IT IS fair to say no-one in Glasgow was more excited about swashbuckling star Tyrone Power’s visit to the city in March 1956 than Evening Times reporter Meg Munro.
And when she got the chance to meet him, clad handsomely in midnight-blue robe in his dressing room backstage at the King’s Theatre, it just about sent her over the edge.
“Johnny Ray has sung to me,” she wrote. “Guy Mitchell has kissed me. Howard Keel has held my hand in his. Bob Hope has taken me in his arms, and the Olivier charm (which so enchanted the OTHER Monroe) has been switched in my direction – and I can proudly record not one single faint or even the tiniest scream.
“But when it comes to Mr Power – Mr Tyrone Power of the black, black hair and blue Irish eyes – oh, my goodness me, I weaken, I wilt, I ALMOST give a real bobbysoxer scream!”
Meg continued: “You can laugh if you like, but when you wait 20 years to meet the man of your dreams, take it from me, it’s a serious moment.”
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Over the shrieks of the genuine bobbysoxers waiting outside the theatre Tyrone told Meg he liked to spend his leisure time flying his own plane “to Mexico or down to South America. I like to get away from people into quiet places. I like to lie on a beach in the sun; I like to go deep-sea fishing, but best of all I like to work ... I become intolerable to myself if I’ve been away from work for more than three weeks”.
Tyrone was starring in The Devil’s Disciple, which continued in Edinburgh. Our photographers captured the star holding on to his hat on a windy day at the castle.
The previous year, minus Meg’s knee-trembling adoration, Tyrone had visited Glasgow on a very different mission.
The actor was in the city to present new equipment to Ruchill Hospital, which specialised in the treatment of infectious diseases. Tyrone was handing over items funded by cash from the Roosevelt Memorial (Polio) Fund, a voluntary Scottish-American organisation which funded the after-care of polio patients.
The money funded an £800 bath for Ruchill Hospital, £90 for a muscle-testing machine at Mearnskirk Hospital and Glasgow school clinics and a £700 blood analysis instrument. It was also used to buy clothes and toys for poorer children affected by the condition.
Tyrone was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and made his name as an actor on Broadway before turning to Hollywood. He became an overnight film star with his performance in Lloyds of London in 1936 and subsequent films included The Mark of Zorro (1940, the year in which he was Hollywood’s top box-office draw) and The Sun Also Rises in 1957.
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After the opening night of the play in Glasgow, our sister newspaper The Herald’s drama critic was impressed by the appearance of “Tyrone Power as “Dick Dudgeon, a Devil’s Disciple of dashing appearance and some panache, though wanting perhaps a little of the zeal which Shaw meant there to be in his preacher-turned-inside-out.”
Sadly, Tyrone died in November 1958, aged just 44, having suffered a heart attack during filming in Spain.
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