DICK POWELL IN "MURDER MY SWEET" - THE ROLE THAT CHANGED HIS LIFE
THE SINGING DETECTIVE
Dick Powell was many things - a romantic leading man, a crooner, a light comedian, a gritty actor, a film director, a television producer and businessman and a success at all of them. Athough Network Radio always seemed secondary to his other pursuits, Dick Powell’s steady 20 year broadcasting career was book-ended by two audience favorites, Hollywood Hotel in the 1930’s and Richard Diamond, Private Detective in the 1950’s - two distinctly different genres that mirrored his film persona. How that came about is quite a story.
Richard Ewell Powell was born into the family of a machinist and his wife in rural Arkansas in 1904. When Dick was ten, Ewing and Sallie Powell moved with their three sons to Little Rock where Dick went through school and college, paying his expenses as a tenor at weddings, funerals and social events. He also married his teenage sweetheart which both of them soon realized was a mistake before he left Little Rock at 21 to play and sing with a succession of struggling dance bands that toured the Midwest.
His epiphany came four years later when, single again, he realized that his singing talent and gift of gab gave him the potential to become a master of ceremonies in one of the large metropolitan theaters that presented stage shows between movies. He landed an emcee’s job in Indianapolis and within two years worked his way up to the role at Warner Brothers' huge, 2,800 seat Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh. Dick Powell soon became a celebrity around the city with his presence at The Stanley, his appearances on local radio stations and his records on the Vocalion label. Before long he was making $1,000 a week. (1)
Noticing the way the handsome and quick witted singing host handled stage shows and hearing compliments from its touring stars who enjoyed working with Powell in Pittsburgh, Warner Brothers signed him to a standard seven year contract in 1931. It meant a 50% cut in pay, but Powell was confident that it was just a matter of time until that would be adjusted. (He didn’t know the tight-fisted brothers Warner…)
Reporting to the studio in the summer of 1932, Powell’s first film was a supporting role in the comedy, Blessed Event, in which he sang the forgettable I’m Makin Hay In The Moonlight, Too Many Tears, Shapiro Shoes and How Can You Say No (When The World Is Saying Yes)? The newcomer’s film debut was met with plaudits in Variety on September 6, 1932: “…picture house m.c. Dick Powell, a fav in Pittsburgh…is likewise very effective as the crooner. He suggests possibilities especially for café and backstage stuff calling for a singing voice.”
After several non-musical movies his breakthrough came in Warners' March,1933, blockbuster, 42nd Street, in which he sang the title song plus It Must Be June, (with Bebe Daniels), and Young & Healthy. 42nd Street was also Powell's first of seven Warner Brothers musicals costarring popular Ruby Keeler and a dozen which involved legendary film maker Busby Berkeley, known for his imaginative choreography and elaborate production numbers. (2)
Dick's ninth billing in 42nd Sreet was moved up to fifth in Warners’ Gold Diggers of 1933, released in May, 1933, in which he solos I’ve Got To Sing A Torch Song and performs production duets with Keeler in The Shadow Waltz and Pettin’ In The Park.
Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler, (supporting James Cagney and Joan Blondell), teamed with Busby Berkeley for By A Waterfall and Honeymoon Hotel in Footlight Parade from Warners in October, 1933, and Powell got his first starring role the next month in the Warner Brothers’ quickie, College Coach. (3)
Nineteen-thirty four started slowly for Powell but gained in momentum. He was shoved back into supporting roles for Wonder Bar starring Al Jolson and Twenty Million Sweethearts with top billing to Pat O’Brien. But he introduced I’ll String Along With You in the O’Brien film and it became a hit, a big hit. His first break as a radio personality came on February 7, 1934, when he became the singing host for 13 weeks of the 30-minute Old Gold Hour on CBS starring Harry Richman, Milton Berle and Ted Fio Rito’s orchestra. (4)
Then, in August, Warners let go with a huge advertising blast to herald Dames as “The 1934 Edition of Gold Diggers!” - starring Blondell, Powell and Keeler, in that order. With Powell and Keeler introducing I Only Have Eyes For You in a twelve-minute Busby Berkeley production, Variety summed up its review of the picture on August 24th : ..”It’s swell entertainment no matter how you slice it.” It also made Dick Powell a musical comedy star who never had to settle for second billing again.
Now busy with two more 1934 Warner Brothers musicals, Happiness Ahead and Flirtation Walk, Powell became a hot radio property. He was signed to host the CBS hour-long Hollywood Hotel starring Hearst movie columnist Louella Parsons and all the guest stars she could corral to appear for nothing. The show debuted on Friday, October 5, 1934, at 9:30 p.m. It registered a 17.5 Crossley rating, 30th place in the Annual Top 50, opposite comedian Phil Baker’s 19.8 on Blue at 22nd place.
Under Campbell Soup sponsorship Hollywood Hotel moved back to 9:00 p.m. for the 1935-36 season and became Friday’s most popular program. It also jumped into Annual Top Ten with a 16.4 rating. The numbers hardly changed in 1936-37 when the show remained Friday’s most popular show outside of Amos & Andy’s 15 minute strip and its 14.9 ranked 12th in the Annual Top 50.
