William Powell

Known for ActingBorn 1892-07-29Died 1984-03-05Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

William Horatio Powell (July 29, 1892 – March 5, 1984) was an American actor. A major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he was paired with Myrna Loy in 14 films, including the Thin Man series based on the Nick and Nora Charles characters created by Dashiell Hammett. Powell was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times: for The Thin Man (1934), My Man Godfrey (1936), and Life with Father (1947). After high school, he left home for New York and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts at the age of 18. In 1912, Powell graduated from the AADA, and worked in some vaudeville and stock companies. After several successful experiences on the Broadway stage, he began his Hollywood career in 1922, playing a small role as an evil henchman of Professor Moriarty in a production of Sherlock Holmes with John Barrymore. His most memorable role in silent movies was as a bitter film director opposite Emil Jannings' Academy Award-winning performance as a fallen general in The Last Command (1928). This success, along with Powell's pleasant speaking voice, led to his first starring role as amateur detective Philo Vance in the "talkie" The Canary Murder Case (1929). Powell's most famous role was that of Nick Charles in six Thin Man films, beginning with The Thin Man in 1934, based upon Dashiell Hammett's novel. The role provided a perfect opportunity for Powell, with his resonant speaking voice, to showcase his sophisticated charm and witty sense of humor, and he received his first Academy Award nomination for The Thin Man. Myrna Loy played his wife, Nora, in each of the Thin Man films. Their on-screen partnership, beginning alongside Clark Gable in 1934 with Manhattan Melodrama, was one of Hollywood's most prolific, and they appeared in 14 films together. Loy and Powell starred in the Best Picture of 1936, The Great Ziegfeld, with Powell in the title role and Loy as Ziegfeld's wife Billie Burke. That same year, he also received his second Academy Award nomination, for the comedy My Man Godfrey. In 1935, he starred with Jean Harlow in Reckless. A serious romance developed between them, and in 1936, they were reunited on screen and with Loy and Spencer Tracy in the screwball comedy Libeled Lady. However, Harlow surprisingly and quickly became ill, and died from uremia at the age of 26 in June 1937 before they could marry. His distress over her death, as well as a cancer diagnosis of his own, caused him to accept fewer acting roles. Powell's career slowed considerably in the 1940s, although he received his third Academy Award nomination in 1947 for his role as the cantankerous Clarence Day, Sr., in Life with Father. His last film was 1955's Mister Roberts. Powell died in Palm Springs, California, on March 5, 1984, at the age of 91 from heart failure, nearly 30 years after his retirement. He is buried at the Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California, near his third wife Diana Lewis, and his only child, his son William David Powell.Read more

Movies & web series

Discovering Jean Harlow

Time to Love

The Runaway

My Lady's Lips

Two Tragic Blondes - Marilyn Monroe And Jean Harlow

Going Hollywood: The '30s

Myrna Loy: So Nice to Come Home To

The Vanishing Pioneer

Beau Sabreur

New York

Love's Greatest Mistake

The Great Gatsby

Sea Horses

Tin Gods

The Beautiful City

Dangerous Money

The Spencer Tracy Legacy: A Tribute by Katharine Hepburn

William Powell: A True Gentleman

Twenty Years After

Escapade

She's a Sheik

Senorita

Aloma of the South Seas

Desert Gold

It's Showtime

My Man Godfrey

Interference

The Thin Man

Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage

The Big Parade of Comedy

Charming Sinners

That's Entertainment, Part II

One Way Passage

Cinecittà Babilonia: Sex, Drugs and Black Shirts

Libeled Lady

After the Thin Man

Mister Roberts

I Love You Again

The Last Command

The Thin Man Goes Home

Another Thin Man

Shadow of the Thin Man

Manhattan Melodrama

The Romance of Celluloid

James Stewart: A Wonderful Life

How to Marry a Millionaire

Forgotten Faces

Nevada