Dick Powell was born November 14, 1904 in Mt. View, Arkansas. In 1934 he was signed by Warner Brothers to play a singing bandleader in "The Blessed Event". For years, until his contract ended in 1940, he played an inoffensive song and dance man, a character he dismissively called "the singing ninny".

Longing for meatier roles, he tried for the part of Walter Neff in "Double Indemnity", losing out to another perennial nice guy, Fred MacMurray. In 1944, RKO decided to give Raymond Chandler's "Farewell, My Lovely"(also released as "Murder, My Sweet") the big budget treatment. Director Edward Dmytryk gave him his big chance as Philip Marlowe. With his deadpan narration and his image as a basically good guy, he was a smash. Dick Powell moved into Film Noir and never looked back. He played tough talking detectives for the rest of his career.

In 1945 and 46, he played P.I. Richard Rogue in the radio series Rogue's Gallery. Written by Ray Buffum, the show satirized Chandler-style detectives at every turn. He was always "the famous detective Richard Rogue". Every week he'd get bonked on the head and float up to Cloud 8 to meet his pal Eugor, who would supply the necessary tip to crack the case.

After a couple of years, the satire started to run thin. Powell was teamed up with a young writer named Blake Edwards in Richard Diamond, Private Detective. The new series had the same deadpan narration, but also such features as his friendship with homicide detective Lt. Levinson, a running series of devastating insults aimed at Sgt. Otis, and Diamond's wisecracking phone answering at the beginning of each show. The episode usually ended with Rick singing for his rich girlfriend Helen Asher.

After the series ended, Powell moved into TV producing. He joined with Charles Boyer and David Niven in Four Star Productions. He put Richard Diamond on the small screen with an unknown actor named David Meyer, who later changed his name to David Janssen. Eventually he got into directing features, such as "The Enemy Below" in 1957 with Robert Mitchum and Curt Jurgens. He also worked on "The Conqueror" with John Wayne, the subject of urban legends about fallout-induced cancer. He did indeed die of cancer in 1963, but after a lifetime of chain-smoking Camels, the real source of the cancer will never be known.

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