page_title: Dick Powell
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Dick Powell / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Frame from public domain trailer for Warner Bros. 1933 film Footlight Parade showing Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell
context_page_description: Richard Ewing Powell was an American singer, actor, voice actor, film producer, film director and studio head. Though he came to stardom as a musical comedy performer, he showed versatility, and successfully transformed into a hardboiled leading man starring in projects of a more dramatic nature. He was the first actor to portray the private detective Philip Marlowe on screen.
context_section_description: Powell was born the middle son of three boys 
  in Mountain View, the seat of Stone County in northern Arkansas. His brothers were Luther (1899-1986, the eldest), and Howard (1906-1996, the youngest). The family moved the boys to Little Rock in 1914, where Powell sang in church choirs and with local orchestras, and started his own band. Powell attended the former Little Rock College, before he started his entertainment career as a singer with the Royal Peacock Band which toured throughout the Midwest.
  During this time, he married Mildred Maund, a model, but she found being married to an entertainer not to her liking. After a final trip to Cuba together, Mildred moved to Hemphill, Texas, and the couple divorced in 1932. Later, Powell joined the Charlie Davis Orchestra, based in Indianapolis. He recorded a number of records with Davis and on his own, for the Vocalion label in the late 1920s.
caption: Ruby Keeler and Powell in Footlight Parade (1933)
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