The Secret Life of Tyrone Power

Description

KIRKUS REVIEW *The Secret Life of Tyrone Power* is the inner anguish he never revealed to anyone--but Arce has figured it all out. Professional frustration isn't hard to infer from the facts: Tyrone Power, Sr., had been an Actor--but Ty at his peak was just good box-office, a victim of the heavy Zanuck hand that pushed him to stardom. Arce, unreeling his every formula film (modern romance or costume epic, Total Remake or Partial), develops a clear enough picture of the studio contract system--claustrophobic and so capricious that a player could be dropped for the smallest indiscretion. Power took his chances, however, and his ""omnisexuality"" is the featured motif here, but Arce can't quite make up his mind as to whether or not it was a problem to Power; he's sure, though, that it was a source of tremendous guilt. So he waffles about the homosexuality that persisted through three marriages: the domineering-mother syndrome conspired with Ty's beauty to make him effeminate; he had no resource but his body when he hit Hollywood, broke--but he was neither a prostitute nor an opportunist, Arce emphasizes, because all he ever asked was a hot meal. He lusted after women, too, among them Anita Ekberg and Lana Turner, and his wives couldn't hold him--Annabella, a motherfigure for Arce, started aging visibly; Linda Christian spent all his money and produced only daughters; and Debbie Minardos gave him a son he didn't live to know. Everyone loved Tyrone Power except Tyrone Power, according to Arce, who gets everyone in. Sincere and protective but abysmally written, with the same few merits and most of the flaws of his recent Groucho.

Description

"The drama of a bisexual in the spotlight"--Jacket subtitle. "Tyrone Power died of a heart attack in 1958 at the age of forty-four while shooting a scene on the set of Solomon and Sheba with Gina Lollobrigida in Spain. His father had died the same way--but Ty Power ignored warnings. Later, Dr. Michael DeBakey, the Houston heart surgeon, told Ty's friend Mrs. Edie Goetz that open-heart surgery could have cured him completely. But did Ty Power really want to live any longer? It is a question that goes to the core of his secret life, which is explored here for the first time by the author of the highly acclaimed authorized biography of Groucho. On the surface Tyrone Power was one of the leading masculine sex symbols of the movies, and in his personal life he was known as a gentleman and host of great charm and warmth, a husband, father, and solid citizen in the highly conservative, affluent world of Beverly Hills. But in reality, the star was profoundly unhappy with both his work and his life. He felt his good looks prevented him from getting the serious parts that would stretch his talent and bring credit to the theatrical dynasty whose name he bore. His passional life brought no more fulfillment. He could not express love in his sexual liaisons with the men he was drawn to, nor could he make relationships last with the ambitious women who came to him for reasons other than love. Sexually with a foot in both worlds, he was at home in neither. This book is a revelation of the fate of a bisexual living part of his life covertly and part of it in the glaring Hollywood limelight. Here are his complicated romances with Lana Turner, Judy Garland, and Linda Christian, as well as clandestine affairs with members of the same sex."--Dust jacket.

Subjects

Other Editions

• The Secret Life of Tyrone Power: The Drama of a Bisexual in the SpotlightMorrow1979-01-01
• The Secret Life Of Tyrone PowerWILLIAM MORROW AND COOMPANY, INC.1979-01-01
• The secret life of Tyrone PowerBantam Books1980-01-01