A sample episode from that season is posted from December 18, 1936, broadcast from a soundstage at Twentieth-Century Fox with scenes from its One In A Million with Adolphe Menjou and Sonja Heine and another from Arthur Treacher. There are also a number of one or two line by a flock of stars in response to Louella Parsons’ greetings. Dick Powell holds things together as emcee and sings I’m Sittin’ High On A Hilltop with Raymond Paige’s orchestra. (5)
Things had changed in Powell’s personal life - he married his frequent co-star, Joan Blondell, on September, 19, 1936, but he was still caught up in Warner Brothers’ studio system sausage machine and appeared in ten of its movies over 1935 and ‘36. Although Hollywood Hotel had helped popularize his movies and sell his Brunswick and Decca records, it was part of the weekly grind and most easily shed.
He left Hollywood Hotel on January 8, 1937, only to return to Network Radio eleven months later on December 8th to host NBC’s Your Hollywood Parade, a 13-week copy of MGM’s Good News from Warner Brothers, bankrolled by American Tobacco’s Lucky Strike cigarettes. Powell was paid well from the program's $25,000 weekly budget, but he wasn't afraid to stand up to American's autocratic President George Washington Hill when Hill attempted to micro-manage the show. (6)
Eager to shed his typecast image of the singing romantic lead when Warner Brothers wanted to milk every last ticket out of it, Powell broke with the studio after 31 films in December, 1938. He accepted the host’s role of Lever Brothers’ Tuesday Night Party on March 21, 1939 when Al Jolson left the CBS show and teamed with Martha Raye and Harry Einstein as Parkyakarkus for the spring. Powell and pals scored a decent 10.9 Hooperating, good for first in the 8:30 p.m. timeslot against George Jessel on NBC and Information Please on Blue.
Meanwhile, Dick finished his obligations at Warner Brothers with Naughty But Nice, co-starring Ann Sheridan and Ronald Reagan, then signed a two picture contract with Paramount which produced I Want A Divorce with his wife Joan Blondell, released in September, 1940, and Christmas In July, just a month later.
While working at Paramount, Powell also became the singing host of NBC’s Good News on the leap year Thursday of February 29, 1940, a role he held for 26 weeks until the show left the air on July 29th. Although he wanted to be recast as a serious actor, the money to host his third Hollywood studio-based variety hour was too good to turn down Powell shepherded the final run of Good News into 12th place in the 1939-40 Top 50 with a 16.9 Hooperating.
Disappointed with what Paramount offered them, Dick Powell and Joan Blondell went shopping for a new studio that would take them seriously. They turned to Universal which cast them in the romantic comedy, Model Wife, a popular film for its time which was featured on The Lux Radio Theater on May 19, 1941 with Cecil B. DeMille claiming the husband and wife were “…playing different kinds of roles.” (7)
Powell’s next film assignment at Universal was the well-paying setback to his serious acting ambitions. In The Navy starred the studio’s hottest property, the former burlesque duo of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Biographer Tony Thomas reports that Powell was paid $30,000 for his five weeks work on the slapstick comedy that drove him back to Paramount and Network Radio.
At CBS he hosted the Friday night musical Southern Cruise with Frances Langford in the summer of 1941. At Paramount it was much of the same old, (well-paying), musical comedies - teamed with Mary Martin in Star Spangled Rhythm (a cameo duet), followed by Happy Go Lucky and True To Life. Powell took on the singing host responsibilities for the 15-minute Saturday night Campana Serenade on NBC for 26 weeks during the 1942-43 season during this “sleepwalking” phase of his career.
Powell was too old for military duty in World War II but did his bit selling bonds and participating in service shows. (8) He appeared on the AFRS Command Performance of May 15, 1943 with wife Joan Blondell, Judy Canova, Eddie (Rochester) Anderson and Martha Tilton. Blondell brings him in at the 20 minute mark for a stumbling three minute routine followed by a medly of current hits, What’s The Good Word, Mr. Bluebird?, You’ll Never Know and Coming In On A Wing and A Prayer accompanied by Meredith Willson’s orchestra.
He joined Martha Tilton when Campana Serenade moved to CBS on Saturday afternoons for the first 26 weeks of the 1943-44 season while he finished yet another light musical at Paramount, Riding High with Dorothy Lamour. But when the studio tried putting him into another piece of melodic fluff, Bring On The Girls in late 1943, he drew the line and left Paramount. His availability made possible Dick Powell’s future professional success and personal happiness.
At 39 and at liberty, he was chosen by noted Director Rene Clair to star in the United Artists production of It Happened Tomorrow, a non-musical fantasy requiring real acting talent - the kind of talent Powell failed to convince Warner Brothers, Paramount and Universal that he possessed. This time critics agreed he had it. The Screen Guild Theater adaptation of It Happened Tomorrow from September 25, 1944 is posted. His second film career was about to be launched.
