- Eleanor Powell
Infobox actress
name = Eleanor Powell
caption = Eleanor Powell in "Broadway Melody of 1938 ".
birthname = Eleanor Torrey Powell
birthdate = birth date|1912|11|21
location =Springfield, Massachusetts , U.S.
deathdate = death date and age|1982|02|11|1912|11|21
deathplace =Beverly Hills ,Los Angeles ,California , U.S.
occupation = Actress & Dancer
spouse =Glenn Ford (1943-1959)
children = Peter Ford
website = http://classicmoviefavorites.com/powell/Eleanor Torrey Powell (
November 21 ,1912 –February 11 ,1982 ) was an American film actress and dancer of the 1930s and 1940s, known for her exuberant solotap dancing .Biography
Eleanor Torrey Powell was born in
Springfield, Massachusetts . A dancer since childhood, she was discovered at the age of 11 by the head of the Vaudeville Kiddie revue, Gus Edwards. When she was 17, she brought her graceful, athletic style to Broadway, where she starred in various revues and musicals. During this time, she was dubbed "the world's greatest tap dancer" due to her machine-gun footwork, and in the early 1930s appeared as a chorus girl in a couple of early, inconsequential musical films.Road to Hollywood
In 1935, the leggy, fresh-faced Powell made the move to
Hollywood and did a specialty number in her first major film, "George White's 1935 Scandals " which she later described as a disaster due in part to her accidentally being made up to look like anEgypt ian due to a mix-up prior to filming her scene. The experience left her unimpressed with Hollywood. Nonetheless, she was courted byMGM , but initially refused their offers of a contract. Reportedly, Powell attempted to dissuade the studio by making what she felt were unreasonable salary demands, but MGM agreed and she finally accepted. The studio groomed her for her future stardom making minimal changes in her makeup and conduct.Film stardom
She was well-received in her first starring role in 1935's "
Broadway Melody of 1936 " (in which she was supported byJack Benny andFrances Langford ), and delighted 1930s audiences with her endless energy and enthusiasm, not to mention her stunning dancing. According to dancerAnn Miller , quoted in the "making-of" documentary about "That's Entertainment! III", MGM was headed for bankruptcy in the late 1930s, but the films of Eleanor Powell, particularly "Broadway Melody of 1936" were so popular they made the company profitable again. Miller also credits Powell for inspiring her own dancing career, which would eventually lead her to become an MGM musical star a decade later.Powell would go on to star opposite many of the decade's top leading men such as
Jimmy Stewart , Robert Taylor,Fred Astaire ,George Murphy ,Nelson Eddy , and Robert Young. Films she made during the height of her career in the mid-to-late 1930s co-starred these men and others and included "Born to Dance " (1936), "Rosalie " (1937), "Broadway Melody of 1938 " (1937), "Honolulu" (1939), and "Broadway Melody of 1940 " (1940). All of these movies featured her amazing solo tapping, although her increasingly huge production numbers began to attract criticism. Her characters also often sang, but Powell's singing voice was usually (but not always) overdubbed (this would also happen to one of Powell's successors,Cyd Charisse ). "Broadway Melody of 1940 ", in which Powell starred oppositeFred Astaire , featured an acclaimed musical score byCole Porter . Together, Astaire and Powell danced to Porter's "Begin The Beguine", which is considered by many to be one of the greatest tap sequences in film history. According to accounts of the making of this film, including a documentary included on the DVD release, Astaire was somewhat intimidated by Powell, who was considered the only female dancer ever capable of out-dancing Astaire. In his autobiography "Steps in Time", Astaire remarked: "She 'put 'em down like a man', no ricky-ticky-sissy stuff with Ellie. She really knocked out a tap dance in a class by herself."Decline in popularity
Following "Broadway Melody of 1940" Powell was sidelined for many months following a
gall stone operation and things changed somewhat for the worse, at least as far as Powell's movie career was concerned. 1941's "Lady Be Good" gave Powell top billing and a classic dance routine to "Fascinatin' Rhythm", but Robert Young andAnn Sothern were the actual stars of the film. The same happened withRed Skelton in "Ship Ahoy " (1942) and "I Dood It " (1943), although in "Ship Ahoy" her character nonetheless played a central role in the story, and Powell's dance skills were put to practical use when she manages to tap out amorse code message to a secret agent in the middle of a dance routine.She was signed to play opposite
Dan Dailey in "For Me and My Gal" in 1942, but the two actors were removed from the picture during rehearsals and replaced byGene Kelly andJudy Garland . Later, production of a new "Broadway Melody" film that would have paired Powell with Kelly was also cancelled.She parted ways with
MGM in 1943 after her next film, "Thousands Cheer ", in which she appeared only for a few minutes to perform a specialty number (as part of an all-star cast), and the same year married Canadian-born lead actorGlenn Ford . She danced in a giant pinball machine in "Sensations of 1945 " (1944) forUnited Artists , but this picture was a critical and commercial disappointment, Powell's performance overshadowed by what was to be the final film appearance ofW.C. Fields . Powell retired from the cinema afterwards to concentrate on raising her son, actor Peter Ford, who was born that year (although she did appear in a couple of documentary-style short subjects about celebrities in the late 1940s). Overseas audiences did get to see one additional Powell dance performance in 1946, however, when the compilation "The Great Morgan " was released, which included a number that had been cut [Schultz, p.25] from "Honolulu".In 1950, Powell returned to
