Eleanor Powell was conceived in Springfield, Massachusetts, by Blanche Torrey and Clarence Gardner Powell. Her father abandoned her mother at the age of two.
Her maternal grandparents assisted her mother in raising her (who also lived with them). Eleanor Powell was an extremely shy youngster who was unable to even welcome guests into their own homes.
New York City: introduction to tap
In 1927, Powell stopped going to school and moved to New York City with her mother. Although she soon found work dancing in clubs, doing vaudeville, and attending private parties after being signed by William Grady at the William Morris Agency, her acrobatic ability, which had made a mark in Atlantic City, was insufficient for a Broadway career.
Powell enrolled in ten tap lessons at a school run by Jack Donahue and Johnny Boyle because she was aware that one needed to be able to tap dance in order to be marketable as a dancer on Broadway at the time.
She would receive her first official tap instruction throughout these sessions.
Road to Hollywood
Powell moved to Hollywood in 1935 and made a special appearance in George White’s 1935 film Scandals, which she later called a catastrophe since she had mistakenly been made up to look like an Egyptian.
As a result of the incident, she felt let down by Hollywood, and when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer courted her, she first declined their offers of a contract. Powell supposedly attempted to dissuade the studio by making what she thought to be unreasonable high compensation demands, but MGM reportedly agreed to them, and Powell eventually accepted.
Only slight changes were made to her appearance and behavior as the studio got her ready for stardom.
