1. Eleanor Torrey Powell was an American dancer and actress.
47 Facts About Eleanor Powell
1. 2.
Eleanor Powell retired from films in the mid-1940s but resurfaced for the occasional specialty dance scene in films such as Thousands Cheer.
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Eleanor Powell is known as one of the most versatile and athletic female dancers of the Hollywood studio era.
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Eleanor Powell's father left her and her mother when she was two years old.
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Eleanor Powell was raised by her mother with the help of her maternal grandparents.
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Eleanor Powell was a painfully shy child, not even able to greet guests who would come into her family's own house.
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Eleanor Powell trained locally with Ralph McKernan in classical ballet and "interpretive" modern dance.
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Eleanor Powell immediately showed a natural aptitude for movement and was discovered by Gus Edwards while performing acrobatics on a beach in Atlantic City, NJ.
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Eleanor Powell subsequently began working her first paid gigs for Edwards at the age of 12, during her summer holidays.
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Eleanor Powell performed an acrobatic "specialty" act, and was by no means a star in the show; however, her consistently favorable reviews led to other paid performance opportunities, and eventually, more featured spots.
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In 1927, Eleanor Powell took a break from her schooling and moved with her mother to New York City.
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Eleanor Powell was signed by William Grady at the William Morris Agency, and although she managed to book jobs almost immediately dancing in clubs, vaudeville and at private parties, her acrobatic specialty which had impressed in Atlantic City was not enough for a career on Broadway.
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Eleanor Powell disliked tap at first and had to be coaxed in order to return after her first lesson.
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Eleanor Powell was strongly influenced by John "Bubbles" Sublett in particular, who was a highly inventive and creative tap dancer.
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Sublett "got down into the floor" and his style and inventiveness were a huge inspiration to Eleanor Powell, who had recently "found the floor" herself.
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Eleanor Powell named John "Bubbles" Sublett as one of her main influences, and it shows in her grounded, syncopated footwork.
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Eleanor Powell developed a dance style that fused her ballet and acrobatic abilities with her grounded taps.
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Eleanor Powell moved smoothly and effortlessly through fast, complex footwork, barely leaving the floor, even to perform tap steps that take place while airborne, such as double pullbacks.
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Eleanor Powell incorporated Hula for the film Honolulu, which then infiltrated her choreography for years to come.
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In 1935, Eleanor Powell made the move to Hollywood and showcased her talent in a specialty number in her first major film, George White's 1935 Scandals.
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Eleanor Powell reportedly attempted to dissuade the studio by making what she believed were unreasonable salary demands.
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Eleanor Powell was well received in her first starring role in 1935 Broadway Melody of 1936, and delighted 1930s audiences with her endless energy and enthusiasm, not to mention her stunning dancing.
23.
Miller credits Eleanor Powell for inspiring her own dancing career, which would lead her to become an MGM musical star a decade later.
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Eleanor Powell would go on to star opposite many of the decade's top leading men, including James Stewart, Robert Taylor, Fred Astaire, George Murphy, Nelson Eddy, and Robert Young.
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Eleanor Powell's characters sang, but Powell's singing voice was usually dubbed.
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Together, Astaire and Eleanor Powell danced to Porter's "Begin the Beguine", which is considered by many to be one of the greatest tap sequences in film history.
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Eleanor Powell really knocked out a tap dance in a class by herself.
28.
Lady Be Good gave Eleanor Powell top billing and a classic dance routine to "Fascinatin' Rhythm," but the main stars were Ann Sothern and Robert Young.
29.
Ship Ahoy and I Dood It, in which Eleanor Powell starred with Red Skelton, are considered lesser efforts, although in Ship Ahoy, her character played a central role in the story, and Eleanor Powell's dance skills were put to practical use when she managed to tap out a Morse code message to a secret agent in the middle of a dance routine.
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Eleanor Powell 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 by Gene Kelly and Judy Garland.
31.
Eleanor Powell parted with MGM in 1943 after her next film, Thousands Cheer, in which she appeared only for a few minutes to perform a specialty number, and the same year married actor Glenn Ford.
32.
Eleanor Powell danced in a giant pinball machine in Sensations of 1945 for United Artists, but the film was a critical and commercial disappointment.
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Eleanor Powell's performance was overshadowed by what was to be the final film appearance of W C Fields.
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Eleanor Powell then retired to concentrate on raising her son, Peter Ford, who was born that year.
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Eleanor Powell appeared in a couple of documentary-style short subjects about celebrities in the late 1940s.
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In 1950, Eleanor Powell returned to MGM one last time in Duchess of Idaho, starring Esther Williams.
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Eleanor Powell begins with a staid, almost balletic performance until she is chided by Layne for being lazy.
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Williams, in her autobiography The Million Dollar Mermaid, writes of being touched, watching Eleanor Powell rehearsing until her feet bled, in order to make her brief appearance as perfect as possible.
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Eleanor Powell's 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.
40.
In 1955, Eleanor Powell made her last 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 Eleanor Powell asked viewers to donate to the charity.
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The short, which other than its title had no relation to the TV series, marked the only time Eleanor Powell appeared on screen with Glenn Ford.
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Eleanor Powell divorced Ford in 1959, and that year, encouraged by Peter, launched a highly publicized nightclub career, including performances in Las Vegas and appearances at Lou Walters' Latin Quarter in Boston.
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Eleanor Powell made her final public appearance in 1981 at a televised American Film Institute tribute to Fred Astaire, where she received a standing ovation.
44.
Eleanor Powell died February 11,1982, of ovarian cancer, aged 69, and is interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood in the Cathedral Mausoleum, Foyer Niche 432, Tier 3.
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Eleanor Powell is one of only a few performers to be the subject of spotlight segments in all four films.
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Eleanor Powell's films continue to be broadcast on television regularly by Turner Classic Movies, with most released in the VHS video format in 1980s and 1990s.
47.
Since 2007 several other Eleanor Powell films have emerged on DVD, including Rosalie, I Dood It and Sensations of 1945.