Mala Powers
Encyclopedia
Mary Ellen "Mala" Powers (December 20, 1931 – June 11, 2007) was an American
film
actress.
She was born in San Francisco
, California
. In 1940, her family moved to Los Angeles
. Her father was an executive with United Press. In the summer of her relocation, Powers attended the Max Reinhardt
Junior Workshop where she enjoyed her first role in a play before a live audience. She continued with her drama lessons, and a year later she auditioned and won a part in the 1942 Dead End Kids
film Tough as They Come.
At the age of 16 she began working in radio drama, before becoming a film actress in 1950. Her first roles were in Outrage and Edge of Doom
in 1950. That same year, Stanley Kramer
signed Powers to star opposite Jose Ferrer
in what may be her most remembered role as Roxane in Cyrano de Bergerac
. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award
for her part in this movie.
While on a USO entertainment tour in Korea
in 1951, she acquired a blood disease and almost 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.
She began working again in 1952, including a part in City Beneath the Sea and City That Never Sleeps
, although she was still taking medication. Following her recovery, she appeared in B-movie
westerns, such as Rage at Dawn
(1955), and science fiction
films, among them The Colossus of New York
(1958), Flight of the Lost Balloon
(1961), and Doomsday Machine (1972). She also had a large role in Tammy and the Bachelor
(1957). She appeared on more than 100 television programs, including Appointment with Adventure
, The Restless Gun
, Maverick
, Bonanza
, Wild Wild West
and Perry Mason
. She co-starred opposite Anthony Quinn
in the television movie
The Man and the City
, later a television series.
She was married to Monte Vanton in 1954, but they divorced in 1962; they had a son, Toren Vanton, who survived his mother. Powers remarried in 1970 to M. Hughes Miller, a book publisher. Powers was a successful children's author of "Follow the Star" and "Follow the Year" and of "Dial a Story".
Shortly before her death from complications of leukemia
June 11, 2007, aged 75, she had been on a lecture tour at universities. She was a master teacher for the past 14 years in the summer program at the University of Southern Maine
for the Michael Chekhov Theatre Institute, training actors and teachers of acting. Mala Powers co-founded the National Michael Chekhov Association with teaching colleagues Wil Kilroy and Lisa Dalton, who continue to teach the curriculum developed by the trio in Maine. Powers was the executrix of the Michael Chekhov
estate and instrumental in publishing Chekhov's books On the Technique of Acting, To the Actor, and The Path of the Actor. She also published Chekhov's audio series "On Theatre and the Art of Acting", to which she added a 60 page study guide. She co-narrates with Gregory Peck a documentary on Chekhov entitled "From Russia To Hollywood".
She was patron of the Michael Chekhov Studio London and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
.
Powers also had a small but recurring role on Shirley Booth
's Hazel
series. In that capacity she became a close friend of Lynn Borden
, who played Barbara Baxter in the 1965-1966 season. Later, she gave Borden several elephant figurines, one a jade piece and another purchased on a trip to India
. Borden became a collector of both frog and elephant figures.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
actress.
She was born in San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. In 1940, her family moved to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. Her father was an executive with United Press. In the summer of her relocation, Powers attended the Max Reinhardt
Max Reinhardt
----Max Reinhardt was an Austrian theater and film director and actor.-Biography:...
Junior Workshop where she enjoyed her first role in a play before a live audience. She continued with her drama lessons, and a year later she auditioned and won a part in the 1942 Dead End Kids
Dead End Kids
The Dead End Kids were a group of young actors from New York who appeared in Sidney Kingsley's Broadway play Dead End in 1935. In 1937 producer Samuel Goldwyn brought all of them to Hollywood and turned the play into a film...
film Tough as They Come.
At the age of 16 she began working in radio drama, before becoming a film actress in 1950. Her first roles were in Outrage and Edge of Doom
Edge of Doom
Edge of Doom is a 1950 film noir shot in black and white. The film was directed by Mark Robson. The screenplay was written by Philip Yordan . The film is based on a novel by Leo Brady...
in 1950. That same year, Stanley Kramer
Stanley Kramer
Stanley Earl Kramer was an American film director and producer. Kramer was responsible for some of Hollywood's most famous "message" movies...
signed Powers to star opposite Jose Ferrer
José Ferrer
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...
in what may be her most remembered role as Roxane in Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano de Bergerac (1950 film)
Cyrano de Bergerac is a 1950 black-and-white feature film based on the 1897 French Alexandrine verse drama Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. It uses poet Brian Hooker's 1923 English blank verse translation as the basis for its screenplay...
. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
for her part in this movie.
While on a USO entertainment tour in Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
in 1951, she acquired a blood disease and almost died. She was treated with chloromycetin, but a severe allergic reaction resulted in the loss of much of her bone marrow
Bone marrow
Bone marrow is the flexible tissue found in the interior of bones. In humans, bone marrow in large bones produces new blood cells. On average, bone marrow constitutes 4% of the total body mass of humans; in adults weighing 65 kg , bone marrow accounts for approximately 2.6 kg...
. Powers barely survived, and her recovery took nearly nine months.
She began working again in 1952, including a part in City Beneath the Sea and City That Never Sleeps
City That Never Sleeps
City That Never Sleeps is a film noir produced and directed by John H. Auer with cinematography by John L. Russell.-Plot:Johnny Kelly is a Chicago cop from a long line of police officers. He's grown tired of the job and his married life. He plans on leaving his wife for exotic dancer Sally...
, although she was still taking medication. Following her recovery, she appeared in B-movie
B-movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
westerns, such as Rage at Dawn
Rage at Dawn
Rage at Dawn is a 1955 American Western film by RKO Pictures starring Randolph Scott and Forrest Tucker, and featuring Denver Pyle, Edgar Buchanan, and J. Carrol Naish...