But it was sidetracked briefly at MGM in 1944 when he agreed to appear in what Variety called, “…lightweight entertainment,” a Lucille Ball musical comedy co-starring comedian Bert Lahr titled Meet The People. What attracted Powell to this film that contained most everything he wanted to avoid? The answer was a 27 year old, five-foot-one blonde named June Allyson. The two were happily married from August 19, 1945, until his death 18 years later.
The real turnabout in Powell’s film image began in 1944 when he convinced Producer Adrian Scott and Director Edward Dmytryk to cast him as hard boiled private detective Philip Marlow in RKO’s Murder My Sweet, (fka Raymond Chandler’s novel, Farewell, My Lovely). (9) Released in February, 1945, it became a film noir classic and Powell proved his worth as an serious actor. He eagerly starred in the June 11, 1945, Lux Radio Theater adaptation of Murder My Sweet co-starring Claire Trevor and Mike Mazurki from the film.
Dick Powell had another surprise for the radio audience, too. Two weeks later on June 24, 1945, he was introduced as Richard Rogue in the Fitch Bandwagon summer replacement series on NBC, Rogue’s Gallery, (aka Bandwagon Mysteries). The character was written and delivered as Philip Marlow with a sense of humor which listeners liked.
A week after Rogue’s Gallery concluded its summer run on Sunday nights, Fitch took it to Mutual for a season’s run on Thursday nights at 8:30 beginning on September 27th. An episode from this run is posted, October 4, 1945, in which Peter Leeds is heard as a second regular character in the series, Eugor, (Rogue spelled backwards), who chides the private eye midway in each episode An inside joke is contained in the November 8, 1945, episode when Rogue sits at the piano in his girlfriend’s apartment and delivers a plug for June Allison’s latest movie and then sings June Is Bustin’ Out All Over. (10)
Dick Powell’s rejuvenated film career continued midway in the season when the dark RKO melodrama Cornered was released on Christmas Day. Again directed by Edward Dmytrek, the film in which Powell was finally recognized as a fine actor, portraying a former Canadian war pilot searching for his wife’s murderer, was reported to have netted $413,000, and today is considered a classic
Likewise, Rogue’s Gallery was slickly written by Ray Buffum and directed by Dee Englebach. It deserved better than its 4.4 Hooperating that only earned 149th place in the 1945-46 rankings. It didn’t stand a chance in its timeslot on Mutual against Dinah Shore on NBC with a 13.1 rating at 31st place, The FBI Peace & War in 47th place with an 11.3 and even America’s Town Meeting on ABC getting another 5.7 rating for 127th place. The Mutual run ended on June 20, 1946, when Dick Powell moved his Rogue’s Gallery cast and crew back to NBC for another summer of pinch hitting for The Fitch Bandwagon. The first episode from that summer run, June 23, 1946, is posted. (11)
Without the pressure of film or radio commitments demands, Dick Powell took it relatively easy in much of the 1946-47 Network Radio season, concentrating on his investments and making only one picture, the film noir Johnny O’Clock for Columbia which was released in March, 1947. He returned to CBS on May 12, 1947, to star in Lux Radio Theater’s adaptation of the film.
If there was any doubt about Powell’s capacity for work, however, it was dispelled in 1948 when he starred in four films released from four different studios: To The Ends of The Earth from Columbia in February, the melodrama Pitfall from United Artists in August, Universal’s Rogue’s Regiment, (no relation to Rogue’s Gallery) in September and the RKO horse opera Station West in October. Powell also slipped into another summer radio series on May 6, 1948, when he played reporter Hildy Johnson opposite William Conrad’s editor Walter Burns in a 13 week adaptation of The Front Page on ABC. To top off the busy year, Dick & June Powell welcomed a daughter, Pamela, to the family on June 18, 1948.
CBS began negotiations with Powell in the fall to take the lead in a new “private eye type” of series it was developing about a roaming insurance investigator, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. Powell recorded an audition for “The Man With The Action Packed Expense Account” on December 8, 1948, and the role was his for the taking, but another idea appealed to him more - a variation on the Richard Rogue concept by a clever 27 year old writer, Blake Edwards, Richard Diamond, Private Detective. (12)
Richard Diamond was tailored for Dick Powell and became a critical favorite as soon as it was introduced on NBC on April 24, 1949. Unfortunately it was slotted opposite Jack Benny on CBS so few listeners and even fewer advertisers discovered it during the first days of its run. An early episode from the series is posted from May 15, 1949, in which the many sides of Diamond are showcased, including his singing which became a regular feature of every broadcast. It became an inside joke on the show when a heckler, (Jack Kruschen), was heard from a neighboring apartment as in the broadcast posted from September 10, 1949. Writer Edwards, Powell and Kruschen have real fun with the gag on the episode from November 5, 1949. Continual Richard Diamond supporting actors Virginia Gregg as Diamond’s girlfriend Helen Asher and Ed Begley as Police Lieutenant Walt Levinson are along for the fun.
