eyelashes, he bought himself a chance to become a movie star. He was more than ready. Though young, he had paid his dues in road companies and summer stock. (He had also been active in community theatre after arriving in L.A. at the Pasadena Playhouse.) Ironically, none of that actually mattered to his home studio, 20th Century–Fox. All they needed to know was that he was beautiful and that the fans had picked him out all by themselves.

  Thus, it was that Tyrone Power Jr. was pulled out of the male lineup and put under development for the most important role of his life, that of “movie star.” “Put as much time in as you need on this boy,” said Zanuck to his star machine personnel. To be sure he wasn’t a fluke, Fox rushed him into a larger role, but not the lead, in Ladies in Love (also 1936). To be safe, he would again play a “count” and wear a tuxedo. He would be billed seventh, as Tyrone Power Jr. (the last time the “Jr.” would appear after his name). He would be featured with four high-powered females: Loretta Young, Constance Bennett, Janet Gaynor, and Simone Simon. Since Ladies in Love is a traditional women’s picture about how women just have to suffer at the hands of men, it was a safe place to dangle Power in front of potential fans. It was the last time he would ever appear in the movies as anything less than a star.

  Power appears in only five short scenes in Ladies in Love. He is first seen through an open door, a composition designed specifically to both frame him and isolate him. The audience is asked to focus on him—and they do. In the story line, the person opening the door to him is Loretta Young, already every inch a star. Her double-take reaction is meant to coordinate with the audience’s: Wow! What a gorgeous guy! In the brief scene that follows, Power is given four close-ups. The sequence runs for only thirty-eight seconds, and Young, Bennett, and Paul Lukas are all present. But Power, new to films, is the performer singled out by the cutting, the composition, and the camera.

  This is the star machine at work. Power hardly appears in the movie, but he is set up, featured, and shown to the audience as important because he has been targeted behind the scenes for future fame. When he dumps Young to marry a girl of his own aristocratic class, he becomes the living definition of a great romantic loss. Since his character breaks her heart—causing her to bungle a suicide attempt and nearly kill Gaynor instead—he is what makes her character believable. If Power’s brief scenes don’t convince the audience that he’s the kind of guy women are willing to die for, Young’s character doesn’t work. It was a big test for Tyrone Power. Was the audience response to him in Girls’ Dormitory a fluke? It was not. He delivered. The role of Count Valais in Ladies in Love proved his star appeal.

  As head of the studio, Darryl F. Zanuck was a man with a shrewd nose for both story and star power. He kept track of the dailies on Ladies in Love, checking on Power’s progress. What Zanuck saw made him immediately move Tyrone Power up the ranks. He cast him as the male lead in a big-budget costume drama to be called Lloyd’s of London (1936). (The star machine might have its step-by-step process, but plans could always be scrapped or speeded up when a Ty Power came along.) Power appeared opposite the ethereally beautiful blonde Madeleine Carroll, a popular movie personality who is barely known today. (She was taking over the female starring role after Loretta Young objected to playing it because it was “too small.”) Power’s part had originally been planned for Don Ameche, but when Young was reassigned, so was he. Power stepped in, and as the film’s leading man, unofficially became a star. Because he was new and untried, however, Fox cautiously billed him fourth.

  Lloyd’s of London gives Power a dramatic entrance. His character (played as a poor child by Freddie Bartholomew) has been arrested on Peeping Tom charges, which gets the audience’s attention. When the camera pans over to him, the “star” Tyrone Power is dressed in full eighteenth-century costume, looking thin-faced, a bit callow, and slightly underfed. Yet as he is seen in medium close-up, he is distinctive and handsome. Although he looks extremely young, he has presence in the frame. Films are seldom shot in sequence, but Power’s development in the film almost seems to be chronological. At first, he’s a bit overdone, with carefully tamed eyebrows, a too-white complexion, and lipsticky lips. As the story progresses he begins to look more natural, less primped for principal photography. He has the typical small stature of the male movie star and the usual large head. Later in his life, his body seemed to grow fuller, more solid, and his torso had better balance, but here he is almost a boy. However, we see the gift of his theatrical ancestors: a confident star presence, an easy way with dialogue, and solid performance technique. His deep, masculine voice is a key element,* giving him a sense of strength and maturity. He comfortably wears an array of different costumes, from sailor’s rags to priest’s disguise to brocaded pants. He is comfortable with props like pistols and swords, dances with elegance and grace, and in romantic close-ups is more than anyone could hope for.

