---
name: "Jane Powell"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/jane-powell"
roles: ["Actor"]
born: "1 April 1929"
died: "16 September 2021"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
average_as: "actor"
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-09-20T02:51:06.266684+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Jane Powell

Actor. Born 1 April 1929 in Portland, Oregon, USA. Died 16 September 2021.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor
- **Born:** 1 April 1929, Portland, Oregon, USA
- **Died:** 16 September 2021
- **Also known as:** Suzanne Lorraine Burce
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Powell, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q260099, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0007225/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/82405

## Streaming the US now

- **Tubi:** [*Seven Brides for Seven Brothers*](https://film.one/film/seven-brides-for-seven-brothers.md) (76)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Jane Powell

> Jane Powell had an unforced soprano and a face MGM read as sensible, which is why it kept her in school uniform. *Seven Brides for Seven Brothers* shows what she could do with a grown woman, and it is nearly the only time anyone let her.

Milly Pontipee marries a stranger before supper, rides up a mountain, and finds six unwashed brothers waiting in the cabin. She does not cry. That is the Jane Powell moment, and it is the one we would show anyone who thinks of her as a pair of ringlets and a top C. Powell is small and brisk in *Seven Brides for Seven Brothers* (1954), and she plays Milly as a woman who has taken a bad deal and decided to run it, teaching the brothers to bow and hold a partner in 'Goin' Courtin''. We went in expecting a decorative ingénue and came out on her side of the argument, and that first look round the cabin is what did it.

The part was a long time coming. MGM signed her in 1943, when she was fourteen, and gave her a new name and a screen debut in *Song of the Open Road* (1944). What followed was a run of glossy studio musicals in which she was the girl next door with a coloratura soprano; *A Date with Judy* (1948) is typical. *Royal Wedding* (1951) let her dance opposite Fred Astaire and showed she could, but it did not change what the studio saw in her. She said later that in eleven years at MGM nobody ever let her play anything but teenagers, and the record bears her out. *Hit the Deck* (1955) was one of the last of them, and after the studio era the films thinned out. She went to the stage instead, including Broadway in *Irene* in 1973, took television guest parts, and was still singing late in life with Pink Martini.

What works is the voice, which never seems to cost her anything, and the briskness, which the studio mostly asked her to hide under a smile. Stanley Donen, who directed her twice, is the one who let it out. Set against Howard Keel's big, easy baritone and his straight-faced boorishness, her Milly is the person on screen who knows the joke is on him, and the film only half-knows what it is doing because she is in it. Most critics have found her a little anodyne next to Judy Garland, and next to Garland almost anyone is. The fairer complaint is that she was rarely handed anything to push against.

Start with *Seven Brides*, where she holds a difficult film together, just. The rest of the MGM years are pleasant and hard to tell apart, and the fault for that lies with the people who kept casting a grown woman as a schoolgirl. Powell said the films quit her rather than the other way round, and on the evidence of Milly it is hard to disagree.

## Biography

Jane Powell, born Suzanne Lorraine Burce, was an American actress, singer and dancer. She began performing on radio and in local theatre as a child in Portland, Oregon, before making her screen debut in 1944.

She appeared in a series of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals during the 1940s and 1950s. Powell played the role of Milly Pontipee in *Seven Brides for Seven Brothers* (1954). Later credits include appearances in *Royal Wedding* (1951) and television series such as *Fantasy Island* (1978) and *Murder, She Wrote* (1984). She also performed on stage in productions including *South Pacific*, *The Sound of Music*, *Oklahoma!*, *My Fair Lady* and *Carousel*.

