as in detective

the name dick powell meant one thing to me: philip marlowe. as a serious fan of novelist raymond chandler i happily associate the actor with the hard drinking, wisecracking, and often befuddled private eye he played in 1944's 'murder, my sweet', just one of the many films based on a chandler book. but guess what, i says to myself, first he was a theatre STAR, singing his ways through countless broadway productions. post nyc he landed in l.a. and went on to become both a producer and director of movies and television shows, back when they had great actors and actresses learning interesting scripts!