Television: J. Pierpont Powell

Every town in the U.S. is famous for something—just go there and ask. Mountain View, Ark. (pop. 983), makes its proudest claim as the birthplace of three businesslike brothers who have long since fled Mountain View. Luther and Howard Powell are minor captains of industry, having hewed their way directly to vice-presidencies of International Harvester and the Illinois Central Railroad. Richard took a more circuitous route, first becoming a song-and-dance man, then a movie idol, next a bullet-voiced private eye, before settling down as one of the major—and sharpest—businessmen in U.S. television.

Few who remember the frail, baby-faced crooner who used to prance through swarms of spangled chorines in pursuit of Ruby Keeler would have spotted Dick Powell as executive timber. But some 25 years later, as the grey-templed president of Four Star Television, Dick Powell has made himself a millionaire many times over. The current Dick Powell Show (NBC), a loosely strung “anthology series” with room for a wide variety of stars (sometimes including Powell himself) and material, has won steadily good reviews and the sort of ratings that turn admen respectful. Producer Powell has scored triumphs of surprise casting: Mickey Rooney in a superb portrayal of a lonely seaman in Somebody’s Waiting, Milton Berle as a blackjack dealer in Doyle Against the House, Jack Carson as a beatnik in Who Killed Julie Greer? Under the subtle direction of Ralph Nelson, Four Star’s Three Soldiers (about mercenaries) was one of the outstanding dramatic productions of the autumn, recalling the somewhat golden days of TV’s great dramatic shows.

Inverse Ratio. Formed ten years ago, Four Star is actually run by three stars (Powell, David Niven and Charles Boyer) and ex-Adman Tom McDermott. “We are one of the three largest producers of network television programming in the industry,” says Powell. “I won’t be satisfied until we’re the biggest—and we will be.” Starting out with the old Four Star Playhouse and later booming with the five-year run of Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theater, the company has been all over TV, with as many as 13 series running at one time.

Powell works so hard at the business that his success as a moneymaker has had an unhappy and inverse ratio to his success as a husband. His second wife, Joan Blondell, complained in divorcing him that he always had two big-deal telephones going at once. June Allyson, his third, filed for divorce earlier this year (after 16 years of marriage) with the complaint that she had become an office widow. When the Powells went cruising to Santa Catalina Island on their 56-ft. motor sailer, Dick would answer the week’s mail by Dictaphone on the way out and do little but read scripts on the way back. Betweentimes, he was busy with a variety of sidelines that included directing motion pictures (his best so far is 20th Century-Fox’s The Enemy Below) and campaigning for Richard Nixon. Actress Allyson reconsidered, however, before the divorce became final and Powell has resumed residence in their Beverly Hills home.

At 57, Dick Powell is about ready to retire as an actor altogether to devote himself to being a TV executive. Says he: “It’s the vanity of the old ham. I look at myself in a TV Guide picture and say, ‘Oh, those hog jowls.’ I’m tired of trying to hold my stomach in.”

With the money he is making, he does not need to.