Eleanor Powell (1912-1982)
by Jenai Cutcher
Despite making just thirteen films in her career,
Eleanor Powell is remembered as MGM’s
“Queen of Taps” and one of the most famous
female dancers in movie history. Her distinctive
style, coupling clear and grounded footwork
with acrobatics and poise, made her MGM’s
answer to Fred Astaire (who was under
contract at RKO Pictures in the 1930s), and one
of the few women soloists in Hollywood at the
time. Her strength as a dancer, matched by the
creative license afforded to her at MGM,
brought forth incredibly imaginative dance
production sequences; Morse code, flamenco,
Western rope tricks, hula, a trained dog, and
more all found their way into Powell’s
choreography.
Eleanor Powell made her professional debut at
age twelve in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where
she spent her summers with family. She was
discovered while doing gymnastics on the beach
and started performing at the Ambassador
Hotel, then later at the Silver Slipper. With the
encouragement of several entertainers who had
seen her there, she moved with her mother
from her hometown of Springfield,
Massachusetts to New York City at age sixteen.
It was 1927, and the city’s theater scene was
thriving. Her first job was in bandleader Ben
Bernie’s club, and in 1928 she performed her
acrobatics in the British revue The Optimists.
She had been taking ballet and acrobatics
classes since she was a child, but because of the
popularity of tap dancing at the time, Powell
knew that she could not continue to get work
for long without learning to tap. She signed up
for ten lessons at Jack Donahue’s school for a
total of $35. Her introductory experience with
tap dance was a story she often recounted.
Powell despised the first class and was unable
to pick up any of the steps that were taught. In
order to help her understand the weighted
qualities of tap dance, which one does not learn
by studying ballet, Donahue strapped an Army
surplus bag to her waist and attached a sandbag
on each side. This helped her to stay close to
the floor and feel the ways in which she needed
to shift her weight. By the seventh lesson, the
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technique was making sense to her, and by the
tenth and last session, she was demonstrating
the routine for the rest of the students. That
was the only formal tap training Eleanor Powell
ever had.
Beyond those lessons, however, Powell
continued to learn and develop. She credits
Donahue with inspiring her to combine what
she learned in tap class with her ballet training.
Every day between performances, Powell would
work out new steps to Fats Waller records in
the empty theater. This is how her signature
moves, like pirouettes with syncopated taps,
were created. John Bubbles, of the vaudeville
duo Buck and Bubbles, was also an early
influence on Powell’s style. While they were on
tour together, he would challenge Powell to
catch his ever-changing, complex steps. She
would often lie on the floor in the wings when
Bubbles was onstage, in order to see as much of
his footwork as possible. Powell’s work at
private events with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson
was undoubtedly important to her
development as a tap dancer. Besides the
young Shirley Temple, Powell was the only
other person ever to learn his famous Stair
Dance directly from him, and she would later
re-create it in Honolulu. Having been tap
dancing for just a year, Powell was named
“World’s Greatest Feminine Tap and Rhythm
Dancer” by the Dance Masters of America, and
she had only just begun.
In 1929, auditioning with the routine Donahue
taught her, Powell was cast in her first
Broadway show, Follow Thru. A succession of
Broadway shows followed, included Fine and
Dandy, Hot-Cha!, and George White’s Music
Hall Varieties. Shortly thereafter, White
included Powell’s stage act in his picture
Scandals of 1935 for Twentieth Century-Fox.
Powell stayed in Hollywood to shoot Broadway
Melody of 1936, which led to her contract at
MGM. Though she was initially set to appear in
a small role, Louis B. Mayer decided to re-cast
her as the lead, igniting a new era of moviemusical-making for the company, built around
their new tap dancing star.
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1935 was a blockbuster year for Powell:
Broadway Melody of 1936 was released, Powell
was back on Broadway in At Home Abroad, and
she had her own weekly radio program. The
New York Times declared hers “the most
eloquent feet in show business” (Andre
Sennwald, September 19, 1935). Powell
returned to Hollywood in summer of 1936. She
was immediately inserted into the star machine
and began working on the first film written
specifically for her, Born to Dance. In numbers
like “Rap, Tap on Wood” and “Swingin’ the Jinx
Away,” the moves that would define her style
are all there: rapid, close-to-the-floor footwork
juxtaposed with buoyant, balletic translations of
rhythm, syncopated toe and heel drops,
battements, backbends, toe tap turns, all
backed by a legion of dancers and/or musicians.
Powell was given her own bungalow on the
MGM lot where she could rehearse and
choreograph, which she would often do for 12
hours a day. As the country was experiencing
the Great Depression, this golden age of
Hollywood movie musicals exhibited the
extravagant fantasy of escape. The romances of
ingénues and underdogs were set to music by
Cole Porter against a backdrop of elaborate sets
and precision choreography for hundreds by
Busby Berkeley or Albertina Rasch.
Consequently, Powell was charged with the task
of originating dances that took place on giant
drums (Rosalie) or inside an oversized pinball
machine (Sensations of 1945) and that involved
elements of the hula (Honolulu) or flamenco
(Ship Ahoy). Some of her most memorable
numbers include “Fascinatin’ Rhythm” in Lady
Be Good, in which she dances backwards
through a serpentine path of piano players in
one continuous take, and her dances with Fred
Astaire in Broadway Melody of 1940, especially
“Begin the Beguine.”
divorced. With Peter’s encouragement, Powell
launched a highly successful nightclub tour that
allowed her to showcase her virtuosity,
diversity, and personality in a live, intimate
setting. In 1981, the first ever Ellie Award was
bestowed on her by the National Film Society.
Eleanor Powell died of cancer in February, 1982.
At a time when few women were featured as
soloists in movies, and even fewer created their
own choreography, Eleanor Powell exemplified
strength in form and character. Despite the
formulaic nature of Depression-era movie
musicals in general, she never stopped
innovating within her specific vocabulary. In
addition to her many professional
accomplishments, Powell’s reputation must be
considered as well. Even after her nightclub
comeback had ended, Powell remained
accessible to fans, tap enthusiasts, and students
until her death. In a field relying so heavily on
oral (and aural) tradition, especially at a time
when other visual resources were not as readily
available, her willingness to share the dance
was a treasure in and of itself.
Jenai Cutcher tap dances, writes about dance,
teaches dance, and makes dance movies. She
has performed and taught throughout the U.S.
and internationally. Her first documentary,
Thinking On Their Feet: Women of the Tap
Renaissance, recently screened at The Wexner
Center for the Arts and the Southern Utah
International Documentary Festival. Jenai has
an MFA in Dance from The Ohio State
University. Her book about the history of
contemporary dance in Columbus, Ohio will be
released May 2012.
In 1943, near the end of her first MGM
contract, Powell married actor Glenn Ford and
chose to stop dancing and raise a family. Her
son, Peter, was born in 1945. Aside from a
cameo in Duchess of Idaho in 1950, she did not
return to dancing until 1959, when she and Ford
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