Powers, Mala

Mala Powers was born December 20, 1931 in San Francisco ^{[1] [2]} . Her father was one of the leaders of the United Press news agency, and her mother was a priest. In 1940, she and her family moved to Los Angeles ^[3] .

According to Powers herself, she began working in show business at the age of seven ^[4] . She studied at the Max Reinhardt’s drama workshop for young children, and at the age of 11, she got a small role as Billy Helop ’s sister in the movie “ They're Cool They Come ” (1942) from the Universal Pictures series about guys from Dead End ^{[1] [5]} .

Helen Timig , Reinhardt's wife, advised Powers not to try to become a child star , but to continue her acting studies. As a result, only five years later, when she was 16 years old, Powers began working on the radio, in programs such as Cisco Kid, Red Ryder and ^On- Screen Guild on Air ^[1] . At the same time, she continued to study acting at the University of California, Los Angeles , where she was noticed by actress and film director Aida Lupino ^[5] (according to other sources, Lupino met Powers on the radio program “Screen Guild on Air” ^[1] ).

In 1950, Lupino, acting as a director, invited Powers, 19, to star in her second film, The Insult (1950). As film critic Ronald Bergan points out, it was “one of the few Hollywood films that addressed the topic of rape and its consequences, although the act itself was not shown and the word“ rape ”was not pronounced.” According to Bergan, “Powers was excellent as a victim of a“ criminal attack ”, after which she began to feel so“ dirty ”that she ran away from home to start a new life, until the priest helped her deal with her trauma” ^[1] . According to the New York Times , “the film was a small sensation, since the topic of rape has never been seen so frankly on the screen due to censorship restrictions in force in the industry” ^[2] .

In the same year, producer Stanley Kramer invited Powers to the main female role in the film “ Cyrano de Bergerac ” (1950) based on the classic comedy of Edmond Rostand ^[1] . Powers played Roxanne, and the title role was played by Jose Ferrer , having received admired reviews of criticism and an Oscar for best male role for his work ^[2] . The film itself, like the Powers game, caused mixed reviews. So, Bosley Krauser in The New York Times critically evaluated the actress's play, writing that in the role of Roxanne, she appears “as a sweet, but lifeless girl” ^[6] . On the other hand, Variety magazine rated Powers' play “even and good,” and contemporary critic Hal Erickson wrote that “Powers admired her beauty, sensuality and naturalness in portraying her beloved Cyrano. This role has remained the most famous in her career ” ^[5] . For her role in this film, Powers was awarded the Golden Globe nomination as the most promising aspiring actress. ^[1]

Impressed by the work of Powers, the head of RKO Pictures studio Howard Hughes signed a contract with her, in which she played in a series of films of the 1950s ^[2] . The first of these was the film Noir with social and religious overtones, The Edge of Doom (1950), in which a desperate young man performed by Farley Granger in an uncontrolled fit kills a priest who refuses to organize a “worthy funeral” for his mother, but eventually repents and surrenders to the authorities . In this picture, Powers “touchingly played the positive Granger girl she was going to marry” ^[1] .

In 1951, Powers went on a tour to Korea to perform in front of the military, where she received a blood poisoning and nearly died. She was treated with chloromycetin , but a severe allergic reaction to this medicine led to significant bone marrow loss ^{[1] [5]} . After recovering, Powers could not get industrial insurance, which deprived her of the opportunity to star in category A films . As a result, she spent the rest of her career in low-budget westerns, noir films, and adventure films. ^[5]

In 1951, while still on medication, Powers played in the Rosa Simarrona Western (1952) at the independent studio Edward L. Alperson Productions . In this picture, she played the title role of a white girl, raised in a family of Indians, who decides to find the killers of her parents. Despite the lack of necessary skills, Powers quickly learned to ride a horse and shoot, and did it very confidently ^[7] .

Powers then went on loan to Universal Pictures , where she starred as the ship's captain in the adventure crime film City on the Seabed (1953). The film was about finding a wreck with a load of gold off the coast of Jamaica , and Robert Ryan and Anthony Quinn were her partners in the film starring divers-seekers ^[1] . In the same year, she played the role of a dancer in a nightclub and the beloved of the protagonist, a policeman from Chicago ( Gig Young ) in the film Noir " The City that Never Sleeps " (1953) ^[1] .

This was followed by a Western B category “ Yellow Mountain ” (1954) at Universal Studios, in which she was the daughter of the owner of the mine, which becomes the subject of rivalry between gold miners performed by Howard Duff and Lex Barker ^[1] . In the next independent Western of category B, Anger at Dawn (1955), Powers played the role of sister in the Reno brothers' gang, falling in love with a government agent ( Randolph Scott ) who arrived with the mission to destroy the gang ^[1] . This was followed by an independent adventure thriller of category B “ Benghazi ” (1955), where Powers played the daughter of a hunter for a gold treasure in the Sahara ( Victor McLaglen ) ^[1] .

