Eleanor Powell

Resources: Official Eleanor Powell Tribute Site (http://www.lynnpdesign.com/classicmovies/tapdancing/bio.html), IMDB.com (http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0007224/bio). Having been awarded an OBE in 1993, Routledge was given a CBE in 2004. Eleanor Powell died of cancer on 11 February 1982 and was interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood. Some Harry Potter fans have suggested Routledge for the role of Dolores Umbridge for the movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2006 or 2007). Powell was reintroduced to audiences in the popular That's Entertainment! documentary in 1974, and its sequels That's Entertainment Part II and That's Entertainment III which spotlighted her dancing from films such as Broadway Melody of 1940 and Born to Dance. In the United States, in addition to her Tony Award-winning role in Darling of the Day, she appeared in a number of short-lived musicals including the legendary 1976 flop, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Her son, Peter Ford, was a regular on this show. Routledge was last seen in the West End in 2004 in The Solid Gold Cadillac.

She also hosted an Emmy Award-winning Sunday morning TV program for children entitled The Faith of Our Children (1953 - 1955). A recent BBC radio dramatisation of Carole Hayman's "Ladies of Letters" sees Patricia playing pensioner Vera Small in a two-hander with Prunella Scales (as Irene Spencer), a gentle, quintessentially British comedy where the two ladies exchange letters (more recently e-mails) full of acerbic comment and ironic asides. In her later years, she became interested in religion, and was actually ordained a minister of the Unity Church. She has also played several real-life characters on television, including Barbara Pym and Hildegard of Bingen. She divorced Ford in 1959, and that year started a highly-publicized nightclub career, maintaining her good figure and looks well into middle age. In 1996, she took the lead in another long-running series, this time a drama, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates. In 1950, Powell returned to MGM just once, to guest star in The Duchess of Idaho, starring Esther Williams. It was in 1990 that she first played the comic role of Hyacinth Bucket, an originally working-class woman with social pretensions (for example, she insists on pronouncing her surname "Bouquet").

She danced in a giant pinball machine in Sensations of 1945 (1944), but this picture was a large disappointment, and Powell retired from the cinema to concentrate on raising her son, actor Peter Ford, who was born that year. Her numerous television appearances, including roles in Coronation Street and several BBC drama serials, failed to make her a household name until the 1980s, when she appeared, amongst other things, in Victoria Wood's comedy series, and Alan Bennett's Talking Heads series of short plays. She parted ways with MGM in 1943 after Thousands Cheer, in which she did a specialty number, and the same year married Canadian lead actor Glenn Ford. Around this time, she also acted alongside Sidney Poitier in the film To Sir, With Love. 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 by Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. Her appearance in Darling of the Day won her a Tony Award in 1968 (she shared the honor that year with Leslie Uggams, who also won for Hallelujah, Baby!). The same happened with Red Skelton in Ship Ahoy (1942) and I Dood It (1943). She appeared in many stage productions, including musicals, and made her Broadway debut in 1966.

1941's Lady Be Good gave Powell top billing, but Robert Young and Ann Sothern carried the movie. She was born at Birkenhead in Cheshire, and educated at the University of Liverpool, going on to act at the Liverpool Playhouse. She went on to study at the Bristol Old Vic's theatre school. In the 1940s, after being sidelined for many months following a gall stone operation, things changed somewhat for the worse, at least as far as Powell's movie career was concerned. Patricia Routledge (born 17 February 1929) is a popular British actress, best known for television roles such as Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances. Together, Astaire and Powell danced to Porter's "Begin The Beguine", which is considered by many to have been the greatest tap sequence in film history. Most of these movies featured her amazing solo tapping, although her increasingly huge production numbers began to attract criticism. Broadway Melody of 1940, in which Powell starred opposite Fred Astaire, featured a brilliant musical score by Cole Porter.

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). 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. She was well-received in Broadway Melody of 1936 (in which she was supported by Jack Benny and Frances Langford), and delighted 1930s audiences with her endless energy and enthusiasm, not to mention her stunning dancing. Nonetheless, she was signed by MGM soon after, which groomed her for her future stardom making minimal changes in her (non-Egyptian) makeup and conduct.

The experience left her unimpressed with Hollywood. In 1935, the leggy, fresh-faced Powell made the move to Hollywood and did a specialty number in George White's 1935 Scandals which she later described as a disaster due in part to her accidentally being made up to look like an Egyptian due to a mix-up prior to filming her scene. During this time, she was dubbed "the world's greatest tap dancer" due to her machine-gun footwork. When she was 17, she brought her graceful, athletic style to Broadway, where she starred in various revues and musicals.

A dancer since childhood, she was discovered at the age of 11 by the head of the Vaudeville Kiddie revue, Gus Edwards. Eleanor Torrey Powell was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. Eleanor Powell (21 November 1912 - 11 February 1982) was an American actress and dancer of the 1930s and 1940s, known for her exuberant solo tap dancing.