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Tyrone Power's secret life

The Secret Life of Tyrone Power. By Hector Arce. William Morrow & Co. 317 pages. $9.96

By George Brown

He was one of the most handsome actors ever to appear on the screen. When he was in his twenties, he epitomized male innocence and male glamour. In his thirties and forties his handsomeness became more rugged, with the innocence giving way to seasoned male virtue and the glamour to a delicate virility--the latter in him not being a contradiction of terms. Seemingly a simple person, both on screen and off, he nevertheless was a complex and unhappy person whom few understood. In "The Secret Life of Tyrone Power" movie biographer Hector Arce attempts to define the enigma that was Tyrone Power.

Born in 1914 in Cincinnati into a theatrical family, with his acclaimed father. Tyrone Power, Sr., being at least a thirdgeneration actor, Tyrone, Jr., sought to live up to the thespic achievement of his family. His parents were separated early, and Tyrone and his sister were brought up by their mother, who also was allied with acting.

After Power's graduation from high school he made his true acting debut with his father in a Shakespeare festival in Chicago,and then after an unsuccessful stab at Hollywood he played bit parts with Katharine Cornell's troupe. This led back to Hollywood, with stardom soon coming at 20th Century Fox in "Lloyds of London" in 1936-37. The starring films now poured forth, ending with "Witness for the Prosecution" with Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton. He was. filming "Solomon and Sheba" with Gina Lollobrigida in Spain in

1958 when he died of a heart attack at the age of forty-four.

At the time of his death he still was handsome, but he looked a decade older. What had aged him beyond his years; inner turmoil, hard drinking (and just how

much he drank is debatable), and fast living? Were these the elements which also caused his premature death, plus his ignoring of the family medical history (his father had died of a heart attack and Power himself had suffered from rheumatic fever as a child), and failure to do anything about recent warning symptoms? He left behind a pregnant wife, Deborah Montgomery Minardos:

Dean & Chet

Bobble

two ex-wives, French actress Annabella and Dutch-Mexican actress Linda Christian; two daughters; an invalid mother

who never was to know that he

died; and a sister. Also, for most of those who had known him, Tyrone Power, at once friend and stranger, left behind an unsolved puzzle: his life.

Power was attracted to both men and women, seeming unable to function without either. It appears that his first homosexual experience occurred before he graduated from high school. As a hopeful in Hollywood he was part of a homosexual subculture. Then on his way to New York he made an extended stopover in Chicago, where he found radio and stage work, and there he met handsome Robin Tho-

mas, half-brother of Diana Barrymore. and with him found romance which continued in New York.

Apparently this was the only male romance in Power's life, although to the end he sought sexual expression with males. But he seemed incapable, or unwilling, to make an emotional commitment with a man. He could make a commitment, at least for a while, with a woman; yet she was unable to keep him home in bed. He had romances with women which flared and then burned out: with Sonja Henie, Judy Garland, Lana Turner, and Mai Zetterling. Arce doesn't mention many of the male lovers by name, although he refers to them, even quotes them. He does state that there were rumors that Power and Errol Flynn had an affair--that Flynn had occasional sex with men (Errol Flynn!) The perpetual girl chaser! That's what Arce quotes the rumors as saying. But why should this be surprising? Anyone with much knowledge of

Murder at West Point

Dress Grey. By Lucian Truscott 11. Scubleday. 489 uges

By Joseph F. Gerlock The time is 1968. The place West Point. Ry Slaight, a "cow"-third-year cadet -is told that a plebe was found floating naked in a nearby lake. David Hand has been dead for a couple of days, apparently accidental drowning. Odd, because he was such a good swimmer. Slaight respected but didn't like Hand, and through some tough probing discovers the kid was murdered.

This is the bare outline, and if the reader is looking for a typical mystery, he'd better forget this one. By page 27, the evidence is in, the culprit almost fingered. But the officials do nothing. Why? Even that is spelled out by the end of Chapter 3.

"So why bother with the book at all?" you ask. Well, the plebe. Hand, was gay. which should have some interest although not of a titillating nature. One would expect--at least I did--that the kid's homosexuality would be a

sexual psychology knows the usual explantion of a Don Juan.)

If we are to understand Power we must view him within the framework of his time. He was thirty-four years old when Kinsey published "Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male," a work which over three decades later many people still have not assimilated, alas; and he died almost ten years before Stonewall.

Although the secret life that Power led while socially moving in a conservative Hollywood group placed a heavy burden on him, to his friends, acquaintances, and co-workers he was the charming gentleman. This charm seems to have been a virtue, devoid of wile and containing honest consideration for others. He actually possessed, according to those who knew him, the same innate decency which he (Conta on page 20)

Gays as plebes

and this is one of the book's ment. By setting the story in strengths.

Another strength is Truscott's description of life at the Academy. As a third-generation West Pointer, he certainly should know it, and to his credit he makes the reader live through it. Beast Barracks, the first two months of a cadet's life intended to break and then remake him into "a man". is particularly effective with little details!

Hand wheeled to find the cadet's face only an inch from his. He tried to focus Beads of sweat flooded his eyes. Under the shade of the cadet's visor, he could see a face. The cadet's eyes were, red, bloodshot. Hand flinched. glancing doown to avoid the cadet's eyes. For the first time, he noticed the cadet was shorter than he, and had been standing on his tiptoes in order to his face close to level with Hand's

Slaight is the cadet in question. Using tactics the effectiveness of which is best left to be discovered by the reader, he breaks Hand Ultimately, this is best left to be discovered by the reader.

metaphor for corruption and that he breaks Hand. Ultimately, this act will lead to the plebe's the subsequent coverup an murder. indictment of the whole West Point system. It isn't that simple.

Greg

Truscott, I feel, has a way to go as anovelist--this is his first .. especially in character develop-

1968, he conveniently sidsteps sympathetic portrayal of gays. The one he does show us (Hand's friend in New Orleans) honestly states, "I'm not in the closet, I'm in the fucking attic." But his does not absolve Truscott from presenting him as sstereotypically fey: the only thing missing from the descripton is ruby slippers.

But it does, in some way. serve a purpose for if we are disturbed by this description of a "fag" so is Slaight David Hand was gay, yet Slaight realizes that the plebe knew more about West Point, the system, and control than he ever did How?

Now we move to what the noval is really about it is not a mystery of murder but of self. That Ry Slaight find the murderer is less important than he find the wellsprings of his being. "I couldn't tell you how much of myself I'd seen in Hand. I didn't want you guys knowing I was comparing myself to a fag." No. Slaight is not gay That would be. no matter how comforting. a cheap way out. The import of the book is not a propagandistic "Gay is good," but Gay is part of

us all." West Point--and here is the indictment, if you will of the system is too rational and doesn't take into account the comoplexities of emotion that are within us all. There is only one way to deal with a situation: "He murdered. It was the West Point way. Hand the enemy. Trouble was. the was a fag, too. He was killing the part of himself he hated the fag got in him West Point does not allow the possibility that the enemy is you."

Ultimately this book, with all its attendant flaws. is worthwhile reading. It allows us a glimpse into outside the Church -one of the last bastions of a tradition. And its observation of the workings between men in power is keen. Truscott's handling of homosexuality is not sensational, and by putting it in the wider context off humanity, he provides a better perspective than other books on gayness..