(1955), and science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
films, among them The Colossus of New York
The Colossus of New York
The Colossus of New York is a science fiction film produced by William Alland, and directed by Eugène Lourié. It starred Ross Martin, Otto Kruger, John Baragrey, Mala Powers and Charles Herbert....
(1958), Flight of the Lost Balloon
Flight of the Lost Balloon
Flight of the Lost Balloon is a 1961 film produced, written and directed by Nathan Juran that was filmed in Puerto Rico. It stars Mala Powers and Marshall Thompson with the working title being Cleopatra and the Cyclops....
(1961), and Doomsday Machine (1972). She also had a large role in Tammy and the Bachelor
Tammy and the Bachelor
Tammy and the Bachelor is a 1957 romantic comedy film and is the first of the four Tammy films. It stars Debbie Reynolds as Tambrey "Tammy" Tyree, Walter Brennan as Grandpa Dinwitty and Leslie Nielsen as Peter Brent...
(1957). She appeared on more than 100 television programs, including Appointment with Adventure
Appointment with Adventure
Appointment with Adventure is a half-hour adventure/dramatic anthology television series broadcast live on CBS from 1955-1956. The program has no host. It aired at 10 p.m...
, The Restless Gun
The Restless Gun
The Restless Gun is a western television series that appeared on NBC between 1957 and 1959, with John Payne in the role of Vint Bonner, a wandering cowboy in the era after the American Civil War. A skilled gunfighter, Bonner is an idealistic person who prefers peaceful resolutions of conflict...
, Maverick
Maverick (TV series)
Maverick is a western television series with comedic overtones created by Roy Huggins. The show ran from September 22, 1957 to July 8, 1962 on ABC and stars James Garner as Bret Maverick, a cagey, articulate cardsharp. Eight episodes into the first season, he was joined by Jack Kelly as his brother...
, Bonanza
Bonanza
Bonanza is an American western television series that both ran on and was a production of NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 430 episodes, it ranks as the second longest running western series and still continues to air in syndication. It centers on the...
, Wild Wild West
Wild Wild West
Wild Wild West is a 1999 American steampunk action-comedy film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, and starring Will Smith, Kevin Kline , Kenneth Branagh and Salma Hayek.Similar to the original TV series it was based on, The Wild Wild West, the film features a large amount of gadgetry...
and Perry Mason
Perry Mason (TV series)
Perry Mason is an American legal drama produced by Paisano Productions that ran from September 1957 to May 1966 on CBS. The title character, portrayed by Raymond Burr, is a fictional Los Angeles defense attorney who originally appeared in detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner...
. She co-starred opposite Anthony Quinn
Anthony Quinn
Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca , more commonly known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican American actor, as well as a painter and writer...
in the television movie
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
The Man and the City
The Man and the City
The Man and the City was a dramatic television series which was aired on the ABC television network as part of its Fall 1971 lineup from September 15, 1971 to January 5, 1972....
, later a television series.
She was married to Monte Vanton in 1954, but they divorced in 1962; they had a son, Toren Vanton, who survived his mother. Powers remarried in 1970 to M. Hughes Miller, a book publisher. Powers was a successful children's author of "Follow the Star" and "Follow the Year" and of "Dial a Story".
Shortly before her death from complications of leukemia
Leukemia
Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
June 11, 2007, aged 75, she had been on a lecture tour at universities. She was a master teacher for the past 14 years in the summer program at the University of Southern Maine
University of Southern Maine
The University of Southern Maine is a multi-campus public urban comprehensive university and part of the University of Maine System. USM's three primary campuses are located in Portland, Gorham, and Lewiston...
for the Michael Chekhov Theatre Institute, training actors and teachers of acting. Mala Powers co-founded the National Michael Chekhov Association with teaching colleagues Wil Kilroy and Lisa Dalton, who continue to teach the curriculum developed by the trio in Maine. Powers was the executrix of the Michael Chekhov
Michael Chekhov
Michael Chekhov was a Russian-American actor, director, author, and theatre practitioner. His acting technique has been used by actors such as Clint Eastwood, Marilyn Monroe, Yul Brynner, and Robert Stack. Constantin Stanislavski referred to him as his most brilliant student...
estate and instrumental in publishing Chekhov's books On the Technique of Acting, To the Actor, and The Path of the Actor. She also published Chekhov's audio series "On Theatre and the Art of Acting", to which she added a 60 page study guide. She co-narrates with Gregory Peck a documentary on Chekhov entitled "From Russia To Hollywood".
She was patron of the Michael Chekhov Studio London and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
.
Powers also had a small but recurring role on Shirley Booth
Shirley Booth
Shirley Booth was an American actress.Primarily a theatre actress, Booth's Broadway career began in 1925. Her most significant success was as Lola Delaney, in the drama Come Back, Little Sheba, for which she received a Tony Award in 1950...
's Hazel
Hazel (TV series)
Hazel is a Screen Gems television series about a fictional live-in maid named Hazel Burke and her employers, the Baxters. The five-season, 154-episode series aired in primetime from September 1961 until April 1966...
series. In that capacity she became a close friend of Lynn Borden
Lynn Borden
Lynn Borden is an American actress best known for her role as "Barbara Baxter" in the final season of the Shirley Booth sitcom Hazel, which aired on CBS from 1965 to 1966.-Background:...
, who played Barbara Baxter in the 1965-1966 season. Later, she gave Borden several elephant figurines, one a jade piece and another purchased on a trip to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. Borden became a collector of both frog and elephant figures.