From Hart to Hart glamour to life on the front lines of wildlife conservation, Stefanie Powers has lived one of the most unique careers in Hollywood. In this intimate conversation with Steve Kmetko, the TV icon looks back on growing up in the studio system at Columbia Pictures, working with legends like John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara, and becoming the first female lead of an adventure series in The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. Stefanie also opens up about her great love, William Holden, and how their time together in Kenya inspired the creation of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation. She explains why she now spends half the year in Africa, what’s really driving species extinction and climate change, and why elephants remain her favorite “extraordinary creatures.” Plus: the real story behind landing Hart to Hart, her instant chemistry with Robert Wagner, breaking box office records on stage with Love Letters, almost starring in Alien, and what it was like to be “sold” from Columbia to MGM. Stefanie shares how she thinks about aging in a youth-obsessed industry — and why she stays relentlessly focused on the work still ahead. If you love classic Hollywood, TV history, or powerful stories of reinvention and purpose, this one’s for you. 🔔 Subscribe for more in-depth conversations with the stars who are STILL HERE. ❤️ Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/stillherehollywood
You can support the William Holden Wildlife Foundation at: https://whwf.org/
Tickets for LOVE LETTERS on January 11, 2026 available at: https://ci.ovationtix.com/371/production/1258472?performanceId=11725822
Steve Kmetko
Yes, I'm still here Hollywood coming up on today's episode. You know her as half of television's most glamorous, crime solving couple, always impeccably dressed, impossibly witty and never far from danger, but behind the scenes, she's lived a life every bit as adventurous as her TV character from working with Hollywood legends to protecting endangered wildlife halfway across the world, She's elegant, fearless and forever fascinating. This is still here, Hollywood. I'm Steve Kmetko. Join me with today's guest actor, Stephanie powers from heart to heart.
Stefanie Powers
Hello. It's very nice to see you, and it's very nice to see you. Thank you, and thank you for coming to sit down with us today. I really appreciate it,
Steve Kmetko
and I've been a fan.
Stefanie Powers
Well, I was a fan of yours too. Thank you. I mean, I immediately twigged on being so you were so familiar to me and to everyone, everybody I but I really enjoyed you. Thank you very much. Television.
Steve Kmetko
How has Hollywood shaped your view of fame?
Stefanie Powers
Well, I don't have a view of fame. I just I'm grateful for, and I mean this most sincerely. I'm not being overly modest. I am grateful for the success that I have been able to have, and hope to continue having some time in the future, because it allows me to promote and garner attention for the real, important work that is involved in wildlife conservation. So it is. It's a bridge to work, to better work and to a public persona that allows people to lend you their ear and sometimes their pocketbook. Yes, for the things that you're passionate about, I'm not passionate about glorifying myself.
Steve Kmetko
You worked under contract with Columbia Pictures, correct?
Stefanie Powers
Yes, I was one of the last of the Red Hot contract players.
Steve Kmetko
Yes. What was it like working in the studio system that you recall?
Stefanie Powers
Oh, I recall it vividly. It was, it was the greatest finishing school one could have had, really, because you had access to everything, and you were encouraged to have access to it. You were encouraged to go to the editing department, to go to the camera department, to go, of course, you had to go to the to the wardrobe department, because they would measure you and make a body for you, so that they would do the fittings for the costumes on the body that had your name on it. Then you had, you had all kinds of sessions with photographers in the in the gallery, so that you would learn then and try looks and different ways of angles for the camera that you would for yourself, that you would begin to learn, and then they would try different looks on you. Well, it was always a big it was always a bit a bit disturbing, what they, how they, they, they thought that I might be made up because I'm, I'm, I was the girl next door. I was a kid, and I was 16 years old when I went into contract to Columbia. So they tried to glamorize me into one of those Horrell glamor Well, that was just ludicrous. It looked so silly on me. So there was because of what was in in place, fading. But what was in still in place in the studio system, it was an ideal learning ground. It was, as I said, it was like a finishing school. And then, of course, they loaned you to other studios and and I was loaned to other studios, and in the first rush of the contract, I was going from film to film to film, 15 movies in five years. So literally, going from film to film to film. Did you
Steve Kmetko
like that? Yes,
Stefanie Powers
I loved it. And I was working with extraordinary people and loving sometimes when they would come and give me a little tidbit of what to do and, and I remember Maureen O'Hara because in those days they didn't have all these, you know, fabulous fast cameras with fast film. And. It only required a couple of lights. We were working out of doors on a western movie called McClintock. Oh yes, and I had the joy of being a cast as the daughter of Maureen O'Hara and John Wayne. What a fabulous what a fabulous pleasure. And the girlfriend, or the potential girlfriend, of Patrick Wayne, with whom I am now going to be partnered again in a in a production of love letters, which we're going to do in January as a fundraiser for the William Holden Wildlife Foundation. But in the experience of doing, of doing McClintock, we were shooting outside 35 millimeter film in the bright lights. So they had to use these enormous, what they called arc lights, to adjust for the the brightness of the surrounding light. They had to fill our faces with these enormous arc lights, which were very hot and and you could hardly keep your eyes open. And Maureen, before every take would look up at the sun, and she would do this and blink and do this in the sun. And I was fascinated, and I said, What are you doing? And she said, Well, it was a technique that she'd been taught of how to keep your eyes open with that big arc light in glaring at you, or even the sun if you're shooting out of doors. And it was a kind of blinking process that would fit adjust the eye and adjust the iris so that you never you never cried in with all that light, because my eyes would water like mad. And Maureen taught me that
