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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.

The Love Story of Jean Harlow and William Powell
as Self (archive footage)

Cinecittà Babilonia: Sex, Drugs and Black Shirts
as Self - Actor (archive footage)

Discovering Jean Harlow
as archive footage

William Powell: A True Gentleman

Jean Harlow: Platinum Bombshell
as Self (archive footage)

Myrna Loy: So Nice to Come Home To
as (archive footage)

Two Tragic Blondes - Marilyn Monroe And Jean Harlow

James Stewart: A Wonderful Life
as Self (archive footage)

The Spencer Tracy Legacy: A Tribute by Katharine Hepburn
as Self (archive footage)

Going Hollywood: The '30s
as (archive footage)

Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

That's Entertainment, Part II
as (archive footage)

It's Showtime
as Self (archive footage)

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
as Self (archive footage)

The Big Parade of Comedy
as Nick Charles (archive footage)

Mister Roberts
as Doc

How to Marry a Millionaire
as J.D. Hanley

The Girl Who Had Everything
as Steve Latimer

The Treasure of Lost Canyon
as Homer 'Doc' Brown

It's a Big Country
as Professor

Dancing in the Dark
as Emery Slade

Take One False Step
as Andrew Gentling

Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid
as Arthur Peabody

The Senator Was Indiscreet
as Senator Melvin G. Ashton

Life with Father
as Clarence Day Sr.

Song of the Thin Man
as Nick Charles

The Hoodlum Saint
as Terence Ellerton 'Terry' O'Neill

Ziegfeld Follies
as Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.

The Great Morgan
as William Powell (voice) (uncredited)

The Thin Man Goes Home
as Nick Charles

The Heavenly Body
as William S. Whitley

Twenty Years After
as (archive footage)

The Youngest Profession
as William Powell

Crossroads
as David Talbot aka Jean Pelletier

Shadow of the Thin Man
as Nick Charles

Love Crazy
as Steve Ireland

A New Romance of Celluloid: The Miracle of Sound
as Self

I Love You Again
as Larry Wilson aka George Carey

Hollywood: Style Center of the World
as Self

Another Thin Man
as Nick Charles

From the Ends of the Earth
as Self

The Baroness and the Butler
as Johann Porok

Double Wedding
as Charles Lodge

The Romance of Celluloid
as Self (archive footage)

The Emperor's Candlesticks
as Baron Stephan Wolensky

The Last of Mrs. Cheyney
as Charles

After the Thin Man
as Nick Charles

Libeled Lady
as William 'Bill' Stephens Chandler

My Man Godfrey
as Godfrey

The Ex-Mrs. Bradford
as Dr. Lawrence 'Brad' Bradford

The Great Ziegfeld
as Florenz 'Flo' Ziegfeld Jr.

La Fiesta de Santa Barbara
as Self

Rendezvous
as Lt. William 'Bill' Gordon / Anson Meridan

Escapade
as Fritz

Reckless
as Ned Riley

Star of Midnight
as Clay Dalzell

Evelyn Prentice
as John Prentice

The Key
as Capt. Bill Tennant

The Thin Man
as Nick Charles

Manhattan Melodrama
as Jim Wade