  Tyrone Power’s “debut” film gave him a showcase role. Zanuck and Fox surrounded him with everything he might need—superb production values, a strong story, and an excellent supporting cast, including, besides the radiant Carroll, George Sanders as the villain and Sir Guy Standing, C. Aubrey Smith, and Virginia Field in support, all directed by the veteran Henry King. Power’s role even includes a deathbed scene. His beautiful head is lying on a stark white pillow, his thick lashes stuck to his cheeks, a wan smile on his face. An intense close-up lets the audience ogle him as he “remembers” a happy childhood, images of which are superimposed over his face as he—and the movie—slowly fade out.

  In early December 1936, Zanuck released Lloyd’s, sat back, and waited. Within days it was apparent that Power would be not only a star, but a star of the highest magnitude. He was a hit, or as Variety sagely pointed out, “The women ought to go for him in a big way.” Zanuck called in his publicity department, and the star machine really started to roll with the usual bios, photos, and plants. (Because his name was already famous, and because he refused to change it, only his “Jr.” was eliminated.)

  In 1937, Tyrone Power would star in five feature films at 20th Century–Fox.* That was how quickly a studio could manufacture movies and roles tailored for a hot property. (From Girls’ Dormitory in 1936 through 1943, when he entered military service, Power would make twenty-five features, all of them hits: three in 1936, five in 1937, three in 1938, four in 1939, four in 1940, two in 1941, three in 1942, and one in 1943.)

  Everyone already knew that Tyrone Power would be easy to sell and easy to cast. (He wasn’t going to be asked to play Hamlet.) Nevertheless, the studio formed a specific plan to expand his initial popularity, with special care given to his first full year—1937. Four of his films were to be simple little comedies that could be quickly and cheaply made, to keep his face on the screen and in the fan magazines. The fifth was planned as something exceptional—a big-budget costume film, In Old Chicago.

  The studio’s plan included pairing Power with suitable female co-stars. Studio heads knew they might have a problem anytime the leading man was more beautiful than the leading lady, and studios weren’t investing in female stars
for that to happen if they could prevent it. As was the usual business practice of the times, Fox cast Power in service to its current best-established female box office draws: Loretta Young, Sonja Henie, and Alice Faye.* Three of his 1937 movies paired him with the exquisitely beautiful Young: Love Is News, Cafe Metropole, and Second Honeymoon. Young had been his first romantic lead, in Ladies in Love. (The public loved them together, and they would go on to co-star in a fourth feature, Suez, in 1938.) Throughout 1937, Fox shrewdly cast Power as the type they felt the public wanted him to be. Although in one movie he was a hardworking reporter, in the other three he was a bogus prince, a real prince, and a rich though unroyal Prince Charming. These efficient romantic comedies required Power to look good, wear clothes well, make love effectively, and be a little funny. No more, no less. Love Is News, Cafe Metropole, Thin Ice, and Second Honeymoon all jumble together in retrospect, except that in Thin Ice, the leading lady ice-skates—and Power stands around while she does it.

  Tyrone Power and Loretta Young at the peak of their youth and beauty in Cafe Metropole, a charming comedy that required equally charming co-stars.

  Playing the lead in Jesse James, Power ascended to the title of King of Hollywood, eclipsing his co-star, Nancy Kelly.

  For someone like Power, who everyone knows has arrived, this is a typical Hollywood year of star development. He appeared in as many films as possible while Fox nailed down what they confidently felt would be his type: rich, royal, and romantic. The best of his light 1937 ventures is Cafe Metropole. It’s genuinely funny and charming, with a pseudo-Lubitsch touch. Set in Paris, it opens up on a very drunk young Power exclaiming, “I want a roasted eagle!” and from then on never leaves him except when it’s switching its close-up focus to his beautiful counterpart, Loretta Young. She wears feathers and diamonds, very good hats and suits, and a spectacular white lace mantilla. Power, a spoiled and irresponsible young Princeton grad forced to pretend he’s a Russian count, is mostly clad in a tuxedo, white tie, and tails, but no matter what he wears, he looks astonishing. Since his Russian accent is supposed to slip deliberately from time to time, Power has no trouble with it. The movie makes no bones about what it is selling the public—it consists largely of tight close-ups of Power and Young, both together and alone in the frame. And it knows what it has in Power. Instead of a scene in which the leading lady models her wardrobe, Young takes Power to a hat shop and he tries on hats, so viewers have plenty of time to stare at him. The romantic plot complications are easily solved, and a few good lines are tossed around. When Young’s father (Charles Winninger) complains that his daughter has fallen for a bogus prince, his sister (Helen Westley) reminds him that he himself had once fallen in love “with the second baseman on a Bloomer Girls baseball team.” (“Well,” he responds, “at least she wasn’t a second baseman posing as a right fielder.”) And when the father tells Young the bad news about her “Russian” boyfriend, she shrugs it off, saying, well, of course, she had known it all along. “Don’t you think I’ve been out with enough Princeton men to recognize one when I see him?” she asks.