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| William
Powell
1892 - 1984 |
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. The actor William Powell is well-known today because of his wonderful role as Nick Charles at Myrna Loy's side. The movies about "The Thin Man" where shot in the 30's and 40's and constituted the height of the screwball comedies. William Powell began as a theater actor in New York where he appeared since 1912. In 1922 he made her film debut in "When Knighthood Was in Flower" (22), it followed the movie "Sherlock Holmes" (22) in which he impersonated the villain Moriarty. He was signed on by Paramount in 1924 and William Powell played many movies for this company in the next seven years, among them "Romola" (24), "Too Many Kisses" (25), "White Mice" (36), "Beau Geste" (26), "The Great Gatsby" (26), "Time to Love" (27), "New York" (27), "Interference" (28), "The Last Command" (28) and "The Dragnet" (28). In 1929 he impersonated the figure of Philo Vance for the first time in the movie "The Canary Muder Case", it followed three more movies with this figure. The career of William Powell profited from the sound film era. At the beginning he still worked for Paramount, but then he changed to Warner Brothers and played in "High Pressure" (32), "Jewel Robbery" (32) and "One Way Passage" (32). After that he changed to MGM where he had his great breakthrough. He got the actress Myrna Loy as his partner in the movie "Manhattan Melodrama" (34) and they harmonized so well that the pair was also engaged for the movie "The Thin Man" (34). The film was a box-office hit and William Powell became world-famous as Nick Charles. He was also nominated for an Oscar. William Powell impersonated this figure in five more movies. The 30's marked the height in his career and he played the leading roles in well-known movies like "Reckless" (35), "The Great Ziegfeld" (36), "My Man Godfrey" (36) - for which he was also nominated for an Oscar - "After the Thin Man" (36), "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney" (37) and "The Baroness and the Butler" (38). In the 40's followed other very successful movies like "Crossroads" (42), "Ziegfeld Follies" (46), "Life with Father" (47) - for which he was nominated for an Oscar for the third time - and "Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid" (48). From the 50's he only took part in few more movies, so in "It's a Big Country" (51), "How to Marry a Millionaire" (53) and "Mister Roberts" (55), after that he retired from the film business. William Powell was married with the actresses Eileen Wilson, Carole
Lombard and Diana Lewis.
Other movies with William Powell:
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