Why Tyrone Power Left Hollywood to Fight in World War II
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 6 May 2026
⏱️ 22 minutes
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Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, Tyrone Power was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars in the late 1930s and early 1940s, known for films like The Mark of Zorro and Blood and Sand. But at the height of his career, he stepped away from the screen and joined the Marines.
Power trained as a pilot and served in the Pacific during World War II, flying transport missions into some of the war’s most dangerous territory. For our ongoing Hollywood Goes to War series, Roger McGrath shares how one of the great actors of Hollywood’s Golden Age became a Marine aviator.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:04.3 | Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. |
| 0:07.7 | Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fan, so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand |
| 0:11.8 | new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes. |
| 0:15.5 | Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the |
| 0:20.3 | biology of taunons and wampas |
| 0:22.2 | on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith rule of two. |
| 0:28.3 | Listen to Stuff to Bo Your Mind on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your |
| 0:33.5 | podcasts. |
| 0:47.6 | And we continue with our American stories. |
| 0:52.7 | And now it's time for another of Roger McGrath's Hollywood goes to war stories. |
| 0:56.5 | Here's McGrath with the story of Tarone Power. |
| 1:05.8 | The great heart throb for female movie goers in the late 1930s and early 1940s was Tarone Power. |
| 1:12.3 | He was young, strikingly handsome, and cast in roles designed to make the women swoon. |
| 1:20.1 | Whether it was as the male lead in thin ice, Cathay Metropole, Second Honeymoon, in Old Chicago, |
| 1:29.3 | Marie Antoinette, Jesse James, a yank in the RAF, the mark of Zorro, or blood in sand. |
| 1:33.9 | Power was a dashing and romantic character second to none. |
| 1:40.8 | He came from a long line of actors, beginning with his Irish great-grandfather of the same name, |
| 1:46.0 | Taron Power, who was one of the most famous stage actors of Ireland, England, in the United States during the 1820s and 30s. |
| 1:50.0 | There were several other actors besides his great-grandfather, |
| 1:54.0 | not only in his paternal line, but also on his maternal side. |
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