Jane Powell

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Jane Powell (born Suzanne Lorraine Burce, April 1, 1929) is an American singer, dancer, and actress who rose to prominence in the mid-1940s with appearances in several Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals. Powell was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, where she rose to prominence as a singer before being on tour as the Oregon Victory Girl selling victory bonds.

As a teenager, she moved to Los Angeles, California, where she signed a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract.

Powell's vocal, dancing, and acting abilities were used in musicals including A Date With Judy (1948, with friend Elizabeth Taylor), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), and Hit the Deck (1955). Her film career slowed by the late 1950s, with her directing her to theatre appearances in several touring shows as well as two Broadway productions.

Powell and her fifth husband, former child actor Dickie Moore (who died in 2015), migrated to New York City and Wilton, Connecticut, where she is still active in local theatre.

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Life and career

Powell was born Suzanne Lorraine Burce, the sole child of Paul Emerson Burce and Eileen Baker Burce, on April 1, 1929, Portland, Oregon. Powell began dancing lessons when she was 2 years old. Powell had appeared on the Portland children's radio show Stars of Tomorrow by age 5. She took dance lessons at Agnes Peters School of Dance, where the Burce family met a talent scout and dance instructor who advised the family to move to Oakland, California, to recruit Hollywood talent agents. The family returned to Portland, and her father took over a Banbury Cross apartment building after three months of being in a hotel room. Powell took singing lessons while living in Banbury Cross.

Powell was sexually assaulted by landlords in the apartment building as a child, but did not tell her parents about the assault out of fear of annoying her mother, who was an alcoholic and had a volatile temperament.

A talent promoter helped her become the Oregon Victory Girl when Powell was 12 years old. She began performing and selling victory bonds on Portland radio station KOIN and then moved to Oregon for two years. Powell attended a Hollywood talent show and signed a MGM Theaters contract in Hollywood the next day at the age of 14.

She wanted to return to high school and to college, but her mother refused to do so because she was the only one earning good money.

Powell was loaned to United Artists for her first film, Song of the Open Road (1944), where she played Jane Powell and used the term "public" in lieu of MGM's. At Esther Williams and Ben Gage's wedding in 1945, Powell sang "Because" for the first time.

Powell's second feature film, Delightfully Dangerous (1945), later she appeared in Mexico (1946), where she met Roddy McDowall, who became a lifelong friend.

More films were released after Three Daring Daughters (1948), A Date With Judy (1948), Luxury Liner (1948), Nancy Goes to Rio (1950), and Two Weeks With Love (1950).

Powell lamented that she was only able to perform the roles of teenage girls. She had to reach the age of 25, with children of her own, and was also found typecast in these roles. Despite saying that this was the only way she could help her family, she decided that this was the way to help her family.

Powell appeared at Harry S. Truman's inaugural ball in 1949, and she performed for five US presidents and the queen of England.

Powell appeared in The Royal Wedding and in Rich, Young and Pretty in 1951.

In 1953, she appeared in Small Town Girl and Three Sailors and a Girl. In 1954, Powell appeared in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. The American Film Institute named Seven Brides for Seven Brothers one of the best American musicals of all time in 2006. In 1954, Powell appeared in Athena and Deep in My Heart.

In 1955, Powell starred alongside Tony Martin, Debbie Reynolds, Ann Miller, and Russ Tamblyn in Hit the Deck, a commercial failure that was underperforming at the box office. According to the Joel Whitburn compilation, she recorded the album "Reality Love" in 2010 and ranked 15 on the Billboard charts and number 107 on the pop charts for that year. This was her first single to make the charts. Powell performed "I'll Never Stop Loving You" at the 28th Academy Awards in 1956. Powell appeared in RKO Pictures' musical comedy The Girl Most Likely, playing a woman who becomes engaged to three men at the same time. Despite shooting in 1956, the film was not released until 1958, just after RKO went out of business.

Powell, who is best known for her appearances in musical comedies, appeared in a rare dramatic role in Universal Pictures' The Female Animal (1958), which marked Hedy Lamarr's last film.

After Powell's MGM deal came to an end and her film opportunities began to decrease, she turned to theater in the late 1950s. She worked in a Oklahoma factory during her first summer stock role. In 1958, Dallas, Texas, was founded. In a television adaptation of Meet Me in St. Louis that year, she co-starred Tab Hunter, Patty Duke, and Myrna Loy. She appeared in The Most Happy Fella, a stage play (1962). Powell made her debut on the television show The Red Skelton Show in 1962, in which she appeared in numerous episodes until 1972.