Steve Kmetko
little trick. I interviewed her once. She was a delightful person,
Stefanie Powers
and she'd get very Irish. Yes, she would get more Irish the longer you talk. She had
Steve Kmetko
that little lilt in her voice. Wonderful woman,
Stefanie Powers
wonderful we were. I knew her daughter was my age, and so there was a big connection that we had. And all the way through, I visited her in Ireland and and all the way through, I attended the honorary Academy Awards she got and and kept in touch with her all the way to the end, when she was living with her grandson, Connor.
Steve Kmetko
I remember I was working for CBS when I interviewed her, and we brought her into the studio, and when word got around, there was a whole line of people who wanted to meet her outside the studio when we were done with the interview. And she was so charming to everyone, you know, I remarked that I had read about she was doing the movie with John Candy. I think was Oh yes, yes. I think it was called Mother, yeah. And when she was she, I had read that when she first appeared on the set, the crew gave her like a standing ovation, and she she said, Where did you read that? She was just so charming and surprised. And who do you? Who do you?
Stefanie Powers
I just want to, I just want to add, in Ireland, she was a national treasure. And because I said, I visited her several times in Ireland. And if you were traveling to Ireland and you met any Irish people, and you did not know anything about the movie quiet man, I think they'd kick you out of the country. She was a national treasure, and she was treated that way by everybody around her and and because she and her brothers and all in the entire family were all from Cork, that it was what like walking with the king or the queen down the street, you know it was,
Steve Kmetko
tell me about you mentioned John Wayne. What memories have you of him?
Stefanie Powers
Oh, I loved him, right? He was bigger than life and and so much bigger than life, and so much he because of his upbringing and because John Ford always had the same people working on his films, whether it was the makeup artist to the man who served coffee, or the stunt men who who fell off of horses, and even the John Ford Indians, he engulfed everybody the way John Ford did with this familial feeling. And so he. Certainly absorbed me into that family, because everybody on that movie was part of the John Ford family, even the director, who was Andy McLaughlin, who was Victor McLaughlin's son. And of course, Victor McLaughlin was in the quiet man and many other films that they had done together, and but it was so it was such an incredible experience. And I had seen all those westerns, so I was hooked. And he was very generous to me. Very generous.
Steve Kmetko
What first attracted you to the role of Jennifer Hart?
Stefanie Powers
Well, everybody who was doing it, I think that's the bottom line. As I said, the world was very small, and I knew everybody that was doing it. Aaron Spelling had been when he was a writer and married to Carolyn Jones. He was writing for God the Dick Powell Show. And we had in in Hollywood for all the young actors and boys and girls and young young agents and all. We had a softball league. And so they we needed a we had a coach, and the coach for our girls softball team was Aaron Spelling. It was great fun because he was, you know, Aaron Spelling, looked like jiminy crickets, you know, he was this little, skinny, skinny man, not at all athletic, and he'd be rushing out to talk to the girls and say, We have to coaching us, you know, but he was very generous to us. He and Caroline had barbecues and invited all the girls. So when he and Leonard Goldberg united and formed spelling Goldberg, the first movie for television was, I think it was called Five desperate women. Nothing. To do with what later came five. What was it called Five desperate? No, it was five desperate women, and we filmed it in Catalina Island, and it was the very first production for spelling and Goldberg, and I was in it. So that was a kind of continuation of our friendship and relationship. So I knew them, Robert Wagner, I had worked with and I had met socially, Tom Mankiewicz, who was rewriting and going to direct the pilot I had known since I was 17, 1617, years old. So it was, it was very much a family, sort of, once again, another family I was in in San Francisco doing a production of Cyrano de Bergerac with Stacy Keach. We were doing our out of town opening in anticipation of going to New York. And so when they called me and said, We're doing this pilot, would you be interested? It's a little bit like the thin man. And I knew all the people involved, so that was, I mean, that was attractive enough. The idea of the thin man was also extremely attractive and And Aaron's, I said, Well, this is embarrassment of riches. We're supposed to go to New York. We're supposed to go to Broadway. And he said, Well, you know, there might be a writers strike for the newspapers. And historically, when there was a newspaper strike, nobody would bring a play into New York, because they couldn't publicize it there, you know. So the the theater was, you know, on hold. So that was the greatest newspaper strike that ever happened, as far as my career is concerned, because I could do the pilot of Heart to Heart.
