It's been 61 years since Coleen Gray starred opposite Tyrone Power in the celebrated film noir "Nightmare Alley," but her memories of the legendary actor are as clear as if they had worked together yesterday.
"He had an aura about him," recalled Gray, especially in the scenes in which she played his assistant in a phony mentalist nightclub act.
"He was wearing a tuxedo, and when he was walking across the stage, I swear his feet didn't touch the floor," she said in a recent interview. "I swear around him was a cocoon of light. There was an envelope, you could almost say of glory, that contributed to his nobility. He was gentle. He was kind."
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday, November 15, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 28 words Type of Material: Correction
Tyrone Power: An article in Friday's Calendar section about Tyrone Power referred to one of his films as "The Black Pirate." The correct title is "The Black Swan."
From 1936 through 1958, the incredibly handsome Power was one of Hollywood's favorite leading men. Romance novelist Barbara Cartland once said, "We didn't need sex. We had Tyrone Power."
He excelled in everything, including romantic dramas ("The Razor's Edge"), swashbucklers ("The Mark of Zorro," "The Black Pirate") and comedy ("Love Is News"). Every once in a while, Power got a chance to play against type, as in "Nightmare Alley," in which he costarred as an ambitiously ruthless carnival worker, or in Billy Wilder's 1957 mystery thriller "Witness for the Prosecution," which cast him as a charming murderer.
This weekend, the American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theatre is paying tribute to the actor with a three-day retrospective, "Tyrone Power: Everybody's Darling Boy."
Screening tonight is "Nightmare Alley," arguably Power's best film; on tap for Saturday evening -- the 50th anniversary of his untimely death at the age of 44 -- is the Oscar-winning 1946 romantic epic, "The Razor's Edge." Rounding out the festival Sunday evening is a double bill of the 1937 screwball romantic comedy "Love Is News" and the dazzling 1940 adventure "The Mark of Zorro."
Power's children Tyrone Jr., Romina and Taryn and several actors who worked with him, including Gray, Piper Laurie, Terry Moore and Jayne Meadows, are scheduled to talk about Power at the "Razor's Edge" screening.
"They picked a very good random sampling of his movies," said his son, who was born two months after Power's death of a heart attack in Spain while shooting "Solomon and Sheba." "He did a lot of various things, mostly the heroic leading guy, but in different costumes and different guises. Those were the days when the hero was really just a hero. There wasn't a lot of introspection. The good guy was going to win and get the girls."
