Nobody could say "darling" like Myrna Loy, who died Tuesday at 88 after a long illness.
In the six "Thin Man" films that made her a star, Myrna Loy infused that word with such possibility that she seemed almost to invent a whole new language, rich in meaning and poetry, although it consisted of a single word.
"Darling," she'd say brusquely, eyebrows taut, lips pursed, meaning, "You idiot."
Or she'd say, "Darling," eyes merry, a single brow cocked, in a voice plummy with irony; she was saying, "It's so absurd."
Or, still again, "Darling," this time in a tone radiant with love, fixing her brilliant eyes on him in a gaze of adoration so intense it could melt Hershey Bars.
Or even, "Darling," arch and self-pleased, smugly self-assured, as if to say, "Aren't we amusing?"
And, of course, they were.
With her co-star William Powell as private detective Nick Charles, she was the ineffable Nora -- wife, confidant and co-conspirator and occasional antagonist. Invented by Dashiell Hammett as a kind of best-of-all-worlds fantasy version of himself and his close personal friend (and lover) Lillian Hellman, Nick and Nora moved suavely through a beautifully photographed black-and-white Manhattan, issuing bon mots as well as figuring out crimes. They just had a swell old time, usually with a glass of champagne or a cigarette in hand.
They were swank, casually beautiful, unself-conscious and very glamorous; they looked great in evening clothes; they helped invent a cosmopolitan style that lasts to this day. They were the jet set before jets were even invented. And there was one other thing often overlooked about them: She was every bit his equal.
This was an astonishment, though it was something their original director, W. S. VanDyne, must have instinctively understood when he insisted that MGM cast the young actress opposite the great star Powell in 1934.
Because of her sharp cheekbones and dark, powerful eyes, she had until then mainly been assigned Oriental vamp roles; these were the days when actual Asians were not allowed to play themselves. She had been discovered by Rudolf Valentino dancing in the chorus line at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles and even took the screen name "Loy," which sounded vaguely Asian -- certainly more so than the pedestrian "Williams" under which she was born -- as a way of playing up her look. She labored through the late days of the silents and the early days of sound, but she can't have loved it, being the daughter of a cowboy who'd grown up in Montana. She soldiered on through films such as "The Mask of Fu Manchu" and "Thirteen Women," until Van Dyke gave her the break of her career, over the objections of Louis B. Mayer, the patriarch who ran MGM.