Steve Kmetko
Heart to Heart was set in San Francisco, right?
Stefanie Powers
No, no, it was set in California, in Los Angeles. Oh, it was set in Los Angeles. Yes, the house was meant to be here, but it was not. It wasn't. It just was incidental the location
Steve Kmetko
you and Robert Wagner had great chemistry. Did they did that spark build over time? Or was it immediately, immediate with you two?
Stefanie Powers
Well, as according to Tom Mankiewicz, who was directing it, it was the first scene I had to climb through a window, walk over. The camera was on my feet, walk over to the side of the bed, unzip, step out of a of a jumpsuit, climb into bed and say, Hello, darling, you know, and it was he said, he said, when I said, Cut print, I knew it was there. And I guess it was just. Natural, some kind of natural chemistry was, I mean, I'm eternally grateful for it, and we still have it a bit. You know, I see him every once in a while, I mean, about a few times a year, and he can always push my buttons. We can always laugh and giggle and still use the old jokes.
Steve Kmetko
I was watching a news show this morning, and they were interviewing an actress, young actress, up and comer named Jesse Buckley, and she was talking about how she has a movie upcoming, and the person she's co starring with, whose name slips my mind right now, but she said they had, they had chemistry meetings where they to see if they actually had chemistry. Did they? Did you ever do anything like that? No, either you had it or you didn't.
Stefanie Powers
That's it. That's it. And one of the other things was that we both came from the school of acting where you played with the person, it was like a tennis game. You hit the ball back and forth. And that's not always the case with other actors. They're not always there for you. Sometimes I've heard that some of the new actors won't even stand off camera to do their offstage lines. So it was a different consciousness, and there was certainly we both came from the studio system and we were raised with the manners of respect for the director, for the cameraman, for the other fellow actors, and we would never have gotten away with that.
Steve Kmetko
I think I recently saw a picture of the two of you together on Instagram or something like that. You do see each other every once in a while, we do. Yes. Has there ever been talk of doing a
Stefanie Powers
reboot incessantly, really, but I think we, you know, when the show went off the air as a weekly series, there was a period where we were both working and doing other things. And then we got together every once in a while, and we would do little, short tours of five week tours of the play love letters, which became very, very successful because we played large we played the Chicago theater, which is 3000 seats in this adorable play, which is basically two people sitting at a desk reading the letters that they wrote to each other, that the characters wrote to each other over a lifetime. We opened the show in London, and we did it in Toronto. We did it in Montreal, we did it in Australia, and we did over 500 performances of that show. And of course, we weren't reading it. We were performing the but we were literally sitting at a table, and at the Chicago theater we broke, oh, I remember. It's the only time I've ever made the cover of variety the industry magazine, when we broke all records with eight shows where we grossed a million dollars over eight shows, which was quite a record.
Steve Kmetko
Do you appreciate or do you enjoy stage, screen or TV, is there one in particular that you enjoy more than the other?
Stefanie Powers
I think it really has to do with the material. I've done, all of them as some of them better than others. I continually work in the theater. I work a great deal in England because you can do short runs and and there are some interesting, interesting plays that we're allowed to do with interesting characters that I wouldn't normally be playing with. So that part of it is always greater challenge and more interesting than playing something that's too familiar,
Steve Kmetko
and we'll be right back. If you'd like to be more involved with us at still here Hollywood, you definitely can just visit patreon.com/still here Hollywood. You can support us for as little as $3 a month. You can get our episodes a day before they post anywhere else, you can see what guests will be coming up and submit questions for them. You can even tell us what stars you want us to have on as guests. You'll see what goes on before and after the episode, plus exclusive behind the scenes info, pics, video and more. Again, that's patreon. Dot com slash still here Hollywood. You also spend a lot of time in Africa.