In 1957, Powers played the second female role in the rare musical romantic comedy Tammy and the Bachelor (1957) with Debbie Reynolds in the title role ^[8] . In the same year, the crime drama Death in Small Doses (1957) was released, in which Peter Graves , as a government agent, was introduced under the guise of truckers on Wednesday to uncover a criminal network supplying drivers with amphetamines . Powers in this picture, according to Variety , “gives out the usual skillful game for herself, first having an affair with Graves, until it turns out that she herself is selling pills and is guilty of the agent’s problems” ^[9] . In the late 1950s, Powers starred in two low-budget horror films. In the horror " Unknown Horror " (1957), she was the sister of a famous researcher who, together with two of his colleagues, goes in search of him after he disappeared in one of the caves of Mexico , where, as it turns out, a mad scientist conducts experiments with mold ^{[10 ]} . The following year, in the horror film “The Colossus of New York ” (1958), Powers played the widow of a brilliant scientist whose brain was transplanted into a 4-meter robot, which then turns into a super-killer ^[1] .

In the future, Powers rarely appeared on the big screen, preferring to work on television. In the late 1960s, Powers played the role of the main character's girlfriend in the melodramatic thriller Daddy Goes to Hunt (1969). Before that, in 1967 Powers starred in the fantastic anti-utopia “ Loan Day Machine ” (1972), which was released only in 1972. In this film, she played “the Soviet astronaut, Major Bronsky, who sees the Earth burn to the ground as a result of nuclear explosions” ^[1] .

As noted in the New York Times, “in the late 1950s, Powers’s film career began to weaken, but she continued to work actively on radio, in theater, and on television.” ^[2]

From 1955 to 1990, Powers was a guest star in more than 60 television series, including “Date of Adventure” (1955), “Ford Television Theater” (1955-1956), “Zane Gray Theater” (1957), “Caravan” wagon "(1958)," Restless weapon "(1958-1959)," Bonanza "(1959)," Perry Mason "(1959-1966, 5 episodes)," Bronco "(1960)," Cheyenne "(1960-1961) ), Maverick (1961), General Electric Theater (1961), Rawhide (1962), Sunset Strip 77 (1962), Doctor Kildare (1964), Man from ANCL ”(1965),“ Wild Wild West ”(1966),“ Mission Impossible ”(1967),“ My wife charmed me ”(1967-1968),“ Iron side ”(1970),“ Charlie's Angels ”(1978) and“ She wrote the murder ”(1990) ^{[1] [11]} .

In the years 1965-1966 Powers played a constant role in 10 episodes of the final season of the Hazel sitcom (1965-1966). In 1971, in 15 episodes of the first season of the television series "Man and the City" (1971-1972), Powers played the faithful secretary of the mayor of a small American town in the Southwestern United States (the role of the mayor was played by Anthony Quinn ) ^[12] .

According to movie historian Tom Weaver, “the dark-haired, gray-eyed Powers brought poise and charm to her films” ^[13] . The most significant Powers films were her first films, “ Insult ” (1950) and “ Land of Doom ” (1950), but she played her most memorable role in Roxanne in the film “ Cyrano de Bergerac ” (1950) ^[13] . Through the 1950s, Powers continued to play predominantly leading roles ^[2] , becoming, according to Weaver, “the queen of noir films, westerns and category B science fiction films” ^[13] . And yet, according to Bergan, despite the nomination for the Golden Globe and the propaganda of the acting method of Mikhail Chekhov , “Powers’s career was surprisingly unremarkable” ^[1] .

Even during the Second World War, Powers studied acting in Hollywood with Mikhail Chekhov , studying with him both in a group and individually. After his death in 1955, she founded the Mikhail Chekhov Foundation. Powers published many of Chekhov’s work on acting techniques, and in 2002, together with Gregory Peck, was co-host of Chekhov’s documentary film “From Russia to Hollywood” (2002). In addition, she wrote the book “Mikhail Chekhov on theater and acting: a five-hour master class” (2004), and also taught acting, speaking at major universities across the country ^{[2] [1]} .

Powers was also the author and editor of several children's books ^{[14] [1]} .

In 2002, Powers last appeared on the stage at the Theater of the Lagoon in the play "Mr. Shaw Goes to Hollywood" ^[2] .

In 1954, Powers married Monty Vanton, whom she divorced in 1962, and her son Toren Vanton was born in marriage ^{[15] [2]} . In 1970, she remarried the publisher Hughes Miller, their marriage lasted until his death in 1989 ^{[1] [2]} .

Mala Powers died on June 11, 2007 at the age of 76 at the Burbank Medical Center from complications associated with leukemia ^{[2] [1] [5]} .

• Tom Weaver Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes: Interviews with Actors, Directors, Producers and Writers of the 1940s through 1960s . - McFarland, 2006. - ISBN 9780786428571 .

• Mala Powers on IMDb
• Mala Powers on AllMovie
• Mala Powers on Turner Classic Movies