Belgian collectors card by Kwatta, no. C. 288. Photo: MGM. Jane Powell in Nancy Goes to Rio (Robert Z. Leonard, 1950).
Dutch postcard Van Leer's Fotodrukindustrie N.V., Amsterdam, no. 251. Photo: MGM.
West-German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. A 327. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Charm and spunk
Jane Powell was born Suzanne Lorraine Burce in 1929 in Portland, Oregon. She was the only child born to Paul E. Burce and Eileen Baker Burce. Her father worked for Wonder Bread for almost 20 years, before the family moved to Oakland.
Suzanne was singing and dancing at an early age. Aged five, she appeared on the children's radio program 'Stars of Tomorrow'. She attended Agnes Peters Dancing School as a child in Portland. At 12, Powell had her career taken over by a local promoter, Carl Werner, who helped her get selected as the Oregon Victory Girl. She toured the state as the Oregon Victory Girl singing and selling victory bonds.
Her role model and favourite actress was Jeanette MacDonald. In the summer of 1943, Paul and Eileen Burce took their daughter on vacation to Hollywood. There, she appeared on Janet Gaynor's radio show 'Hollywood Showcase: Stars over Hollywood'. The show was a talent competition. Suzanne won the competition and soon auditioned for Louis B. Mayer at MGM, as well as for David O. Selznick.
Without even taking a screen test, she was then signed to a seven-year contract with MGM. The character she played in her first film Song of the Open Road (S. Sylvan Simon, 1944) was named Jane Powell. MGM gave her the name of the character she played for her own stage moniker.
Through the 1940s and 1950s, she had a successful career in film musicals. Powell's charm and spunk made her stand out in Three Daring Daughters (Fred M. Wilcox, 1948), in which she co-starred with Jeanette MacDonald. She had her breakthrough with the musical A Date with Judy (Richard Thorpe, 1948) co-starring Wallace Beery and Elizabeth Taylor. The film was based on the radio series of the same name.
Jane replaced June Allyson and Judy Garland for the role in Royal Wedding (Stanley Donen, 1951) opposite Fred Astaire and Peter Lawford. She appeared with Vic Damone in four films: Rich, Young and Pretty (Norman Taurog, 1951) also with Danielle Darrieux, Athena (Richard Thorpe, 1954) also with Edmund Purdom and Debbie Reynolds, Deep in My Heart (Stanley Donen, 1954) with José Ferrer, and Hit the Deck (Roy Rowland, 1955), also with Tony Martin and Debbie Reynolds.
But Jane Powell is best known for her role as Milly in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Stanley Donen, 1954), swept off her feet by the charms of Howard Keel. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, which is set in Oregon in 1850, is particularly known for Michael Kidd's unusual choreography, which makes dance numbers out of such mundane frontier pursuits as chopping wood and raising a barn.
Dutch postcard, no. 605. Photo: M.G.M. Jane Powell and Bonita Granville in Song of the Open Road (S. Sylvan Simon, 1944). Sent by mail in 1954.
Vintage postcard. Photo: MGM.
Vintage postcard. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Vintage autograph card.
A move to the East Coast
However, in 1957, Jane Powell had outgrown her innocent girl-next-door image. She appeared in a rare dramatic role in The Female Animal (Harry Keller, 1958) from Universal Pictures, which turned out to be the final film of co-star Hedy Lamarr. With the decline of film musicals in the late 1950s, Jane left MGM before they could fire her.
She resuscitated her career by making a move to the East Coast and appearing on the musical stage. Since then, she made brief returns to acting in front of the camera: on television, in commercials, and in a workout video. She has had a variety of roles on stage since the end of her film career, including the musicals 'The Sound of Music', 'Oklahoma!', 'My Fair Lady', and 'Carousel'.
Her Broadway debut was in 'Irene', in which she followed Debbie Reynolds in the title role. Howard Keel and she also appeared on stage together in a revival of 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers', 'I Do! I Do!' and 'South Pacific'. In the early 1980s, she toured in the comedies 'Same Time, Next Year'; 'The Marriage-Go-Round' and 'Chapter Two'. She also did the one-woman show 'The Girl Next Door and How She Grew', from which she took the title of her 1988 autobiography.
Jane Powell was married five times, of which the first four ended in a divorce. Her husbands were professional figure skater Geary Steffin (1949-1954) with whom she had two children; Patrick Nerney (1954-1964) with whom she had one child; James D. Fitzgerald (1965-1976), David Stellar Parlour (1978-1981), and finally former youth star and actor Dickie Moore (1988- his death in 2015). She had never met Moore until 1981 when he was researching his book on child stars, 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'.
Her children were Geary Anthony "G.A." Steffen III (1951), Suzanne Ilene "Sissy"Steffen (1952), and Lindsay Averille Nerney (1956). Jane Powell was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6818 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California in 1960. When Dickie Moore died in 2015, Jane Powell sold their New York apartment and lived in Wilton. There she passed away on 16 September 2021. Jane Powell was 92.
Vintage collectors card, no. 115. Photo: MGM.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 966. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Fred Astaire, Jane Powell, Peter Lawford, and Sarah Churchill in Royal Wedding (Stanley Donen, 1951).
Dutch postcard by Sparo (Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam). Photos: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The pictured stars are Judy Garland, Betty Hutton, Vivian Blaine (twice), Monica Lewis, Pier Angeli, Ann Blyth and Mario Lanza, Coleen Gray, and Jane Powell. The postcard must date from ca. 1951, when Blyth and Lanza starred together in The Great Caruso (Richard Thorpe, 1951).
British postcard by Real Photograph / Moviestar, no. F 18. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Sources: Melissa Portell (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
This post was last updated on 18 September 2021.
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