Powell’s only film of 1949, the romantic adventure Mrs. Mike, set in the Canadian wild, was released in December by United Artists. The following year, Dick & June Allyson teamed for light two films at MGM, The Reformer & The Redhead in May and Right Cross in October. But their most memorable production of 1950 was a son, Richard Powell, Junior, born on Christmas Eve.
Richard Diamond’s nomadic run on NBC ended in December, 1950, and Powell found a home and sponsor for his singing detective in ABC’s powerful Friday night lineup for R.J. Reynolds’ Camel cigarettes at 8 p.m. on January 5, 1951. With potent schedule mates Lone Ranger, This Is Your FBI and The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, Dick Powell’s P.I. scored an 8.2 Nielsen rating in his first 26 weeks on the network - good enough for 49th place in the Annual Top 50.
In the subsequent, full 1951-52 season, at the same times on the same stations, Richard Diamond moved into the Annual Top 50 at 40th place with a 6.4 rating. The broadcast of January 25, 1952 is an inside tribute to Powell’s career two decades earlier when he sings With Plenty of Money & You which he introduced in The Gold Diggers of 1937. The last live performance of the series took place on June 27, 1952, while Powell worked on his last major motion picture, MGM’s The Bad & The Beautiful, which went on to win five Academy Awards.
Rexall Drugs brought Richard Diamond back for an encore of transcribed repeats as a 13 week summer replacement for Amos & Andy on CBS in 1953. But that was the last that was heard Richard Diamond - and Dick Powell - in series radio. (13)
Ever the sharp businessman, Powell recruited fellow actors Charles Boyer and David Niven to form Four Star Productions in the early 1950’s and enter the promising field of filmed television program production. (14) The company flourished and all three became familiar television faces and wealthy from the project. Powell, himself, produced and starred in many episodes of the company’s Four Star Playhouse, Zane Grey Theater Dick Powell Theater.
Dick Powell died of cancer on January 3, 1963, beside his wife, June. It’s since been reported that he contracted the fatal disease - along with John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorhead and dozens of others - while he was directing them in the RKO filming of The Conqueror on a location in Utah that was downwind from the atomic testing site in Nevada and subject to nuclear fallout.
He was survived by multitudes of fans who live to this day.
(1) Dick Powell came from a family of achievers. His older brother Howard later became Vice President of the lllinois Central Railroad and his younger brother, Luther, became a Director of International Harvester.
(2) Tony Thomas, author of The Dick Powell Story, also reports that Powell appeared in 18 Warner Brothers musicals with songs provided by the team of composer Harry Warren and lyricist Al Dubin.
(3) Dick Powell appeared in a total of six feature films and three two-reel shorts in 1933 for a Warner Brothers salary that he claimed the studio had cut from $500 to $300 to $200 to $98 a week, using the Depression as its excuse.
(4) The Old Gold Hour left the air after 13 weeks on May 3, 1934, but it was enough to establish Dick Powell as a capable and personable radio personality.
(5) The December 18, 1936, broadcast of Hollywood Hotel on CBS from the Twentieth-Century Fox lot sounds much like the premiere of Good News on NBC from the MGM lot of November 4, 1937. (See Good News on this site.)
(6) The most memorable features Your Hollywood Parade were the regular appearances of Bob Hope for its last ten weeks - his final short series before the launch of The Pepsodent Show in September, 1938.
(7) Model Wife was the couple’s sixth and final film together. They divorced in 1944. Joan Blondell went on to a distinguished career beginning with Cry ‘Havoc’ in 1943 and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn in 1945. She later received two Academy Award nominations and worked in film and television until her death on Christmas Day in 1979 at the age of 73.
(8) Dick Powell was 37, married and the father of seven year old Norman, adopted when he married Joan Blondell, and three year old Ellen, born to the couple in 1938.
(9) RKO bought the rights to Farewell, My Lovely in 1942 for $2,000 and used it as the storyline for The Falcon Takes Over, starring George Sanders as the suave slueth in the inexpensive B movie detective series.
(10) This show-ending vocalizing was a preview of a feature in Powell’s next series, Richard Diamond, Private Detective.
(11) Dick Powell left Rogue’s Gallery on September 22, 1946. The role of Richard Rogue was taken by Barry Sullivan in the summer of 1947, then Chester Morris and Paul Stewart in a subsequent run on ABC.
(12) Blake Edwards went on to create late-1950’s television hits Peter Gunn and Mr. Lucky, then a string of acclaimed films in the 1960’s including Breakfast At Tiffany’s, Experiment In Terror, A Shot In The Dark, The Pink Panther and The Days of Wine & Roses.
(13) Richard Diamond, Private Detective, became a successful television series starring David Janssen in 77 episodes from 1957-60, produced by Dick Powell’s Four Star Productions.
(14) Ida Lupino was billed as the fourth star but she didn’t own any part of the company.
Copyright © 2017, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
Dick Powell was many things - a romantic leading man, a crooner, a light comedian, a gritty actor, a film director, a television producer and businessman and a success at all of them. Athough Network Radio always seemed secondary to his other pursuits, Dick Powell’s steady 20 year broadcasting career was book-ended by two audience favorites, Hollywood Hotel in the 1930’s and Richard Diamond, Private Detective in the 1950’s - two distinctly different genres that mirrored his film persona. How that came about is quite a story.
