Jane Powell

Powell lives in Connecticut, USA, with her fifth husband, Dick Moore, and still performs today. Having been awarded an OBE in 1993, Routledge was given a CBE in 2004. Her stage roles include "South Pacific", "The Sound of Music", "Oklahoma!", "My Fair Lady", "Carousel", "The Girl Next Door and How She Grew", and "Irene". 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). Since then Powell has continued to work in television, radio, and live performances. 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. By the end of the 1950s, Hollywood musicals began to lose popularity, and her film career ended. Routledge was last seen in the West End in 2004 in The Solid Gold Cadillac.

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). 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. Her best know film is probably Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), which gave her the opportunity to play a more mature character than previous films. She has also played several real-life characters on television, including Barbara Pym and Hildegard of Bingen. Powell got the chance to sing and dance with Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding (1951), when she was brought in as a replacement for both June Allyson and Judy Garland. In 1996, she took the lead in another long-running series, this time a drama, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates. Her first MGM musical was Holiday in Mexico (1946), which brought her to the public's attention, and she was later billed as the co-star in several films including A Date With Judy (1948), and Nancy Goes to Rio (1950). 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 appeared in her first film, Song of the Open Road (1944), at age 15. 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. Born Suzanne Burce in Portland, Oregon, USA, she sang on the radio as a child, and performed in theater before her film career began in 1944. Around this time, she also acted alongside Sidney Poitier in the film To Sir, With Love. She was the petite blonde with an operatic singing voice in many MGM musicals in the 1940s and 1950s. 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!). Jane Powell (born April 1, 1928) is an American actress. She appeared in many stage productions, including musicals, and made her Broadway debut in 1966.

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. Patricia Routledge (born 17 February 1929) is a popular British actress, best known for television roles such as Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances.