Movies List
TV Show List
Alias Nick and Nora

as Nick

2005
Harlow: The Blonde Bombshell

as Himself (archive footage)

1993
The Big Parade of Comedy

as Nick Charles (archive footage)

1964
Mister Roberts

as Doc

1955
How to Marry a Millionaire

as J.D. Hanley

1953
The Girl Who Had Everything

as Steve Latimer

1953
The Treasure of Lost Canyon

as Homer 'Doc' Brown

1952
Take One False Step

as Andrew Gentling

1949
Dancing in the Dark

as Emery Slade

1949
Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid

as Mr. Peabody

1948
Song of the Thin Man

as Nick Charles

1947
Life with Father

as Clarence Day Sr.

1947
The Hoodlum Saint

as Terence Ellerton 'Terry' O'Neill

1946
The Thin Man Goes Home

as Nick Charles

1944
The Heavenly Body

as William S. Whitley

1944
Crossroads

as David Talbot aka Jean Pelletier

1942
Shadow of the Thin Man

as Nick Charles

1941
Love Crazy

as Steve Ireland

1941
I Love You Again

as Larry Wilson aka George Carey

1940
The Baroness and the Butler

as Johann Porok

1938
Double Wedding

as Charles Lodge

1937
The Emperor's Candlesticks

as Baron Stephan Wolensky

1937
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney

as Charles

1937
My Man Godfrey

as Godfrey

1936
After the Thin Man

as Nick Charles

1936
Libeled Lady

as William 'Bill' Stephens Chandler

1936
The Great Ziegfeld

as Florenz 'Flo' Ziegfeld Jr.

1936
The Ex-Mrs. Bradford

as Dr. Lawrence 'Brad' Bradford

1936
Reckless

as Ned Riley

1935
William Powell William Powell

Birthday

1892-07-28

Place of Birth

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Biography

William Horatio Powell (July 29, 1892 – March 5, 1984) was an American actor. A major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he was paired with Myrna Loy in 14 films, including the Thin Man series based on the Nick and Nora Charles characters created by Dashiell Hammett. Powell was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times: for The Thin Man (1934), My Man Godfrey (1936), and Life with Father (1947). 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 worked in some vaudeville and stock companies. After several successful experiences on the Broadway stage, he began his Hollywood career in 1922, playing a small role as an evil henchman of Professor Moriarty in a production of Sherlock Holmes with John Barrymore. His most memorable role in silent movies was as a bitter film director opposite Emil Jannings' Academy Award-winning performance as a fallen general in The Last Command (1928). This success, along with Powell's pleasant speaking voice, led to his first starring role as amateur detective Philo Vance in the "talkie" The Canary Murder Case (1929). Powell's most famous role was that of Nick Charles in six Thin Man films, beginning with The Thin Man in 1934, based upon Dashiell Hammett's novel. The role provided a perfect opportunity for Powell, with his resonant speaking voice, to showcase his sophisticated charm and witty sense of humor, and he received his first Academy Award nomination for The Thin Man. Myrna Loy played his wife, Nora, in each of the Thin Man films. Their on-screen partnership, beginning alongside Clark Gable in 1934 with Manhattan Melodrama, was one of Hollywood's most prolific, and they appeared in 14 films together. Loy and Powell starred in the Best Picture of 1936, The Great Ziegfeld, with Powell in the title role and Loy as Ziegfeld's wife Billie Burke. That same year, he also received his second Academy Award nomination, for the comedy My Man Godfrey. In 1935, he starred with Jean Harlow in Reckless. A serious romance developed between them, and in 1936, they were reunited on screen and with Loy and Spencer Tracy in the screwball comedy Libeled Lady. However, Harlow surprisingly and quickly became ill, and died from uremia at the age of 26 in June 1937 before they could marry. His distress over her death, as well as a cancer diagnosis of his own, caused him to accept fewer acting roles. Powell's career slowed considerably in the 1940s, although he received his third Academy Award nomination in 1947 for his role as the cantankerous Clarence Day, Sr., in Life with Father. His last film was 1955's Mister Roberts. Powell died in Palm Springs, California, on March 5, 1984, at the age of 91 from heart failure, nearly 30 years after his retirement. He is buried at the Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California, near his third wife Diana Lewis, and his only child, his son William David Powell.
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