Richard Ewell Powell was born into the family of a machinist and his wife in rural Arkansas in 1904. When Dick was ten, Ewing and Sallie Powell moved with their three sons to Little Rock where Dick went through school and college, paying his expenses as a tenor at weddings, funerals and social events. He also married his teenage sweetheart which both of them soon realized was a mistake before he left Little Rock at 21 to play and sing with a succession of struggling dance bands that toured the Midwest.
His epiphany came four years later when, single again, he realized that his singing talent and gift of gab gave him the potential to become a master of ceremonies in one of the large metropolitan theaters that presented stage shows between movies. He landed an emcee’s job in Indianapolis and within two years worked his way up to the role at Warner Brothers' huge, 2,800 seat Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh. Dick Powell soon became a celebrity around the city with his presence at The Stanley, his appearances on local radio stations and his records on the Vocalion label. Before long he was making $1,000 a week. (1)
Noticing the way the handsome and quick witted singing host handled stage shows and hearing compliments from its touring stars who enjoyed working with Powell in Pittsburgh, Warner Brothers signed him to a standard seven year contract in 1931. It meant a 50% cut in pay, but Powell was confident that it was just a matter of time until that would be adjusted. (He didn’t know the tight-fisted brothers Warner…)
Reporting to the studio in the summer of 1932, Powell’s first film was a supporting role in the comedy, Blessed Event, in which he sang the forgettable I’m Makin Hay In The Moonlight, Too Many Tears, Shapiro Shoes and How Can You Say No (When The World Is Saying Yes)? The newcomer’s film debut was met with plaudits in Variety on September 6, 1932: “…picture house m.c. Dick Powell, a fav in Pittsburgh…is likewise very effective as the crooner. He suggests possibilities especially for café and backstage stuff calling for a singing voice.”
After several non-musical movies his breakthrough came in Warners' March,1933, blockbuster, 42nd Street, in which he sang the title song plus It Must Be June, (with Bebe Daniels), and Young & Healthy. 42nd Street was also Powell's first of seven Warner Brothers musicals costarring popular Ruby Keeler and a dozen which involved legendary film maker Busby Berkeley, known for his imaginative choreography and elaborate production numbers. (2)
Dick's ninth billing in 42nd Sreet was moved up to fifth in Warners’ Gold Diggers of 1933, released in May, 1933, in which he solos I’ve Got To Sing A Torch Song and performs production duets with Keeler in The Shadow Waltz and Pettin’ In The Park.
Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler, (supporting James Cagney and Joan Blondell), teamed with Busby Berkeley for By A Waterfall and Honeymoon Hotel in Footlight Parade from Warners in October, 1933, and Powell got his first starring role the next month in the Warner Brothers’ quickie, College Coach. (3)
Nineteen-thirty four started slowly for Powell but gained in momentum. He was shoved back into supporting roles for Wonder Bar starring Al Jolson and Twenty Million Sweethearts with top billing to Pat O’Brien. But he introduced I’ll String Along With You in the O’Brien film and it became a hit, a big hit. His first break as a radio personality came on February 7, 1934, when he became the singing host for 13 weeks of the 30-minute Old Gold Hour on CBS starring Harry Richman, Milton Berle and Ted Fio Rito’s orchestra. (4)
Then, in August, Warners let go with a huge advertising blast to herald Dames as “The 1934 Edition of Gold Diggers!” - starring Blondell, Powell and Keeler, in that order. With Powell and Keeler introducing I Only Have Eyes For You in a twelve-minute Busby Berkeley production, Variety summed up its review of the picture on August 24th : ..”It’s swell entertainment no matter how you slice it.” It also made Dick Powell a musical comedy star who never had to settle for second billing again.
Now busy with two more 1934 Warner Brothers musicals, Happiness Ahead and Flirtation Walk, Powell became a hot radio property. He was signed to host the CBS hour-long Hollywood Hotel starring Hearst movie columnist Louella Parsons and all the guest stars she could corral to appear for nothing. The show debuted on Friday, October 5, 1934, at 9:30 p.m. It registered a 17.5 Crossley rating, 30th place in the Annual Top 50, opposite comedian Phil Baker’s 19.8 on Blue at 22nd place.
Under Campbell Soup sponsorship Hollywood Hotel moved back to 9:00 p.m. for the 1935-36 season and became Friday’s most popular program. It also jumped into Annual Top Ten with a 16.4 rating. The numbers hardly changed in 1936-37 when the show remained Friday’s most popular show outside of Amos & Andy’s 15 minute strip and its 14.9 ranked 12th in the Annual Top 50.
