Hollywood Golden Age star Jane Powell died September 16 in Wilton, Conn. Born Suzanne Burce on April 1, 1929, in Portland, Ore., she began dance lessons at age 2 and made her local radio debut on Stars of Tomorrow at age 5. By age 12, she was touring the state as the Oregon Victory Girl to promote war bonds. In 1943, before her freshman year at Grant H.S., she competed on Janet Gaynor’s radio talent show Hollywood Showcase and won, which impressed MGM’s Louis B. Mayer enough to offer Powell a seven-year contract.
Within two months, she was loaned to United Artists for her film debut, Song of the Open Road (1944), with W.C. Fields. In the film, she played a child performer named Jane Powell, which she adopted as her own stage name. The following year, she played Snow White in the CBS radio adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Her MGM film debut came in 1946 with Holiday in Mexico, opposite Roddy McDowell. Below is the trailer for Song of the Open Road.
Powell gained widespread recognition in the 1951 musicals Royal Wedding opposite Fred Astaire, where she introduced the Oscar-nominated song “Too Late Now,” and Rich, Young and Pretty opposite Vic Damone, where she introduced the Oscar-nominated song “Wonder Why.” Her signature role, though, was Milly Pontipee in best picture Oscar nominee Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) opposite Howard Keel, from which you can watch Powell singing “Goin’ Courtin’” below.
In 1956, Powell’s cover of Cole Porter’s “True Love” (from High Society) peaked at #15 on Billboard’s Top 100, marking her only chart appearance. By the late 1950s, her film career slowed and Powell returned to theater and TV, beginning with a Dallas production of Oklahoma! as Laurey (1958) and a TV remake of Meet Me in St. Louis (1959) as Esther Smith, from which you can watch Powell singing “The Boy Next Door” below.
In 1961, Powell made a half-hour TV pilot, The Jane Powell Show, about a singer who marries a math professor (Russell Johnson) and has to adapt to small-town life, which you can watch below. The show wasn’t picked up, and Powell returned to regional theater productions. She made her sole Broadway appearance replacing Debbie Reynolds in the 1973 revival of Irene, then spent most of the next decades with TV guest roles, including The Love Boat (1981-82) and Growing Pains (1988-92).
https://youtu.be/-pXjJt1RaXo
Powell returned to the New York stage in the 2000 Off-Broadway revival of 70 Girls 70. Three years later, she played Mama Mizner in the out-of-town tryouts of Bounce. She ended the decade as vocalist for Portland’s Pink Martini, performing with the band at New York’s Lincoln Center (2008) and the Hollywood Bowl (2010). Following the 2015 death of her husband, Powell retired to Wilton, Conn. Below is Powell singing “Isn’t He Something!” on the Bounce Kennedy Center cast recording.