Theatre Register

Tom Powers

Shows · Tom Powers

Actor 1890–1955 On stage 19161944

Thomas McCreery Powers (July 7, 1890 – November 9, 1955) was an American actor in theatre, films, radio and television. A veteran of the Broadway stage, notably in plays by George Bernard Shaw, he created the role of Charles Marsden in Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude. He succeeded Orson Welles in the role of Brutus in the Mercury Theatre's debut production, Caesar. In films, he was a star of Vitagraph Pictures and later became best known for his role as the victim of scheming wife Barbara Stanwyck and crooked insurance salesman Fred MacMurray in the film noir classic Double Indemnity (1944).

On stage 32 productions, 28 years

1916 Mile-a-minute Kendall Lyceum Theatre · Original 47 perf.
1916 Mr. Lazarus Shubert Theatre · Original 39 perf.
1917 Oh, Boy! Princess Theatre · Original · directed by Edward Royce, Robert Milton 463 perf.
1920 Bab Park Theatre · Original · directed by Ignacio Martinetti 88 perf.
1921 Love Dreams Times Square Theatre · Original · directed by John McKee 40 perf.
1922 Hospitality 48th Street Theatre · Original · directed by Augustin Duncan 46 perf.
1922 The First Fifty Years Princess Theatre · Original 48 perf.
1922 The S. S. Tenacity Belmont Theatre · Original 67 perf.
1922 Why Not? 48th Street Theatre · Original · directed by Mrs. Shelley Hull 120 perf.
1923 Tarnish Belmont Theatre · Original 248 perf.
1924 Great Music Earl Carroll Theatre · Original 44 perf.
1925 Androcles and the Lion Klaw Theatre · Revival · directed by Philip Moeller 68 perf.
1925 Arms and the Man Guild Theatre · Revival · directed by Philip Moeller 180 perf.
1925 The Wild Duck 48th Street Theatre · Revival · directed by Dudley Digges 103 perf.
1926 Love in a Mist Gaiety Theatre · Original 118 perf.
1926 White Wings Booth Theatre · Original 27 perf.
1927 House of Shadows Longacre Theatre · Original 29 perf.
1928 Strange Interlude John Golden Theatre · Original · directed by Philip Moeller 426 perf.
1930 Milestones Empire Theatre · Revival · directed by Henry Stillman 8 perf.
1930 The Apple Cart Martin Beck Theatre · Original · directed by Philip Moeller 88 perf.
1931 He Guild Theatre · Original 40 perf.
1934 Mackerel Skies Playhouse Theatre · Original · directed by John Roche 23 perf.
1934 Sailors of Cattaro Civic Repertory Theatre · Original · directed by Irving Gordon 96 perf.
1934 The Pure in Heart Longacre Theatre · Original · directed by Edward Massey 7 perf.
1935 If This Be Treason Music Box Theatre · Original · directed by Harry Wagstaff Gribble 40 perf.
1937 Julius Caesar Mercury Theatre · Revival · directed by Hiram Sherman 157 perf.
1939 Ring Two Henry Millers Theatre · Original 5 perf.
1939 When We Are Married Lyceum Theatre · Original 156 perf.
1940 Fledgling Hudson Theatre · Original · directed by Heinrich Schnitzler 13 perf.
1942 Broken Journey Henry Millers Theatre · Original · directed by Arthur Hopkins 23 perf.
1942 The Three Sisters Ethel Barrymore Theatre · Revival 123 perf.
1944 Allah Be Praised! Adelphi Theatre · Original · directed by Robert H. Gordon 20 perf.

Each row is a staging this name appears in the cast list of, read from the production record rather than from the person record. The person record names works instead, and a work cannot say which run somebody was in — that is how Elaine Stritch ends up filed under Show Boat 1927 when she was in the 1994 revival. No row here says what part was played, because no cast list records it.

Worked with more than once12 names

Warburton Gamble 4 productions
Violet Kemble Cooper 3 productions
Philip Leigh 3 productions
John Hoysradt 3 productions
Ernest Cossart 3 productions
Cecil Yapp 3 productions
William H Sams 2 productions
Thomas Chalmers 2 productions
Romney Brent 2 productions
Ralph Morgan 2 productions
Phyllis Povah 2 productions
Pearl Sindelar 2 productions

Both names in the same cast list, more than once. It is not evidence of a partnership — a long-running company puts the same forty people together every night — but it is where one would start looking. 8 of these names are not links because we hold no record behind them; the name is set from the identifier and its punctuation may be wrong.

In the literature6 passages

  • Cast: Marie Carroll, Tom Powers, Anna Wheaton, Hal Forde, Edna May Oliver, Marion Davies, Justine Johnstone, Dorothy Dickson & Carl Hysonebooks/Green, Stanley/Broadway Musicals, Show By Show - Seventh Edition - Stanley Green & Cary Ginell.txt
  • a Princess Theatre musical with Anna Wheaton, Tom Powers, Edna May Oliver, Hal Forde, Marion Davies, Justine Johnstone ’ ‘ . . Carroll. sicals F runs werre longy runs which; had Other— musicals and Marie » Carroll.theatre-pdfs/A Pictorial History of the American Theatre, 1860-1985 (Blum).txt
  • Rathbone and Philip Merivale, Gilbert Emery’s “Tarnish” with Tom Powers, Ann Harding and Fania Marinoff, and Lee Wilson Dodd’s “The Changelings”theatre-pdfs/A Pictorial History of the American Theatre, 1860-1985 (Blum).txt
  • Violet Kemble Cooper and Tom Powers in The Apple Cart. New York, Martin Beck Theatre. [Photograph by Vandamm. Theatre Collection, The New York Public Library at Lincoln Center, Astor, Lenox andtheatre-pdfs/McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama, v. 4 (O-S).txt
  • SAILORS OF CATTARO ‘(Dec. 10 : by Friedrich Wolf, adapted by Wallis. Producer: Theatre Union, ¥ “eee Tom Powers. ptheatre-pdfs/sim_theatre-arts_1935-02_19_2.txt
  • Scenes for Student Actors, Volume IP, edited by Frances Cosgrove. Samu French: $7.50. Life Studies, by Tom Powers; Soh| Plays, from the repertory of Sydney Thompson. Samuel French: each, $1, Romances by Emma, by Dewitt By | deen; The Man from Cairo, adapted by| Dan Goldberg; Black Sheep, by Elma | Rice. Dramatists Play Service: each $75.…theatre-pdfs/sim_theatre-arts_1939-08_23_8.txt

Passages naming this person, found by keyword across 178 books. A keyword match is not a biography, and a common name will pull in the wrong one.

What this page does not know

  • What this person played. No cast list we hold records a character against a performer.
  • Which of the credits above the roles on this record — actor — apply to. The roles sit on the person and never on a credit, so a director who also acted looks the same here as one who did not.

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