William Powell

William Powell, American actor and singer (died 1984)

Find birthday twins Open interactive profile

Born: July 29, 1892
Died: March 5, 1984
Zodiac sign: Leo
Birth year: 1892

About William Powell

William Horatio Powell was an American actor, known primarily for his film career. Under contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he was paired with Myrna Loy in 14 films, including the Thin Man series based on the Nick and Nora Charles characters created by Dashiell Hammett. Powell was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times: for The Thin Man (1934), My Man Godfrey (1936), and Life with Father (1947). This movie provided Powell with his first Academy Award nomination, in 1935 Powell starred in The Great Ziegfeld, (1936), opposite his The Thin Man co-star, Myrna Loy, who played Ziegfeld's wife, Billie Burke. In 1936, Harlow and Powell appeared in Libeled Lady, and they became romantically involved off-set.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

William Powell timeline

1934Powell was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times: for The Thin Man (1934), My Man Godfrey (1936), and Life with Father (1947).
1935This movie provided Powell with his first Academy Award nomination, in 1935 Powell starred in The Great Ziegfeld, (1936), opposite his The Thin Man co-star, Myrna Loy, who played Ziegfeld's wife, Billie Burke.
1936In 1936, Harlow and Powell appeared in Libeled Lady, and they became romantically involved off-set.

The world when William Powell was born

William Powell was born in 1892. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Headlines and milestones

Major sports momentFirst heavyweight boxing title under Queensberry rules
Top headlineEllis Island immigration station opens
Technology milestoneDiesel engine patented by Rudolf Diesel
World population~1.52B

United States snapshot

U.S. leaderBenjamin Harrison
U.S. population65.0M

1892 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in William Powell's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure	1892	2026
Population	65.0M	341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, IMDb, MusicBrainz, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.