Anne Power Werner

WERNER, Anne Power Died of cancer on Christmas Day 2011, at her home in North Hampton, New Hampshire. Anne has no immediate survivors. She does leave, however, her good friend, Father Daniel Morrissey, and a host of others enriched by their relationship with this extraordinary woman. Anne was born in Paris in 1928, the only child of Annabella, an international film star. In 1939 Annabella married the American actor, Tyrone Power, who adopted Anne. She always spoke fondly of Power, and he of her. On April 5, 1941, Tyrone wrote in his journal, "Today is Anni's birthday. I told Anni there was another present out front. She didn't say a word, just went over and touched the horse. After hugging the breath out of me, she kept whispering over and over again, "My horse, my dear little horse." Anne grew up in the Hollywood of the 1940s, a dazzling time. Yet in her telling of it Anne was not dazzled. The simple joys of daily family life remained most vivid to her. Her parents entertained some of the most beautiful and celebrated people in the world, and from her upstairs room she could watch the arriving guests, the Clark Gables, the Gary Coopers, the Henry Fondas, Judy Garland. To Anne they were not celebrities, and certainly not icons, but rather friends of the family from down the street. From childhood Anne spoke French and English. In her twenties she became fluent in German. Throughout her life she read broadly in those languages, deepening her love of history. Her experience as a world traveler made her an informed conversationalist. She was thoughtful, articulate, an eager listener, who genuinely wanted to know what others had to say. Anne exercised horses at Longchamp Racecourse in Paris. She also taught actors to ride, and while on the set of Decision Before Dawn, she met Oskar Werner, a prominent actor in European classical theater and film. After they married in 1954, they travelled throughout the world as Oskar became an international film star, but they lived in Liechtenstein. Anne was always very grateful that she was able to come to know the great literature of the German language and the music and opera of Werner's native Austria. Their marriage ended in 1968. Anne returned to the United States, settling in North Hampton, a small New Hampshire seaside town. She put down roots which deepened over time, taking a position as an aide teaching deaf children to speak, a job she held for nearly twenty years. After retiring she continued to work as a volunteer at the North Hampton Library. In 1998 Anne designed and built a home filled with light and welcoming to guests. She lived only a mile from the ocean, which she loved in all its moods, and could walk to it almost every day. Anne kept close ties to France and returned each summer to Annabella's sheep farm, Contramundo, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, outside St Jean de Luz. There in the Basque countryside Anne welcomed many American friends together with Romanov emigres, writers, politicians and artists who visited her mother. For each guest Anne made the beauty and vitality of Contramundo a unique and unforgettable memory. Tolstoy writes in War and Peace, which Anne reread many times, "Love hinders death. Love is life. Everything, everything I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is connected only by that." Contributions in the name of Anne Power Werner may be made to the Public Broadcasting System, 2100 Crystal Drive, Arlington, VA 22201, or to the New Hampshire Public Radio, 2 Pillsbury Street, Suite 600, Concord, NH 03301. To sign an on line guest book, please visit www.brewittfuneralhome.com