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Show TYRONE POWER JR. j RECALLS HIS PAST Br LOUIS SOBOL Down Memory Land (With Tyrone Power Jr.) What there ii of my life thui far is, like Caesar' Caul, divided into three parti. . .early childhood, the pre-Holly wood and the current Hollywood periodi...Of the first I remember nothing... The latter It still tod fresh and hectic to be catalogued as "memories." The pro-Hollywood, which ended just a year and a half ago, really etarta with my first remembered after-dinner "sit still periods" . . . My aistsr and I would havs to remain re-main sitting at the table for 18 minutes after we had eaten, during which mother would combine this leapon in poise with one on diction. On Stage at T The first big moment In my life wss when I was given my first part In the mission play st San Gabriel, California . . . Mother and father wore ploying In it, and, aa they needed a youngster of about 7 for a small rols, I drsw it. It all seemed aa natural for me te go la for acting ... I had conceived of no other prof-salon ... 1 had not even heard of any ft her ... All of my parents' rlenda who came to tha houoa were theatrical, or movie people, and, typical of their kind, they all talked shop. High School Flay When I was t mother moved back to Cincinnati, my birthplace, whsrs my sister, Ann, and I went to school ... It was after I completed the sixth grade at St. Xavier academy that I got my first tests of living away from home ... I was sent to the parochial prep school for the University of Dsyton in Dayton. Ohio . . . Later, at Pureed high school In Cincinnati, I got my first lead in a play . . . The year I graduated grad-uated I was given the lead In "Officer "Of-ficer 68," tho senior class play. I waa 17 then, and therefore thought I knew more than 1 did when I reached the ripe old age of tl . . . My parents wanted me to go to college ... 1 held out for starting on my stage career Immediately ... I still didn't think there waa any other pro-feoeion pro-feoeion for mo In tha world . . . True, I had done eon to work during dur-ing summer vacations, but that didn't mean anything morn than a way to keep active and pick up a few pennies. A compromise was reached by father offering to take ma for the summer to a country home in Quebec Que-bec . . . There I went through an intensive course In Shakespeare . . . Father trained me like a drill sergeant . . . We would read plays, taking different parte, interpret them and analyze characters and readings. I guess the idea was to get me thoroughly fed up on the Idea, but I loved it ... In fact, that summer proved to be the most valuable bit of training I have ever received. When It became evident that I was determined to turn professional in as short a time as possible, fnther took me with him to Chicago, where he was engaged for a short season of Shakespearean drama at the Chicago civic auditorium, sesson of fall. 19.11 ... In ths cast were also Frits Lieber, William Faversham and Helen Mencken. Narrow Eecape My first production was The Merchant of Venice," In which I played an old man, friend of the doge of Venice, the latter part played by my father. In that play I had my narrowest escape ... As part of his action, Frits Lieber, as Shylock, was to pick up and brandish a huge knife . . . In a violent movement the knife slipped from his grssp and whisxed by my head so close that I felt the wind of It on my cheek . . . When It struck, up to ths hilt, in ths lacenery I could see my father stiffen stif-fen and clench the sides of the chair in which h waa sitting ... I shall nsver forget the concern In his whleper: "My God! son, are you hurt?" Lieber almost collapsed, and tha situation w aa not lost oa the audience audi-ence . . . But imbued with all the novice's rapture over the "show must go on" tradition, 1 carried on : |