A sample episode from that season is posted from December 18, 1936, broadcast from a soundstage at Twentieth-Century Fox with scenes from its One In A Million with Adolphe Menjou and Sonja Heine and another from Arthur Treacher. There are also a number of one or two line by a flock of stars in response to Louella Parsons’ greetings. Dick Powell holds things together as emcee and sings I’m Sittin’ High On A Hilltop with Raymond Paige’s orchestra. (5)
Things had changed in Powell’s personal life - he married his frequent co-star, Joan Blondell, on September, 19, 1936, but he was still caught up in Warner Brothers’ studio system sausage machine and appeared in ten of its movies over 1935 and ‘36. Although Hollywood Hotel had helped popularize his movies and sell his Brunswick and Decca records, it was part of the weekly grind and most easily shed.
He left Hollywood Hotel on January 8, 1937, only to return to Network Radio eleven months later on December 8th to host NBC’s Your Hollywood Parade, a 13-week copy of MGM’s Good News from Warner Brothers, bankrolled by American Tobacco’s Lucky Strike cigarettes. Powell was paid well from the program's $25,000 weekly budget, but he wasn't afraid to stand up to American's autocratic President George Washington Hill when Hill attempted to micro-manage the show. (6)
Eager to shed his typecast image of the singing romantic lead when Warner Brothers wanted to milk every last ticket out of it, Powell broke with the studio after 31 films in December, 1938. He accepted the host’s role of Lever Brothers’ Tuesday Night Party on March 21, 1939 when Al Jolson left the CBS show and teamed with Martha Raye and Harry Einstein as Parkyakarkus for the spring. Powell and pals scored a decent 10.9 Hooperating, good for first in the 8:30 p.m. timeslot against George Jessel on NBC and Information Please on Blue.
Meanwhile, Dick finished his obligations at Warner Brothers with Naughty But Nice, co-starring Ann Sheridan and Ronald Reagan, then signed a two picture contract with Paramount which produced I Want A Divorce with his wife Joan Blondell, released in September, 1940, and Christmas In July, just a month later.
While working at Paramount, Powell also became the singing host of NBC’s Good News on the leap year Thursday of February 29, 1940, a role he held for 26 weeks until the show left the air on July 29th. Although he wanted to be recast as a serious actor, the money to host his third Hollywood studio-based variety hour was too good to turn down Powell shepherded the final run of Good News into 12th place in the 1939-40 Top 50 with a 16.9 Hooperating.
Disappointed with what Paramount offered them, Dick Powell and Joan Blondell went shopping for a new studio that would take them seriously. They turned to Universal which cast them in the romantic comedy, Model Wife, a popular film for its time which was featured on The Lux Radio Theater on May 19, 1941 with Cecil B. DeMille claiming the husband and wife were “…playing different kinds of roles.” (7)
Powell’s next film assignment at Universal was the well-paying setback to his serious acting ambitions. In The Navy starred the studio’s hottest property, the former burlesque duo of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Biographer Tony Thomas reports that Powell was paid $30,000 for his five weeks work on the slapstick comedy that drove him back to Paramount and Network Radio.
At CBS he hosted the Friday night musical Southern Cruise with Frances Langford in the summer of 1941. At Paramount it was much of the same old, (well-paying), musical comedies - teamed with Mary Martin in Star Spangled Rhythm (a cameo duet), followed by Happy Go Lucky and True To Life. Powell took on the singing host responsibilities for the 15-minute Saturday night Campana Serenade on NBC for 26 weeks during the 1942-43 season during this “sleepwalking” phase of his career.
Powell was too old for military duty in World War II but did his bit selling bonds and participating in service shows. (8) He appeared on the AFRS Command Performance of May 15, 1943 with wife Joan Blondell, Judy Canova, Eddie (Rochester) Anderson and Martha Tilton. Blondell brings him in at the 20 minute mark for a stumbling three minute routine followed by a medly of current hits, What’s The Good Word, Mr. Bluebird?, You’ll Never Know and Coming In On A Wing and A Prayer accompanied by Meredith Willson’s orchestra.
He joined Martha Tilton when Campana Serenade moved to CBS on Saturday afternoons for the first 26 weeks of the 1943-44 season while he finished yet another light musical at Paramount, Riding High with Dorothy Lamour. But when the studio tried putting him into another piece of melodic fluff, Bring On The Girls in late 1943, he drew the line and left Paramount. His availability made possible Dick Powell’s future professional success and personal happiness.
At 39 and at liberty, he was chosen by noted Director Rene Clair to star in the United Artists production of It Happened Tomorrow, a non-musical fantasy requiring real acting talent - the kind of talent Powell failed to convince Warner Brothers, Paramount and Universal that he possessed. This time critics agreed he had it. The Screen Guild Theater adaptation of It Happened Tomorrow from September 25, 1944 is posted. His second film career was about to be launched.
But it was sidetracked briefly at MGM in 1944 when he agreed to appear in what Variety called, “…lightweight entertainment,” a Lucille Ball musical comedy co-starring comedian Bert Lahr titled Meet The People. What attracted Powell to this film that contained most everything he wanted to avoid? The answer was a 27 year old, five-foot-one blonde named June Allyson. The two were happily married from August 19, 1945, until his death 18 years later.