Powell died on 16 September 2021.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, theguardian.com, oregonencyclopedia.org.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *Seven Brides for Seven Brothers* (1954), Fi1m 76, as Bride Milly Pontipee — [page](https://film.one/film/seven-brides-for-seven-brothers.md)

## Complete filmography (37)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *The Sandy Bottom Orchestra* (2000), as Delia Ferguson
- *Perfect Murder, Perfect Town: JonBenét and the City of Boulder* (2000), as Kit Andre
- *Law & Order: Special Victims Unit* (1999), series, as Bess Sherman
- *That's Entertainment! III* (1994), as (archive footage) (uncredited)
- *Nelson and Jeanette: America's Singing Sweethearts* (1992), as Host
- *Growing Pains* (1985), series, as Irma Seaver Overmier
- *That's Dancing!* (1985), Actor
- *Murder, She Wrote* (1984), series, as Rev. Mother Claire
- *Fantasy Island* (1978), series, as Joan Wade
- *The Love Boat* (1977), series, as Aunt Loretta, Grace Bostwick
- *Mayday at 40,000 Feet* (1977), as Kitty Douglass
- *Tubby the Tuba* (1975), as Celeste (voice)
- *That's Entertainment!* (1974), as (archive footage) (uncredited)
- *The Letters* (1973), as Elaine Anderson
- *Feathertop* (1961), as Julie Balfour
- *The DuPont Show with June Allyson* (1959), series, as Lois Walters
- *Meet Me in St. Louis* (1959), as Esther Smith
- *Enchanted Island* (1958), as Fayaway
- *The Girl Most Likely* (1958), as Dodie
- *The Female Animal* (1958), as Penny Windsor
- *Alcoa Theatre* (1957), series, as Julie Kingstone / Hilde Frenz, Harriet Kennedy, Kathy Dorn
- *Hit the Deck* (1955), as Susan Smith
- *Deep in My Heart* (1954), as Performer (segment "Maytime")
- *Athena* (1954), as Athena
- *Seven Brides for Seven Brothers* (1954), as Bride Milly Pontipee — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/film/seven-brides-for-seven-brothers.md)
- *Three Sailors and a Girl* (1953), as Penny Weston
- *Small Town Girl* (1953), as Cindy Kimbell
- *Rich, Young and Pretty* (1951), as Elizabeth Rogers
- *Royal Wedding* (1951), as Ellen Bowen
- *Two Weeks with Love* (1950), as Patti Robinson
- *Nancy Goes to Rio* (1950), as Nancy Barklay
- *Luxury Liner* (1948), as Polly Bradford
- *A Date with Judy* (1948), as Judy Foster
- *Three Daring Daughters* (1948), as Tess Morgan
- *Holiday in Mexico* (1946), as Christine Evans
- *Delightfully Dangerous* (1945), as Sherry Williams
- *Song of the Open Road* (1944), as Jane Powell

## Gallery

- ![Jane Powell](https://film.one/media/person/1238107/gallery-5ade67187526.jpg) Jane Powell — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Jane_Powell_1952.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Publicity portrait of Jane Powell by MGM (1954)](https://film.one/media/person/1238107/gallery-f443da867c6e.jpg) Publicity portrait of Jane Powell by MGM (1954) — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Jane_Powell_1954_portrait.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Sept. 17 1998 Baltimore M.D. Senator theater (2010)](https://film.one/media/person/1238107/gallery-190d49a98ead.jpg) Sept. 17 1998 Baltimore M.D. Senator theater (2010) — Kingkongphoto & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel  Maryland, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/57/Jane_Powell.jpg/1280px-Jane_Powell.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Jane Powell with her second Husband Patrick W. Nerney, 1955](https://film.one/media/person/1238107/gallery-8b4d3064e08d.jpg) Jane Powell with her second Husband Patrick W. Nerney, 1955 — Virgil Apger (1903-1994) [1], Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Jane_Powell_with_her_second_Husband_Patrick_W._Nerney%2C_1955.jpg/1280px-Jane_Powell_with_her_second_Husband_Patrick_W._Nerney%2C_1955.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Jane Powell](https://film.one/media/person/1238107/gallery-973eec36efc5.jpg) Jane Powell — Image via TMDB
- ![Scena Muda v.34, n.27, 1954 - Jane Powell (2021)](https://film.one/media/person/1238107/gallery-c07343f4d8ad.jpg) Scena Muda v.34, n.27, 1954 - Jane Powell (2021) — A Scena Muda, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Scena_Muda_v.34%2C_n.27%2C_1954_-_Jane_Powell.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)

## Awards

### Other awards — 1 won

- Amateur Cartoonist Extraordinary Award 1974: Amateur Cartoonist Extraordinary Award (won)

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/jane-powell