Hollywood golden-age musicals star Jane Powell dies at 92

Jane Powell, the bright-eyed, operatic-voiced star of Hollywood’s golden age musicals who sang with Howard Keel in ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’ and danced with Fred Astaire in ‘Royal Wedding,’ has died. She was 92.

Powell died Thursday at her Wilton, Connecticut, home, longtime friend Susan Granger said. Granger said Powell died of natural causes. Powell made her film debut in 1944’s ‘Song of the Open Road,’ directed by Granger’s father, S Sylvan Simon.

She performed virtually her whole life, starting about age 5 as a singing prodigy on radio in Portland, Oregon. On screen, she quickly graduated from teen roles to the lavish musical productions that were a 20th-century Hollywood staple.

Powell cemented her popularity and growing fame with roles in 1945’s Delightfully Dangerous, 1948’s A Date With Judy and, in 1951, a career-defining role opposite Astaire in Royal Wedding, in which the two played a brother-sister dance act.

Several musical films followed, leading to Powell’s second signature role as Milly Pontipee in 1954’s Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

After 13 years at MGM, though, Powell quit the studio, reasoning that she was going to be fired “because they weren’t going to be doing musicals anymore.”