The real turnabout in Powell’s film image began in 1944 when he convinced Producer Adrian Scott and Director Edward Dmytryk to cast him as hard boiled private detective Philip Marlow in RKO’s Murder My Sweet, (fka Raymond Chandler’s novel, Farewell, My Lovely). (9) Released in February, 1945, it became a film noir classic and Powell proved his worth as an serious actor. He eagerly starred in the June 11, 1945, Lux Radio Theater adaptation of Murder My Sweet co-starring Claire Trevor and Mike Mazurki from the film.
Dick Powell had another surprise for the radio audience, too. Two weeks later on June 24, 1945, he was introduced as Richard Rogue in the Fitch Bandwagon summer replacement series on NBC, Rogue’s Gallery, (aka Bandwagon Mysteries). The character was written and delivered as Philip Marlow with a sense of humor which listeners liked.
A week after Rogue’s Gallery concluded its summer run on Sunday nights, Fitch took it to Mutual for a season’s run on Thursday nights at 8:30 beginning on September 27th. An episode from this run is posted, October 4, 1945, in which Peter Leeds is heard as a second regular character in the series, Eugor, (Rogue spelled backwards), who chides the private eye midway in each episode An inside joke is contained in the November 8, 1945, episode when Rogue sits at the piano in his girlfriend’s apartment and delivers a plug for June Allison’s latest movie and then sings June Is Bustin’ Out All Over. (10)
Dick Powell’s rejuvenated film career continued midway in the season when the dark RKO melodrama Cornered was released on Christmas Day. Again directed by Edward Dmytrek, the film in which Powell was finally recognized as a fine actor, portraying a former Canadian war pilot searching for his wife’s murderer, was reported to have netted $413,000, and today is considered a classic
Likewise, Rogue’s Gallery was slickly written by Ray Buffum and directed by Dee Englebach. It deserved better than its 4.4 Hooperating that only earned 149th place in the 1945-46 rankings. It didn’t stand a chance in its timeslot on Mutual against Dinah Shore on NBC with a 13.1 rating at 31st place, The FBI Peace & War in 47th place with an 11.3 and even America’s Town Meeting on ABC getting another 5.7 rating for 127th place. The Mutual run ended on June 20, 1946, when Dick Powell moved his Rogue’s Gallery cast and crew back to NBC for another summer of pinch hitting for The Fitch Bandwagon. The first episode from that summer run, June 23, 1946, is posted. (11)
Without the pressure of film or radio commitments demands, Dick Powell took it relatively easy in much of the 1946-47 Network Radio season, concentrating on his investments and making only one picture, the film noir Johnny O’Clock for Columbia which was released in March, 1947. He returned to CBS on May 12, 1947, to star in Lux Radio Theater’s adaptation of the film.
If there was any doubt about Powell’s capacity for work, however, it was dispelled in 1948 when he starred in four films released from four different studios: To The Ends of The Earth from Columbia in February, the melodrama Pitfall from United Artists in August, Universal’s Rogue’s Regiment, (no relation to Rogue’s Gallery) in September and the RKO horse opera Station West in October. Powell also slipped into another summer radio series on May 6, 1948, when he played reporter Hildy Johnson opposite William Conrad’s editor Walter Burns in a 13 week adaptation of The Front Page on ABC. To top off the busy year, Dick & June Powell welcomed a daughter, Pamela, to the family on June 18, 1948.
CBS began negotiations with Powell in the fall to take the lead in a new “private eye type” of series it was developing about a roaming insurance investigator, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. Powell recorded an audition for “The Man With The Action Packed Expense Account” on December 8, 1948, and the role was his for the taking, but another idea appealed to him more - a variation on the Richard Rogue concept by a clever 27 year old writer, Blake Edwards, Richard Diamond, Private Detective. (12)
Richard Diamond was tailored for Dick Powell and became a critical favorite as soon as it was introduced on NBC on April 24, 1949. Unfortunately it was slotted opposite Jack Benny on CBS so few listeners and even fewer advertisers discovered it during the first days of its run. An early episode from the series is posted from May 15, 1949, in which the many sides of Diamond are showcased, including his singing which became a regular feature of every broadcast. It became an inside joke on the show when a heckler, (Jack Kruschen), was heard from a neighboring apartment as in the broadcast posted from September 10, 1949. Writer Edwards, Powell and Kruschen have real fun with the gag on the episode from November 5, 1949. Continual Richard Diamond supporting actors Virginia Gregg as Diamond’s girlfriend Helen Asher and Ed Begley as Police Lieutenant Walt Levinson are along for the fun.
Powell’s only film of 1949, the romantic adventure Mrs. Mike, set in the Canadian wild, was released in December by United Artists. The following year, Dick & June Allyson teamed for light two films at MGM, The Reformer & The Redhead in May and Right Cross in October. But their most memorable production of 1950 was a son, Richard Powell, Junior, born on Christmas Eve.
Richard Diamond’s nomadic run on NBC ended in December, 1950, and Powell found a home and sponsor for his singing detective in ABC’s powerful Friday night lineup for R.J. Reynolds’ Camel cigarettes at 8 p.m. on January 5, 1951. With potent schedule mates Lone Ranger, This Is Your FBI and The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, Dick Powell’s P.I. scored an 8.2 Nielsen rating in his first 26 weeks on the network - good enough for 49th place in the Annual Top 50.