Powell appeared in Eliza Doolittle's production of My Fair Lady at Los Angeles' Valley West Theatre in 1964, a record for West Coast-based productions of the play. She appeared in 1964 as part of Just 20 Plus Me! Powell was portrayed with 20 handsome "chorus boys" in it, and it was done on a film that was not recognized. When asked after the show whether the film would be made available on a commercial recording, she said simply "No."

She appeared in The Unsinkable Molly Brown in 1966, as well as the female lead in an Atlanta-based Carousel production. She appeared in a touring production of Brigadoon in 1967. Maria von Trapp appeared in The Sound of Music's production in 1968. Powell appeared in three television films: Wheeler and Murdoch (1972), The Letters (1973), and Mayday at 40,000 feet. (1976): A.K.A. (1976)

Powell appeared in Meet Me In St. Louis, a Cincinnati-based stage performance. Following Debbie Reynolds' appearance in the title role, Powell made her Broadway debut in Irene in the following year. The New York Times praised Powell's appearance, saying: "The two actors are an equal match for peppiness." Miss Reynolds may have earned a point for clowning, but Miss Powell has two for softness."

I Do!

Powell appeared in the early 1980s in the comedies: Same Time, Next Year; The Marriage-Go-Round; and Chapter Two.

Powell appeared on The Love Boat and Fantasy Island between 1981 and 1982. She started a 9-month run in Loving, playing a tough mother and businesswoman, as well as another guest-starring role in 1985's Murder, She Wrote. Powell appeared on the popular sitcom Growing Pains, in which she played Irma Seaver, Dr. Jason Roland Seaver (Alan Thicke). Powell married former child actor Dickie Moore in May 1988. While Moore was doing research for his autobiography Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, the couple met but don't have Sex or Take the Car.

Powell appeared as Lisa Grimaldi on the soap opera As the World Turns for Eileen Fulton in the early 1990s. She appeared in After-Play, an off-Broadway production from 1996 to 1997. In Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella at New York City Opera, she also played the Queen. Powell appeared in Avow, an Off-Broadway production in which she portrayed a devout Catholic woman whose gay son wants to marry his partner in the cathedral. The same year, a 70-girls, 70, was followed by a stage performance. She appeared on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in 2002, followed by a role in the Showtime film The Sandy Bottom Orchestra (2003).

Mama Mizner, a 2003 performer in the Stephen Sondheim musical Bounce, which featured appearances in Chicago and Washington, DC, she returned to the stage in 2003 as Mama Mizner. Powell admitted, "I auditioned just to see Sondheim, who was sweet and a joking guy." "I was dissatisfied when I first heard about it." I didn't want to go away from home, but I hadn't seen a new show before, and that looked promising at first. However, I didn't have much to do and the role wasn't too jovial."

Powell returned to Portland, Oregon, to narrate Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf with the Portland-based musical group Pink Martini on New Year's Eve 2007. She appeared with Pink Martini at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City on March 9, 2008, singing a duet of "Aba Daba Honeymoon" with lead singer China Forbes.

In March 2009, she appeared and performed "Love Is Where You Find It" in a show in which Michael Feinstein celebrated movie musicals and MGM musicals in particular. On September 10, 2010, she appeared with Pink Martini at the Hollywood Bowl for the second time. When Powell was on medical leave from July 17 to 23, 2011, he joined Turner Classic Movies for Robert Osborne.

Powell married former figure skater Gearhardt Anthony Steffen on November 5, 1949. Gearhardt Steffen III, her first child, was born in 1951. Suzanne Ilene Steffen, Powell's second child, was born on November 21, 1952. Powell began with Gene Nelson, her co-star in Three Sailors and a Child. Powell and Nelson divorced with plans to wed, but Nelson backed out after his divorce. In August 1953, Powell and Steffen divorced.

Patrick W. Nerney, a retired automobile executive, married Ojai, California, on November 8, 1954. Lindsay Averill Nerney's daughter was born on February 1, 1956. In May 1963, Powell and Nerney divorced.

Powell married twice more before being dropped for former child star Dickie Moore in 1982 and marrying him six years later. Powell and her husband's widowhood in 2015 sold their Manhattan apartment and moved to their second home in Wilton, Connecticut, where they eventually lived. Powell died of natural causes in Wilton on September 16, 2021, at the age of 92.

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