By Jennie Johanson
The golden-haired soprano was standing before a mirror, humming a tune and clutching a sparkly red dress to her chest. The door opened a crack and her brother launched a wind-up toy penguin into the bedroom. The slim twenty-something stooped to pick up the bird that was waddling towards her and launched into a song about how she wished she could be as carefree as her “feathered friend.” She sang, “every time you have a date, you’re not in a nervous state, lucky bird…you don’t cause a lot of talk if you wiggle when you walk, lucky bird.” Amazingly enough, the perky blond did not come across as seductive even while demonstrating said wiggle and changing into the red halter-top dress behind a dressing screen while winking at the camera. That’s because this cutie was actress Jane Powell performing in another one of her MGM Technicolor musicals.
Unlike the sexy blond bombshells Marilyn Monroe and Lana Turner, Jane Powell was Hollywood’s nice “girl next door.” Her screen personality was bubbly, friendly and cheerful. However, in her autobiography, Jane describes herself as a lonely and tearful child who was pushed by her parents into being “another Shirley Temple.” This included dancing lessons and perms, starting at the age of two! She was an only child, her “mother’s toy,” to be dressed up and shown off. But even though she was groomed to be a star from a young age, she never felt she really was one – just a kid from Portland Oregon.
Jane was the only child of Paul and Eileen Burce, born on April 1st, 1929. “Suzanne Burce” (later Jane Powell) started singing on the radio at the age of five for the “Stars of Tomorrow,” program. By twelve she was named the “Oregon Victory Girl” and worked selling war bonds for two years during the war. Although she loved to sing and was grateful for her opportunities, as a child all she wanted was to have friends and go to school with other children her age. She was always being pulled out of school and moved around due to her work however.
With her peers, Suzanne always felt like an outsider, and it didn’t get any better once she arrived in Hollywood. Yet, some of her peers were welcoming, and she did become friends with Roddy McDowell, whose house she spent many happy Sunday afternoons at. Not everyone was so gracious, though. Once she went to a swanky party where there were many major stars, including her Shirley Temple. What could have been an exciting moment proved to be embarrassing when she caught the famous actress mimicking her opera singing. Once Shirley saw that Jane had noticed her impression, she blushed and turned away, but it only served to reinforce the feeling that she didn’t belong in Hollywood or as the girl next door.
“I’ll tell you how I felt then. Not like Cinderella and not like Jane and not even like Suzanne anymore. Everyone said I was wholesome and sweet and darling, but I felt I was an ordinary person doing an unusual job. Who WAS this Jane Powell, The Girl Next Door? I wasn’t really The Girl Next Door, and I didn’t feel like a movie star, either. I didn’t know what I was. I just felt a real Girl Next Door had a better time.
She knew more than I did, dated more than I did, had more friends than I did. She had a mother and a father who were loving to each other. She went to football games, had pajama parties, flirted with boys, ate lunch with girls, saw movies with boys and girls, drank sodas in the drugstore. She took physical education classes, ate in the school cafeteria, worried about shaving her legs and wearing silk stockings. I was not that person.”
Once it was time to plan her wedding, she did not even know who to ask to be her bridesmaids. Her MGM co-star Elizabeth Taylor became one of them, and she later became hers, but they were never close. People assumed they were, but Jane confessed that the reason they were in each other’s weddings is because “we just didn’t know anyone else to ask. How were we supposed to meet anyone else? We were both working all the time. It was hard to find enough bridesmaids for us.
The irony is that someone as sheltered as she was, Jane had a “Dear Abby” type advice column! Teenagers would write to her for advice, and “Jane Powell” would respond – only in actuality she did not write the column, somebody else did under her name.
“I lived a dream, but it wasn’t mine.” Most of her life was spent pleasing other people and fulfilling their ideas of what she should do, even her marriage at the tender age of twenty, which the press was thrilled about. “The Girl Next Door was SUPPOSED to get married was supposed to pick an athletic, All-American boy. Once again I’d pleased my public by living out their fantasies, not mine.” Although she didn’t realize it at the time, looking back Jane believed the reason she got married was to escape her parents and their unhappiness.
Four years and two children later, Jane filed for divorce. From the start, her marriage had been unhappy, and although she was judged and criticized by the public, for the first time, she chose to ignore them. “All the while, I heard Mama’s words in my ears, ‘we only stayed together because of you, honey.’ What a burden to put on someone – especially a child. I was afraid I might say those same words to my children.”
In the meantime, Jane was busier than ever, caring for her two children and working full time. However, she was always full of seemingly superhuman energy. “I realize now that my energy helped me avoid facing my problems. I was always running, probably running away.” Her movie musicals from this time feature famous co-stars such as Fred Astaire, Debbie Reynolds and Howard Keel. Jane Powell wrote that her favorite movie was “Two Weeks With Love,” a story about a Victorian family, which in some ways resembled the Judy Garland musical “Meet Me In St. Louis.” She plays a teenage daughter who wants to be grown up and allowed to wear a corset. Not only did she enjoy the cast and the music, but she could also relate to the character’s longing to be considered a grown woman.
After her divorce, she did marry again. And divorce again. And marry again. She was married five times in total, which is why at the beginning of her biography, she jokingly promised not to give advice (because she said after four failed marriages, who would want her advice?) But looking back, she saw that one of the mistakes she made was choosing men who needed help, because she was again acting out the role she had practiced from early childhood, helping and pleasing her parents.
When she finally left MGM, the era of movie musicals was coming to a close. “For the first time in my life, I had to take care of myself. All I’d ever known was the studio. I was protected and guided by it. I hadn’t realized how much the studio had taken care of – the singing lessons, publicity, dancing lessons, guidance. Where do you go now for all those things? I wondered.”
She turned to the theater, and her career was revived with her live performances in musicals such as “My Fair Lady,” “The Sound of Music” and the stage version of one of her most popular movies, “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.” Her children would travel with her at first, but they soon tired of it. “They preferred spending time with their own friends to hanging around theaters watching their mother – and I didn’t blame them.” She did her best to stay connected even while touring – calling two or three times a day and even ordering the groceries by phone.
Unfortunately, years of singing incorrectly eventually damaged her career’s most valuable asset, her beautiful soprano voice. However, the deterioration of her voice was nothing compared to her worry regarding the welfare of her children. Jane’s son left home to live with his father, and later she found that he had started experimenting with drugs. All she could do was pray as he made one bad decision after another, but finally he started attending AA and decided to turn his life around. Jane herself started going to therapy and trying to put her own life in order, which previously she had never found the time for.
When she got married for the fifth and final time, it was to another former child star named Dickie Moore. They currently reside in Connecticut, and Jane was finally able to achieve a sense of peace in her life instead of the familiar feeling of constantly struggling. Letting go of the expectations other people have for her has allowed her to find freedom from constant worry and insecurities. At the end of her autobiography, she described herself as the happiest she has ever been. Life is full of learning and subsequent growth.
I will conclude with this quote from Jane Powell’s autobiography. “Everyday life? We all live it, in Hollywood or Portland or pulling weeds in Connecticut. The trick is to live it and appreciate it. And I think I’m finally beginning to learn how.”
Listen to Jane Powell on our ‘Crossover from the Golden Age’ playlist