Lena Olin

She currently lives in New York with her husband and two children. Resources: Official Eleanor Powell Tribute Site (http://www.lynnpdesign.com/classicmovies/tapdancing/bio.html), IMDB.com (http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0007224/bio). Olin received immense critical acclaim for her part in Alias, and was rumored to have been offered a salary upwards of $100,000 per episode to remain part of the cast. She left the show after her first season, however, reportedly to spend more time with her family. Eleanor Powell died of cancer on 11 February 1982 and was interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood. From 2002 to 2003, Olin appeared opposite Jennifer Garner in the American television series Alias. For her role in the series as Irina Derevko/Laura Bristow, she received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in 2003. 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 1994, she married Lasse Hallström, a film director with whom she worked in 2000 in Chocolat, giving one of the best perfomances of her career. Her son, Peter Ford, was a regular on this show.

Her first spouse was Örjan Ramberg, from whom she divorced. She also hosted an Emmy Award-winning Sunday morning TV program for children entitled The Faith of Our Children (1953 - 1955). Olin married twice. In her later years, she became interested in religion, and was actually ordained a minister of the Unity Church. She appears in many different plays, from classic to contemporary. She divorced Ford in 1959, and that year started a highly-publicized nightclub career, maintaining her good figure and looks well into middle age. Olin is today a prominent member of the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, where she began her career as young actress. In 1950, Powell returned to MGM just once, to guest star in The Duchess of Idaho, starring Esther Williams.

In 1989, she earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress Enemies: A Love Story, in which she portrayed the survivor of a Nazi camp. 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. In 1988, she played in her first American film opposite Daniel Day-Lewis, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and became a well-known and respected actress. 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. The year before she had appeared in the Swedish film Fanny and Alexander, also directed by Bergman. 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. Olin's international debut in an English-spoken film, again directed by Bergman, was in 1984 in After the Rehearsal. The same happened with Red Skelton in Ship Ahoy (1942) and I Dood It (1943).

Later she acted at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, directed by Bergman. 1941's Lady Be Good gave Powell top billing, but Robert Young and Ann Sothern carried the movie. It was he who casted her for the first time, after she had not passed her first audition because of her shyness. 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. After studying acting at the drama school of the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, Olin performed on stage classic plays of Shakespeare and Ibsen and appeared in smaller roles of several Swedish films directed by Bergman. 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. Her father was also an actor and had appeared in several of Ingmar Bergman's films. 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.

She was born in Stockholm. 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). Lena Olin (born March 22, 1956) is a Swedish-born actress. 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. Face to Face (1976). 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. The Adventures of Picasso (1978). 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.

Love (1980). The experience left her unimpressed with Hollywood. One Week Bachelors (1982). 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. Fanny and Alexander (1983). During this time, she was dubbed "the world's greatest tap dancer" due to her machine-gun footwork. After the Rehearsal (1984). When she was 17, she brought her graceful, athletic style to Broadway, where she starred in various revues and musicals.

Flight North (1986). A dancer since childhood, she was discovered at the age of 11 by the head of the Vaudeville Kiddie revue, Gus Edwards. A Matter of Life and Death (1986). Eleanor Torrey Powell was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988). 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. Friends (1988).

S/Y Joy (1989). Enemies: A Love Story (1989). Havana (1990). Romeo Is Bleeding (1993).

Jones (1993). Mr. The Night and the Moment (1995). Night Falls on Manhattan (1997).