jane powell

Jane Powell in Royal Wedding (1951). Born Suzanne Lorraine Burce

April 1, 1929 (1929-04-01) (age 80)

Portland, Oregon Spouse(s) Geary Griffin (1949-1953)

Patrick Nerney (1954-1963)

James Fitzgerald (1965-1975)

David Parlour (1978-1981)

Dickie Moore (1988-present)

Jane Powell (born April 1, 1929) is an American singer, dancer and actress. She was a star of MGM musicals as a teenager in the 1940s, and continued in the 1950s. Contents [hide] 1 Early years 2 MGM Years 3 Life after films 4 Television 5 Currently 6 Personal life 7 Filmography 7.1 Features 7.2 Short subjects 8 Television work 9 References 10 External links //

Early years

Born as Suzanne Lorraine Burce in Portland, Oregon, she sang on the radio as a child, and performed in theater before her film career began in 1944 at Universal Studios. She appeared in her first film, Song of the Open Road (1944), at the age of 15; her stage name "Jane Powell" was the name of the character she plays in the film, and prior to its release, MGM assigned this to her as her stage name.[1]

MGM Years

After her contract at Universal lapsed, Powell was signed by MGM in late 1945. Her first assignment was the musical Holiday in Mexico (1946), which brought her comparisons to Deanna Durbin. But Powell's charm and spunk made her stand out in her follow-up vehicle Three Daring Daughters, in which she co-starred with Jeanette MacDonald, who took the young performer under her wing. The film proved another hit and she was giving top billing in a string of Joe Pasternak-produced musicals including A Date with Judy (1948) with schoolmate Elizabeth Taylor, and Nancy Goes to Rio (1950) with Ann Sothern. Along with many other Hollywood stars, Powell performed at the Inauguration Ball for President Harry S. Truman on January 20, 1949.

Powell got the chance to sing and dance with Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding (1951), when she was brought in to replace Judy Garland. Her best-known film is probably Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), opposite Howard Keel, which gave her the opportunity to play a more mature character than previous films. Her other films include: Rich, Young and Pretty (1951), Small Town Girl (1953), Three Sailors and a Girl (1953), Athena (1954), Deep in My Heart (1954), Hit the Deck (1955), and The Girl Most Likely (1957). In 1956 Powell recorded a song, "True Love", that rose to 15 on the Billboard charts and 107 on the pop charts for that year, according to the Joel Whitburn compilation. This was her only single to make the charts.

Life after films

By the end of the 1950s, Hollywood musicals began to lose popularity, and her film career effectively ended. In a 1995 interview with Robert Osborne, Powell indicated that MGM released her from her contract as part of a regime