Mala Powers
British postcard in the Picturegoer series, London, no. D 298. Photo: Republic Pictures.
American actress Mala Powers (1931-2007 ) played the lovely Roxanne opposite José Ferrer in Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) and starred in other Hollywood films of the 1950s. She was a leading authority on the acting techniques of Russian-American theatre practitioner Michael Chekhov.
Mary Ellen Powers was born in 1931 in San Francisco, US. Her father was an executive with United Press International. After losing his job, her father moved the family to Hollywood in the Summer of 1940. She attended the Max Reinhardt Junior Workshop and fell in love with acting the first time she set foot on a stage. At 11, she made her film debut in the Dead End Kids film Tough As They Come (William Nigh, 1942). Actress Helene Thimig, Max Reinhardt's wife, convinced her to continue studying rather than become a child actress. In 1947, she worked on radio dramas like Cisco Kid, This Is Your F.B.I., and Screen Guild on the Air. On the latter show, she met actress-director Ida Lupino, who auditioned and approved Powers for the lead role as a rape victim in Outrage (Ida Lupino, 1950), made by Lupino's Filmmakers production company. The film created a minor sensation since rape had never been treated frankly on the screen because of the industry’s self-censorship. The same year, the 19-years-old Powers appeared opposite José Ferrer in Cyrano de Bergerac (Michael Gordon, 1950), which won him an Oscar and her a Golden Globe nomination. RKO boss, billionaire Howard Hughes was impressed by Powers’s performances and placed her under contract at his studio. Powers' promising career was derailed by illness. While on a Christmas entertainment tour in Korea in 1951 she became ill and nearly died. She was treated with chloromycetin, but a severe allergic reaction resulted in the loss of much of her bone marrow. Powers barely survived, and her recovery took nearly nine months.
When Mala Powers resumed work, it was in RKO productions like Rose of Cimarron (Harry Keller, 1952), City Beneath the Sea (Budd Boetticher, 1953), and City That Never Sleeps (John H. Auer, 1953). Later she became the B queen with such Science Fiction films as The Unknown Terror (Charles Marquis Warren, 1957), and The Colossus of New York (Eugène Lourié, 1958). Mala Powers’s film career dwindled in the late 1950s, but she remained active in radio, stage and television. She appeared in more than one hundred episodes of such television series as Maverick, Bonanza, Mission: Impossible, Bewitched, The Wild Wild West, Cheyenne, Wanted: Dead or Alive and Rawhide. Powers trained directly under Russian-American actor, director, author, and theatre practitioner Michael Chekhov for many years during her time in Hollywood in both group and private sessions. Over this period of time, Powers and Chekhov grew very close, and after his death she was named executrix of the Chekhov estate. She became one of the founders of the National Michael Chekhov Association and was considered a leading authority on his acting techniques. She wrote the book Michael Chekhov on Theatre and the Art of Acting: The Five-Hour Master Class. As a visiting professor, she lectured at major universities across the country. Her later films include Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (Mark Robson, 1969), the Argentinean horror film Seis pasajes al infierno/Six Tickets to Hell (Fernando Siro, 1981), and the thriller Hitters (Eric Weston, 2002) with Robert Davi. In 2003 she made her final stage appearance, in Mr. Shaw Goes to Hollywood at the Laguna Playhouse in California. Two years later she made one more screen appearance in the short comedy The Connextion (Jonathan Phillips, 2005). The film was developed through the Michael Chekhov Technique, used by all of the actors and crew. Mala Powers died in 2007 at a Burbank, California, hospital. She was 75 The cause was complications of leukaemia, She was survived by Toren Vanton (1957), her son from her first marriage to Los Angeles real estate man Monte Vanton, which ended in divorce. Her second husband was the publisher M. Hughes Miller.
Sources: Tom Weaver (IMDb), The New York Times, Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
Mala Powers
British postcard in the Picturegoer series, London, no. D 298. Photo: Republic Pictures.
American actress Mala Powers (1931-2007 ) played the lovely Roxanne opposite José Ferrer in Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) and starred in other Hollywood films of the 1950s. She was a leading authority on the acting techniques of Russian-American theatre practitioner Michael Chekhov.
Mary Ellen Powers was born in 1931 in San Francisco, US. Her father was an executive with United Press International. After losing his job, her father moved the family to Hollywood in the Summer of 1940. She attended the Max Reinhardt Junior Workshop and fell in love with acting the first time she set foot on a stage. At 11, she made her film debut in the Dead End Kids film Tough As They Come (William Nigh, 1942). Actress Helene Thimig, Max Reinhardt's wife, convinced her to continue studying rather than become a child actress. In 1947, she worked on radio dramas like Cisco Kid, This Is Your F.B.I., and Screen Guild on the Air. On the latter show, she met actress-director Ida Lupino, who auditioned and approved Powers for the lead role as a rape victim in Outrage (Ida Lupino, 1950), made by Lupino's Filmmakers production company. The film created a minor sensation since rape had never been treated frankly on the screen because of the industry’s self-censorship. The same year, the 19-years-old Powers appeared opposite José Ferrer in Cyrano de Bergerac (Michael Gordon, 1950), which won him an Oscar and her a Golden Globe nomination. RKO boss, billionaire Howard Hughes was impressed by Powers’s performances and placed her under contract at his studio. Powers' promising career was derailed by illness. While on a Christmas entertainment tour in Korea in 1951 she became ill and nearly died. She was treated with chloromycetin, but a severe allergic reaction resulted in the loss of much of her bone marrow. Powers barely survived, and her recovery took nearly nine months.
When Mala Powers resumed work, it was in RKO productions like Rose of Cimarron (Harry Keller, 1952), City Beneath the Sea (Budd Boetticher, 1953), and City That Never Sleeps (John H. Auer, 1953). Later she became the B queen with such Science Fiction films as The Unknown Terror (Charles Marquis Warren, 1957), and The Colossus of New York (Eugène Lourié, 1958). Mala Powers’s film career dwindled in the late 1950s, but she remained active in radio, stage and television. She appeared in more than one hundred episodes of such television series as Maverick, Bonanza, Mission: Impossible, Bewitched, The Wild Wild West, Cheyenne, Wanted: Dead or Alive and Rawhide. Powers trained directly under Russian-American actor, director, author, and theatre practitioner Michael Chekhov for many years during her time in Hollywood in both group and private sessions. Over this period of time, Powers and Chekhov grew very close, and after his death she was named executrix of the Chekhov estate. She became one of the founders of the National Michael Chekhov Association and was considered a leading authority on his acting techniques. She wrote the book Michael Chekhov on Theatre and the Art of Acting: The Five-Hour Master Class. As a visiting professor, she lectured at major universities across the country. Her later films include Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (Mark Robson, 1969), the Argentinean horror film Seis pasajes al infierno/Six Tickets to Hell (Fernando Siro, 1981), and the thriller Hitters (Eric Weston, 2002) with Robert Davi. In 2003 she made her final stage appearance, in Mr. Shaw Goes to Hollywood at the Laguna Playhouse in California. Two years later she made one more screen appearance in the short comedy The Connextion (Jonathan Phillips, 2005). The film was developed through the Michael Chekhov Technique, used by all of the actors and crew. Mala Powers died in 2007 at a Burbank, California, hospital. She was 75 The cause was complications of leukaemia, She was survived by Toren Vanton (1957), her son from her first marriage to Los Angeles real estate man Monte Vanton, which ended in divorce. Her second husband was the publisher M. Hughes Miller.
Sources: Tom Weaver (IMDb), The New York Times, Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia, and IMDb.