Tyrone Power (Irish actor)

William Grattan Tyrone Power (20 November 1797 – 17 March 1841), known professionally as Tyrone Power, was an Irish stage actor, comedian, author and theatrical manager. He was an ancestor of actor Tyrone Power and is also referred to as Tyrone Power I.[1][2]

Tyrone Power
Tyrone Power, c. 1840
Born
William Grattan Tyrone Power

20 November 1797
Kilmacthomas, County Waterford, Ireland
Died17 March 1841
North Atlantic Ocean
Spouse(s)Anne Gilbert

Life and career
Tyrone Power as Corporal O'Conor
Power as Major O'Dogherty in the drama St. Patrick's Eve, 1837

Born in Kilmacthomas, County Waterford, Ireland, Power was the son of Tyrone Power, reported to be “a minstrel of sorts”, by his marriage to Maria Maxwell, whose father had been killed while serving in the British Army during the American Revolutionary War.[3] His father was related to the Powers who were of the Anglo-Irish landed gentry[4] and to George de la Poer Beresford, 1st Marquess of Waterford.[3]

The young Power took to the stage, achieving prominence throughout the world as an actor and manager. He was well known for acting in such Irish-themed plays as Catherine Gore's King O'Neil (1835), his own St. Patrick's Eve (1837), Samuel Lover's Rory O'More (1837) and The White Horse of the Peppers (1838), Anna Maria Hall's The Groves of Blarney (1838), Eugene Macarthy's Charles O'Malley (1838) (see Charles Lever), and Bayle Bernard's His Last Legs (1839) and The Irish Attorney (1840). In his discussion of these works, Richard Allen Cave has argued that Power, both in his acting as well as his choice of plays, sought to rehabilitate the Irishman from the derogatory associations with "stage Irishmen" ("Staging the Irishman" in Acts of Supremacy [1991]).

He had a number of notable descendants by his wife Anne, daughter of John Gilbert of the Isle of Wight: Anne Power is buried in the churchyard of St Mary The Virgin Church in High Halden, Kent, England.

  • Sir William James Murray Tyrone Power[5] (1819–1911) Commissary General in Chief of the British Army and briefly Agent-General for New Zealand.
    • Norah Power, who married Dr. Thomas Guthrie
  • Maurice Henry Anthony O'Reilly Power[5] (1821–1849) trained as a barrister but later took up acting.
  • Frederick Augustus Dobbyn Nugent Power[5] (1823–1896), civil engineer, left a large estate of £197,000, equivalent to £15.6 million or 28 million US dollars in 2006.
  • Clara Elizabeth Murray Power[5] (born 1825)
  • Mary Jane Power[5] (born 1827)
  • Harold Littledale Power (1833–1901) actor, wine merchant, mine agent & engineer.
    • Tyrone Power, Sr. (1869–1931), English theatre and silent movie star.
      • Tyrone Power (1914–1958), American Hollywood star of the 1930s to 1950s.
        • Romina Power (born 1951), Italian-American singer and film actress.
        • Taryn Power (1953-2020), film actress.
        • Tyrone Power, Jr. (born 1959) American film actor.

Tyrone Power was lost at sea in March 1841, when the SS President disappeared without trace in the North Atlantic.[6]

Published works
  • Born to Good Luck: or the Irishman's Fortune. A farce in two acts. Adapted from "False and True".
  • How to Pay the Rent; a farce, in one act [and in prose]
  • St. Patrick's Eve; or the Order of the Day. A drama in three acts [and in prose]
  • The Lost Heir and The Prediction (1830)
  • The King's Secret (1831)
  • The Gipsy of the Abruzzo. (1831)
  • Impressions of America, during the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. (1836)

References
  1. Smith, Geddeth (2008). Walter Hampden: Dean of the American Theatre. Madison [N.J.]: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 75. ISBN 978-0838641668. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  2. Belafonte, Dennis; Marill, Alvin H. (1979). The Films of Tyrone Power. Secaucus [N.J.]: Citadel Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0806504773. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  3. Hector Arce, The Secret Life of Tyrone Power: The drama of a bisexual in the spotlight (Morrow, 1979), p. 26
  4. Famous Actor Families in America
  5. Registers of St Andrew, Holborn
  6. Northern Mariner, Volume 15 (Canadian Nauatical Research Society, 2005), p. 65
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