Vintage Celebrity Ads: Dick Powell

It's 1946, and Dick Powell has tasted a WOW, apparently. This boils down to being a glass of tomato juice spiked with French's Worcestershire Sauce.

Men were supposed to like this, according to this ad from the Ladies' Home Journal. A teaspoon of hot sauce in a glassful of very cold tomato juice, seasoned with salt and pepper is the exact recipe, if you're at all interested.

Dick Powell (1904-1963) was a well-known movie actor of the time. Born in Mountain View, Arkansas, he got his start as a big band singer. In 1932, he was signed to a film contract by Warner Bros. and appeared in such movies as 42nd Street (1933) and On the Avenue (1937). In 1944, he played film-noir private eye Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet , which led to his playing series of similarly tough guys in later movies. He also played the role of Richard Diamond, another detective, on the eponymous radio series which ran from 1949 to 1953. He was married three times; his second and third wives were well-known actresses, Joan Blondell and June Allyson, respectively.

His death at age 58 from lymphoma is perhaps related to several deaths among the cast and crew of the 1956 film The Conqueror , which he directed; it was filmed in Nevada in a nuclear fallout zone.

Interestingly, I have not found any menton of the film cited in this ad, A Very Remarkable Fellow - not on Wikipedia, not in IMDB. If anyone knows anything about it, I'd be glad to know.

If only Moose in the Murder, My Sweet clip below had preferred tomato juice to whisky!