Gentleman: The William Powell Story

Rating:
Summary: Intimate but incomplete
Review: Written by actor Charles Francisco and published in 1985, a year after the death of it's subject, Gentleman is the only ever biography published about one of Hollywood's greatest stars of the golden era, the man who first set the standards for light comedy acting in motion pictures - William Powell. Francisco's main sources were Powell's own writings (most of Powell's contemporaries had already passed on) which undoubtedly make the main bulk of this book very satisfying to read. The author gives very good accounts of Powell's days studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Art and even better accounts of his meetings with the women in his life - sometimes going into intimate details about his marriages to Carole Lombard and Diana Lewis and his relationship with Jean Harlow (she died before Powell ever proposed marriage) as well as a sometimes harrowing account of Jean Harlow's final illness and Bill's own battle with cancer in the late thirties. The author also gives us a good account of Powell's career - from his stagework in the 1910s (though the First World War goes unmentioned) to his debut in films in the early 20s (often playing suave villainous types) to his eventual arrival at stardom in the 30s as well as his working relationship with Myrna Loy, how his parents helped in his career (his father became his manager). The best accounts of his career are his years of stardom at MGM which saw a peak in 1936 with films like My Man Godfrey, The Great Ziegfeld and Libeled Lady. The problem I have with the book is that so much of his life is missing - we are give a very fleeting look at Powell's childhood and the last years of his life are similarly rushed (Powell retired in the mid 50s and it is only a few pages from there until his death - what Powell did in the 1970s isn't mentioned at all) and there are few recollections from other people (Myrna Loy appears to have been interviewed though). Apart from that this is a good biography (which every Powell fan should read) and the author is in no way derogatory about his subject. Francisco sums up Powell and his screen image perfectly in the epilogue.