Last Guest of the Holloway Motel is an apt title for a documentary about Tony Powell. After all, for much of his life, Powell has felt like a guest in his own story.
Directed by Ramiel Petros and Nicholas Freeman and co-produced by out former football player Robbie Rogers, The Last Guest of the Holloway Motel follows the 78-year-old former footballer as he faces the closure of the West Hollywood motel he managed for 25 years. By the time cameras arrive, Powell is not only the manager of the Holloway Motel, he is also its final resident.
But the motel is only a tiny part of the story.
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The Footballer Who Disappeared
Long before West Hollywood, Tony Powell was a promising professional footballer in England.
During the 1970s, he played for Bournemouth and Norwich City before later joining teams in the United States, including the San Jose Earthquakes and Seattle Sounders. To fans, he was simply another athlete making his way through professional football. Privately, however, Powell was carrying a secret.
“I just wanted to be who I am, but at that time it was not a good idea to come out,” Powell recently told The Guardian.
For gay footballers in the 1970s, silence was often viewed as survival.
Powell has spoken candidly about the loneliness of that experience, saying there was no one he felt he could talk to during his playing days. While at Norwich, he was teammates with Justin Fashanu years before Fashanu would become the first openly gay professional footballer in England in 1990.
Powell knew Fashanu was gay, but remembers that his teammate feared coming out would end his career.
History suggests he had good reason to be afraid.
⚽️ Whatever happened to Tony Powell? In 1979, he won Norwich City’s Player of the Season award. A few years later, he cut ties with family and friends, and disappeared.
🎥 Find out in ‘The Last Guest of the Holloway Motel’ – Northern UK Premiere, #Leeds, Sat 18 July, 1.15pm
— FootballvHomophobia (@FvHtweets) July 11, 2026
Finding Home in West Hollywood
Following retirement, Powell made a decision that would define the next chapter of his life.
Convinced his family would reject him because of his sexuality, he cut ties and disappeared. For 35 years, relatives in England did not know where he was. He eventually settled in West Hollywood.
“Because it was gay,” Powell explained. “People go to West Hollywood because they feel safe.” Adding, “They move from places where they’re getting harassed to somewhere they can live freely.”
There, he found community, love, and heartbreak.
Powell spent years caring for his partner, David Castro, after Castro developed AIDS. Rather than place him in hospice care, Powell cared for him at home until his death during the AIDS crisis.
It is a chapter of his life that adds even more weight to a documentary already filled with quiet moments of resilience.
More Than the Last Guest
In 2025, Powell publicly came out as gay for the first time. His reason was simple: he wanted younger LGBTQ+ people, particularly athletes, to know they do not have to live in fear.
The Last Guest of the Holloway Motel is ultimately about much more than a motel closing its doors. It is about a man finally opening his.
And after spending decades hiding in plain sight, Tony Powell is, at long last, the guest of honor in his own story.