Friday, September 17, 2021

Jane Powell, 1929-2021

Jane Powell and Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding (1951)

Actress Jane Powell, who started as a teenager at MGM in the 1940s before appearing in iconic musicals like Royal Wedding and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, has died at the age of 92.

I'm not the biggest fan of musicals, so I don't really have one movie of Powell's that I would recommend first up, although Royal Wedding has the famous scene of Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling.

Later in life, Powell became an advertising spokesman for Polident denture adhesive, joining a long line of Golden Age stars doing commercials. Speaking of Golden Age stars, she was approached by Dickie Moore in the mid-1980s when he was doing research for a book he was writing on child stars, he having started at an even earlier age than Powell. The two fell in love and eventually married, remaining married for 27 years until Moore's death in 2015.

Powell was also a substitute host for a week on TCM back in 2011 when Robert Osborne had to take an emergency break, the first of many before his ultimate death in 2017. Powell didn't actually talk much about the movies she was presenting, although I remember her saying something to the effect that she didn't get to know certain other stars (I think she was specifically referring to Doris Day at Warner Bros.) very well because of the way the stars worked back then: since all the MGM stars were on the lot so much, they wound up spending evenings together, while the same was true with the contract players from the other studios and, so she claimed, there wasn't as much mixing as there might otherwise have been. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any of those guest hosting segments on Youtube.

I don't know if there's been a TCM Remembers piece for Powell up yet; if so I'm pretty certain it would be the first one under the new graphics package. I also haven't been able to find anything yet on whether TCM has scheduled a programming tribute to Powell.

2 comments:

joel65913 said...

92 is a fabulous run but I was still sorry to hear of her passing. If I'm not wrong she was the last of the really big musical stars from the Golden Age.

I'd forgotten about her commercials, I guess they weren't as impactful as Jane Withers as Josephine the Plumber or Ann Blyth for Hostess Twinkies (I know she made musicals as well but when I think of her it's always noir that comes to mind first).

I read her autobiography not long ago and it was full of fascinating tidbits. She came across, as she did in interviews, as a good-natured, positive minded pro. I admired the fact that she never became mired in the past. She always looked put together but her style was simple glamour, a flattering contemporary hairstyle and makeup that didn't appear to garish.

I have a soft spot for A Date with Judy but Seven Brides probably showed her to her best advantage.

Birgit said...

I always liked Jane Powell and her beautiful voice showcased in ADate With Judy and, of course, 7 Brides. I am sad that she passed away even though she had a long life. Now, Ann Blyth is left known for her nasty daughter take to pious Mommy in Mildred Pierce but she had a beautiful voice as well showcased in The Student Prince.