`Thin Man' Movie Star Myrna Loy Epitomized Hollywood Sophistication

NEW YORK - Myrna Loy, the cool beauty whose sly wit, easy charm, unbridled sophistication and intelligence made her the paragon of a perfect wife for millions of movie fans, died yesterday. She was 88.

Miss Loy died at Lenox Hill Hospital after a lengthy illness, said Pat Sumers, a nursing supervisor. She had been treated for cancer for many years.

A freckle-faced redhead from Montana, she was the woman every man wanted to marry.

She was best known as socialite Nora Charles, wife of sleuth Nick Charles, in the six "Thin Man" movies of the 1930s and 1940s. Together, knocking back martinis and dining with thugs, she and co-star William Powell made marriage look like a sophisticated lark.

In real life, Miss Loy had trouble coping with the expectations of Hollywood's perfect wife, marrying and divorcing four times. She had no children.

Many of her films, from "The Thin Man" to "The Best Years of Our Lives," became favorites with revival-house audiences, but Miss Loy never received an Oscar nomination. She received an honorary Oscar in 1991.

On screen, Miss Loy appeared gracious, smart and above the mayhem of everyday life; off-screen, she developed a reputation for coolness and practicality, and supported a variety of liberal causes. She was called Franklin Roosevelt's favorite actress.

"To meet whom did Franklin D. Roosevelt find himself tempted to call off the Yalta conference? Myrna Loy," Lauren Bacall said at a 1985 Motion Picture Academy tribute. "And to see what lady in what picture did John Dillinger risk coming out of hiding to meet his bullet-ridden death in an alley in Chicago? Myrna Loy, in `Manhattan Melodrama.' "

Miss Loy's career, which stretched from silent films to television, had its roots in Montana ranch country, where Myrna Williams was born, in Raidersburg, on Aug. 2, 1905.

Childhood moviegoing sparked her interest in acting, which flourished after her family moved to California when she was a schoolgirl.

After haunting the studios, she landed a role as a chorus girl in "Pretty Ladies" in 1925. She also played a chorus girl in the history-making 1927 film "The Jazz Singer," which sparked the move to talkies.

Miss Loy said she changed her name at the suggestion of someone who thought it sounded Oriental. "I didn't intend to keep it very long," she said. "But then I signed a contract and . . . I was stuck with it."

For years, despite her freckles and upturned nose, she found herself cast in one exotic role after another, playing Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, Hindu or Polynesian sirens.

"The Thin Man" was made quickly and on a shoestring in 1934 because studio chief Louis B. Mayer opposed the casting of Miss Loy and Powell, who had worked together the year before in "Manhattan Melodrama." After it was a smash, five sequels followed.

As Nora Charles, Miss Loy was undaunted by bullets or family disapproval of her irreverent husband. She matched Nick martini for martini, joked him out of his hangovers, sat by calmly as he cheerfully shattered their Christmas tree ornaments with the air gun she had given him and presided with grace at a cocktail party full of hoodlums and killers.

She and Powell were screen magic and lifelong friends. In all, they made 13 movies together.

"I never enjoyed my work more than when I worked with William Powell," she said after his death in 1984.

She played opposite Clark Gable in "Wife Versus Secretary," and "Too Hot to Handle," with Gable and Powell in "Manhattan Melodrama," with Gable and Spencer Tracy in "Test Pilot," with Tracy, Powell and Jean Harlow in "Libeled Lady," and opposite Tyrone Power in "The Rains Came."

Her later film credits included "The Red Pony," the Cary Grant films "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer" and "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House," and the post-World War II classic "The Best Years of Our Lives" with Friedrich March and Dana Andrews.

Her last screen appearance was in 1980's "Just Tell Me What You Want," with Ali McGraw. She also appeared on television in the movie "Summer Solstice," opposite Henry Fonda, and in the series "Love, Sidney."