Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, William Powell was an only child and showed an early aptitude for performing. 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 then he worked in some vaudeville and stock companies. After a successful experience as a brilliant actor on the Broadway stage, in 1922 he began a Hollywood career. His first starring role was as Philo Vance in The Canary Murder Case (1929).

He followed this up with the Vance role in The Kennel Murder Case (1933). In the same year, he was divorced from his second wife, the actress Carole Lombard, who later went on to marry Clark Gable, but with whom he remained on excellent terms, even co-starring with her in a movie several years after their divorce.

Powell's most famous role was that of Nick Charles in six Thin Man films, beginning with The Thin Man in 1934, considered by many the best of the bunch, in which he proved his sophisticated charm and his witty sense of humour.

The delightful Myrna Loy played his wife Nora Charles in each of the Thin Man films, and his partnership with Loy would become the screen's most prolific ever, with the couple appearing in 14 films together.

He received an Academy Award Nomination for The Thin Man, and starred in the Best Picture of 1936, The Great Ziegfeld, in 1936, in which Ziegfeld's character was somewhat sanitized, and which also starred Loy as Billie Burke, Ziegfeld's wife.

Powell could play any role with authority whether it was comedy, thriller or drama. He would receive his second Academy Award Nomination for the magnificent comedy My Man Godfrey (1936), with Carole Lombard. He was on top of the world until 1937.

In 1935 he starred with Jean Harlow in Reckless, and they become very close friends. Soon Powell's friendship with Harlow developed into a serious romance. Sadly she died before they could marry, apparently of uremic poisoning.

His distress over Harlow's death and a battle with cancer, which he ultimately beat, resulted in his accepting fewer roles.

On January 6, 1940, he married the beautiful actress, Diana Lewis, whom he called "Mousie". Although the couple had only met for the first time three weeks before their marriage, they remained married until Powell's death in 1984.

His career slowed considerably in the late 1940s, although in 1947 he received his third Academy Award nomination for his work in Life with Father. His last film was Mister Roberts in 1955, with Henry Fonda, James Cagney, and Jack Lemmon.

Despite numerous entreaties to return to the screen, Powell refused all offers, happy in his retirement.

He also had one son by his first wife Eileen Wilson named William David Powell. He and Wilson were married from 1915-1930. They remained friends until her death in the 1940s.

William David Powell, Powell's son, would go on to be a television writer and producer. He committed suicide in 1968.

Powell died of natural causes (cardiac arrest) in Palm Springs, California at the age of 91, some thirty years after his retirement, survived by his wife, Diana Lewis, who herself died in 1997.

Myrna Loy (August 2, 1905 - December 14, 1993) was an American motion picture actress. Perhaps her most famous role was as Nora Charles, wife of detective Nick Charles (William Powell), in The Thin Man series of madcap detective films. Loy was often typecast as a pert, perfect wife, and was known for her charm, grace and elegance.

Early life

Born Myrna Adele Williams in Radersburg (near Helena, Montana), the daughter of a rancher, David Franklin Williams, whose roots were in Glamorgan, Wales, and his wife, Adella. Loy's first name came from a train station whose name her father admired.

Myrna Williams made her stage debut at age 12 in Helena's Marlow Theater in a dance she choreographed based on "The Blue Bird" from the Rose Dream Operetta. She moved to Los Angeles, California when she was 12, after her father's death, and attended the Westlake School for Girls. At the age of 15 she began appearing in local stage productions. She went to Venice High School, in Venice, California, and in 1921, when she was 16, she posed for Harry Winebrenner's semi-nude statue, titled Spiritual, which remained in front of Venice High School throughout the 20th Century and can be seen in the opening scenes of the film Grease (1978). The Spiritual statue was vandalized in recent years, and a restoration is planned.

Career rise

Natacha Rambova, the second wife of Rudolph Valentino, arranged a screen test for her which she failed, but she persevered, and in 1925 appeared in the Rambova penned movie What Price Beauty? opposite Rambova and Nita Naldi. Her silent film roles were mainly those of vampish exotic women and for a few years she struggled to overcome this stereotype with many producers and directors believing that while she was perfect as these femme fatales, she was capable of little more. During her nine-year struggle to establish herself, she appeared in nearly 80 films.

Her breakthrough occurred in 1934 with two very successful films. The first was Manhattan Melodrama with Clark Gable and William Powell. Her performance in The Thin Man later the same year as William Powell's sophisticated, witty wife Nora Charles made her a star. She and Powell proved to be a popular couple and appeared in 14 films together, the most prolific onscreen pairing in Hollywood history.

In 1936, she was voted "Queen of Hollywood" (in a contest which also voted Clark Gable "King") and was considered to epitomise the height of glamour and sophistication. During this period she was one of Hollywood's busiest and highest paid actresses.

World War II

With the outbreak of World War II she all but abandoned her acting career to focus on the war effort and worked closely with the Red Cross. She was fiercely outspoken against Adolf Hitler and her name appeared on his "blacklist". She helped run a Naval Auxiliary Canteen and toured frequently to raise funds.

Later career

She returned to films with The Best Years Of Our Lives in 1946 and played the wife of returning serviceman Fredric March. In later years Loy would recall this film as her proudest acting achievement. It also allowed Loy to make a film that demonstrated her social conscience. During her career she had championed the rights of black actors and characters to be depicted with dignity on film.

In later life she assumed a more influential role as Co-Chairman of the Advisory Council of the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing. From 1949 until 1954 she also worked for UNESCO; she also was an active member of the Democratic Party. Her film career continued sporadically (in 1960 she appeared in Midnight Lace and From the Terrace, and was not in another until 1969 in The April Fools) and she also returned to the stage making her Broadway debut in a short-lived 1973 revival of Clare Booth Luce's The Women. Her autobiography Myrna Loy: Being and Becoming was published in 1987.

In 1965 she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre. She also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center in 1988.

Although Loy was never nominated for an Academy Award for any single performance, she received an Academy Honorary Award in 1991, after an intensive lobbying effort and letter-writing campaign spearheaded by screenwriter Michael Russnow of West Hollywood. Loy won the award "for her career achievement", and she accepted via camera from her New York home, though she sounded somewhat "slurry" by those who recall the broadcast. This was possibly due to medications that Loy was supposedly taking at the time. Upon her acceptance, Loy thanked "everyone" sincerely and graciously with exactly a nine-word speech, saying: "You've made me very happy. Thank you very much." It would be her last public appearance in any medium.

After apparently successfully battling breast cancer and enduring two mastectomies, Loy eventually died during surgery, the exact nature of which was never specified in the reports of her death (although IMDB lists it as cancer surgery) in New York City at the age of 88.

Her remains were cremated and the ashes interred at Forestvale Cemetery, in the capital city of Helena, which is near her birthplace of Radersburg, in her beloved home state, and far from the pains of Los Angeles and NYC.

On August 2, 2005, the centenary of Loy's birth, Warner Home Video released the six films from The Thin Man series, on DVD as a boxed set.

Personal life

Loy was married four times:

    * Arthur Hornblow, Jr. (1936-1942), producer
    * John Hertz Jr. of the rent-a-car family (1942-1944)
    * Gene Markey (1946-1950), producer
    * Howland H. Sergeant (1951-1960), UNESCO delegate

Loy had no children of her own, though it is documented that she was very close to the children of her first husband, Arthur Hornblow. "Some perfect wife I am", she said, referring to her typecasting. "I've been married four times, divorced four times, have no children, and can't boil an egg".

She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6685 Hollywood Blvd.