In the subsequent, full 1951-52 season, at the same times on the same stations, Richard Diamond moved into the Annual Top 50 at 40th place with a 6.4 rating. The broadcast of January 25, 1952 is an inside tribute to Powell’s career two decades earlier when he sings With Plenty of Money & You which he introduced in The Gold Diggers of 1937. The last live performance of the series took place on June 27, 1952, while Powell worked on his last major motion picture, MGM’s The Bad & The Beautiful, which went on to win five Academy Awards.
Rexall Drugs brought Richard Diamond back for an encore of transcribed repeats as a 13 week summer replacement for Amos & Andy on CBS in 1953. But that was the last that was heard Richard Diamond - and Dick Powell - in series radio. (13)
Ever the sharp businessman, Powell recruited fellow actors Charles Boyer and David Niven to form Four Star Productions in the early 1950’s and enter the promising field of filmed television program production. (14) The company flourished and all three became familiar television faces and wealthy from the project. Powell, himself, produced and starred in many episodes of the company’s Four Star Playhouse, Zane Grey Theater Dick Powell Theater.
Dick Powell died of cancer on January 3, 1963, beside his wife, June. It’s since been reported that he contracted the fatal disease - along with John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorhead and dozens of others - while he was directing them in the RKO filming of The Conqueror on a location in Utah that was downwind from the atomic testing site in Nevada and subject to nuclear fallout.
He was survived by multitudes of fans who live to this day.
(1) Dick Powell came from a family of achievers. His older brother Howard later became Vice President of the lllinois Central Railroad and his younger brother, Luther, became a Director of International Harvester.
(2) Tony Thomas, author of The Dick Powell Story, also reports that Powell appeared in 18 Warner Brothers musicals with songs provided by the team of composer Harry Warren and lyricist Al Dubin.
(3) Dick Powell appeared in a total of six feature films and three two-reel shorts in 1933 for a Warner Brothers salary that he claimed the studio had cut from $500 to $300 to $200 to $98 a week, using the Depression as its excuse.
(4) The Old Gold Hour left the air after 13 weeks on May 3, 1934, but it was enough to establish Dick Powell as a capable and personable radio personality.
(5) The December 18, 1936, broadcast of Hollywood Hotel on CBS from the Twentieth-Century Fox lot sounds much like the premiere of Good News on NBC from the MGM lot of November 4, 1937. (See Good News on this site.)
(6) The most memorable features Your Hollywood Parade were the regular appearances of Bob Hope for its last ten weeks - his final short series before the launch of The Pepsodent Show in September, 1938.
(7) Model Wife was the couple’s sixth and final film together. They divorced in 1944. Joan Blondell went on to a distinguished career beginning with Cry ‘Havoc’ in 1943 and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn in 1945. She later received two Academy Award nominations and worked in film and television until her death on Christmas Day in 1979 at the age of 73.
(8) Dick Powell was 37, married and the father of seven year old Norman, adopted when he married Joan Blondell, and three year old Ellen, born to the couple in 1938.
(9) RKO bought the rights to Farewell, My Lovely in 1942 for $2,000 and used it as the storyline for The Falcon Takes Over, starring George Sanders as the suave slueth in the inexpensive B movie detective series.
(10) This show-ending vocalizing was a preview of a feature in Powell’s next series, Richard Diamond, Private Detective.
(11) Dick Powell left Rogue’s Gallery on September 22, 1946. The role of Richard Rogue was taken by Barry Sullivan in the summer of 1947, then Chester Morris and Paul Stewart in a subsequent run on ABC.
(12) Blake Edwards went on to create late-1950’s television hits Peter Gunn and Mr. Lucky, then a string of acclaimed films in the 1960’s including Breakfast At Tiffany’s, Experiment In Terror, A Shot In The Dark, The Pink Panther and The Days of Wine & Roses.
(13) Richard Diamond, Private Detective, became a successful television series starring David Janssen in 77 episodes from 1957-60, produced by Dick Powell’s Four Star Productions.
(14) Ida Lupino was billed as the fourth star but she didn’t own any part of the company.
Copyright © 2017, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
| hollywood_hotel__12-18-36_.mp3 |
| lux_radio_theater__5-19-41.mp3 |
| command_performance__5-15-43.mp3 |
| screen_guild_theater__9-25-44.mp3 |
| lux_radio_theatre___6-11-45.mp3 |
| roguesgallery__10-4-45.mp3 |
| roguesgallery__11-08-45.mp3 |
| roguesgallery__6-23-46.mp3 |
| lux_radio_theatre__5-12-47.mp3 |
| johnny_dollar_audition_12-08-48_.mp3 |
| richard_diamond__5-15-49.mp3 |
| richard_diamond__9-10-49.mp3 |
| richard_diamond__11_05_49_.mp3 |
| richard_diamond__1-25-52.mp3 |