Godfrey!

Oh shaith! December is Bill Powell month on TCM.

You can probably tell a lot about what old actors people prefer. In fact, I'm sure there is a personality test about it online. Example: I hate Clark Gable. He was an excellent actor, but was only able to play a charming alpha rake. He was a douchebag loser in real life and it shows in every frame - you can't trust him, even when he's the good guy. It's in his face and fake teeth. You just know.

Conversely, there is William Powell, who seems to inspire the truest love in everyone, not excluding me. I am often surprised by how many people know who he is, but people really love The Thin Man.

He is urbane and charming, yet the best at understated wry comedy.

He was briefly married to Carole Lombard, my other favorite. She went on to marry Gable - not advised. I believe I've already covered this twice. Powell & Lombard remained best friends for the rest of her life, and she (charmingly, in her way) would later refer to him as "That son of a bitch," who "Never stopped acting, even in bed."

What, you don't keep a framed publicity shot of Bill Powell on your desk? That's too bad.

Poor Care.

Ugh. I watched a biography of Carole Lombard today, the same one I watched several years ago. I cried then and I cried today! I'll never get over it.

Obviously she's terribly beautiful but I don't really like the photos of CL as seductress. She was such a crazy card that who wants to stare at another aryan siren reclining in silk when you can see photos of her sitting with her ankle on her knee on the set as she asks some visiting nuns if they want her to help them get laid tonight.

I decided to stop wryly blaming Clark Gable for her death. It's an easy joke to make when you consider he was home fucking Lana Turner (ALLEGEDLY! and can you imagine? blah.)[1] while Carole was on tour selling war bonds in the first days of our involvement in WWII. Carole caught wind of that rumor and chartered the doomed flight home immediately, hopefully intending to slap his fake teeth out. He knew this and blamed himself for her death his entire life. His anguish was obvious; he flew to the crash site and had to be physically restrained from joining the search party, hindered as it was by the forest fire the wreck had created, for survivors on the lonely side of the mountain. He only would have found a gruesome nightmare. Months later, he enlisted in Carole's honor and served until 1944. Most people in his inner circle called him a shadow of the person he had been before she died.

[1] what am I, a catty gay entertainment columnist specializing in dead people of the 1930s? goddamn right, except I'm not gay (biggest regret) and not a columnist (2nd biggest regret).