MGM one last time for a cameo in "Duchess of Idaho ", starringEsther Williams . Appearing as herself in a nightclub scene, a hesitant Powell is invited to dance byVan Johnson 's character, and she begins with a staid, almost balletic performance until she is chided by Johnson for being lazy. She then strips off her skirt, revealing her famous legs, and proceeds to perform a "boogie-woogie"-style specialty number very similar to the one she performed in "Thousands Cheer" seven years earlier. Williams, in her autobiography "The Million Dollar Mermaid", writes of being touched watching Powell rehearsing until her feet bled in order to make her brief cameo as perfect as possible.Later career: TV and stage
After "Duchess of Idaho", Powell returned to private life. In May 1952, she emerged as a guest star on an episode of "Four Star Revue" with
Danny Thomas andJune Havoc . Around this time, she was ordained a minister of theUnity Church and later hosted anEmmy Award-winning ["Ellie wins an Emmy", "Screen Stories" June 1955, p. 66] Sunday morning TV program for youth entitled "The Faith of Our Children" (1953 - 1955). Her son, Peter Ford, was a regular on this show and would later find his own success as a rock and roll singer and as an actor. In 1955, Powell made her last-ever film appearance when she appeared in "Have Faith in Our Children", a three-minute short film produced for the Variety Club of Northern California in which Powell asked viewers to donate to the charity. The short, which other than its title had no relation to the TV series, marked the only time Powell appeared on screen with her husband,Glenn Ford .Powell divorced Ford in 1959, and that year, encouraged by Peter, launched a highly-publicized nightclub career, maintaining her good figure and looks well into middle age. Her live performances continued well into the 1960s. During the early 1960s she made several guest appearances on variety TV programs, including "
The Ed Sullivan Show " and "The Hollywood Palace ".Death
Eleanor Powell died of
cancer at the age of 69, and was interred in theHollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood.Reintroduction
Powell was reintroduced to audiences in the popular "
That's Entertainment! " documentary in 1974, and its sequels "That's Entertainment Part II " (1976) and "That's Entertainment! III " (1994) and the related film "That's Dancing! " (1985) which spotlight her dancing from films such as "Broadway Melody of 1940 ", "Lady Be Good", and "Born to Dance ". She is one of only a few performers to be the subject of spotlight segments (as opposed to being included in a montage with other performers) in all four films. "That's Entertainment! III" is notable for including behind-the-scenes footage of her "Fascinatin' Rhythm" routine from "Lady Be Good".Powell's films continue to be broadcast on television regularly by
Turner Classic Movies , with most released in theVHS video format in 1980s and 90s. North AmericanDVD release of her work has been slower in coming. Aside from clips from her films being included in the aforementioned "That's Entertainment!" trilogy, plus clips that were featured in other releases such as the 2002 special edition DVD release of "Singin' in the Rain", it wasn't until the 2003 DVD release of "Broadway Melody of 1940" that a complete Powell film was released in the format. In February 2007,Warner Home Video announced plans to release a boxed DVD set of Eleanor Powell's musical films by year end. [http://www.hometheaterforum.com/chat/warner07.txt] This did not occur; instead, on April 8, 2008 Warner released of a third boxed set in the "Classic Musicals from the Dream Factory" series, with nine films, four of which star Powell: "Broadway Melody of 1936", "Born to Dance", "Broadway Melody of 1938", and "Lady Be Good". The films are expected to be released in individual two film sets (the two "Broadway Melody" films in one set, "Born to Dance"/"Lady Be Good" on the other) later in the year.Filmography
Features
*"
Queen High " (1930)
*"George White's 1935 Scandals " (1935)
*"Broadway Melody of 1936 " (1935)
*"Born to Dance " (1936)
*"Broadway Melody of 1938 " (1937)
*"Rosalie " (1937)
*"Honolulu" (1939)
*"Broadway Melody of 1940 " (1940)
*"Lady Be Good" (1941)
*"Ship Ahoy " (1942)
*"Thousands Cheer " (1943)
*"I Dood It " (1943)
*"Sensations of 1945 " (1944)
*"Duchess of Idaho " (1950)hort Subjects
*"No Contest!" (1934)
*"Screen Shapshots Series 15, No. 12" (1936)
*"Screen Snapshots: Famous Hollywood Mothers" (1947)
*"Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Holiday" (1948)
*"Have Faith in Our Children" (1955)Notes
References
*Margie Schultz: "Eleanor Powell: A Bio-Bilbiography," Greenwood Press, 1994, ISBN 0-313-28110-6
External links
* [http://classicmoviefavorites.com/powell/ Official site]
*imdb name|id=0007224
*tcmdb name|id=154693
*ibdb name|id=56472
* [http://film.virtual-history.com/person.php?personid=1211 Photographs and literature]
*findagrave|1634Persondata
NAME= Powell, Eleanor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION= Dancer, actress
DATE OF BIRTH= 21 November 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH=Springfield, Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH= 11 February 1982
PLACE OF DEATH=Beverly Hills, California
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