Stefanie Powers
That's my other home. Yes, and and a passion for you. It's, it's a great passion. It is a huge commitment and a huge passion. And we in the 1950s William Holden was a very big movie star when he went out to Kenya as a hunter. In those days, game was prolific and not everybody. There wasn't a huge slaughter of animals. There was no the poaching that we are now experiencing, which is causing the extinction of so many species, was not at all prevalent in those days. The word conservation wasn't in anybody's vocabulary, nor was the notion of extinction, but he had a vision, and that first safari that he went on, Safari means trip, sometimes associated with hunting, sometimes associated with photography, but that first safari He and two friends went on led to them buying an up Country Inn, which they turned into the Mount Kenya Safari Club, which became kind of the jewel in the crown of of destinations for for tourists at a certain point. And then he negotiated to buy the 2000 acres surrounding this, this beautiful spot. It's on the slopes of Mount Kenya, at about 7000 feet above sea level. And created, had a vision to create this. In 1959 he had a vision to create a game ranch for the preservation of species. There were none. So he truly was a visionary. And in those days, people were very different about personal publicity, and he never wanted to get any personal publicity out of his efforts to preserve wildlife in very early days of people's consciousness that wildlife needed preservation. So it was very discreet what he was doing, and no one really knew much about it. When I went to Kenya with him for the very first time, it was 1973 and I was, I was in love with animals anyway, from a long history of of being involved with animals, a lot of horses, mainly Horses, but then my stepfather, who bred racehorses, also collected exotic animals. So we, I was, I had lots of exotics in my in my lexicon,
Steve Kmetko
what did you think the first time you went
Stefanie Powers
to Africa? Yes, well, I had been to North Africa. And, of course, I I had my expectations of what it would look like and but I don't think anybody can. Doesn't matter how much it changes. The first time you are around these extraordinary creatures, it's awe inspiring. And I was, I was already bitten and and I certainly was in love with the man. So I was in love with everything he wanted to do and loved to do. So it was a very it was a seamless experience of joy. Do you miss him? I miss him. I miss sometimes when something particularly interesting happens that I know he would have enjoyed experiencing, but I don't think he would have been too happy with the world as it is.
Steve Kmetko
Did your relationship with him influence your worldview?
Stefanie Powers
I suppose, I suppose in some ways, yes, we were quite compatible in many of our views, but he had 26 years more experience than I had, and in very different ways, I don't think it could ever, he could ever have foreseen what has transpired in the world of conservation. Nor could he have, I think he estimated that there would be a great deal of predation because the handwriting was on the wall. And then. Uh, even up to the time that he passed away, the the consciousness of local people on the need and the importance of preserving flora and fauna was really in its infancy. Now it's, it's much more evolved, and now it's, it's something everybody's looking for answers. How do we rescue the planet? How do we save the species? How do we what do we do about climate change, and what can we do about climate change, all of which is interrelated because our mission statement for the William Holden Wildlife Foundation, which I established in his name, specifically because I knew he wanted To create an education center so that local people could understand the need for preservation and conservation, and whether they were young or mature, that the reason for not wanting to them to cut down a tree had a purpose to it, and only through education could we accomplish some of that awareness. So the mission statement of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation is wildlife conservation through education and alternatives to habitat destruction. So they work in concert with one another, because what's the point of preserving species and biodiversity if you're not, if you have no habitat for them to exist in. So the habitat, the destruction and over exploitation of habitat, is part and parcel. What's responsible for climate change. Everybody has said, Oh, it's automobiles, it's, it's, but it's not automobiles. It is the pollution that automobiles create, which is not balanced by the ability of the planet to to absorb the carbon monoxide and produce oxygen, because we've over exploited it. So all of that in concert is what we work on. And we have about between 11 and 14,000 students a year that come through our main Education Center. We have an additional 7000 that we deal with on a continual basis, who are in our outreach program, which deals with rather impoverished rural, extremely rural And rather impoverished tribal areas. And so we're busy. We have a lot to do.
Steve Kmetko
Is there an accomplishment that you're proudest of?
Stefanie Powers
I don't look at things as having been accomplished. It's a process that has to continue and does continue ongoing. Otherwise nothing's been resolved. So I can't consider it being accomplished.
Steve Kmetko
Okay, you were once cast in West Side Story, but there was a complication.
Stefanie Powers
I was too young. I was cast as one of the Jets. There were two girl jets, well, three. There was anybody's and then there was Velma and Graziella and I was cast as Velma and rehearsed with them for, oh gosh, eight weeks, something like that, six weeks before they realized, or they, you know, they understood that it was really impractical, because I could only work so many hours, and then had to have his teacher on the set. And it was, and my part wasn't germane to the but it was an extraordinary experience to work for and with the people that I worked with, but for the people that were so astonishing, like Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise and George decarris, who's a very good friend of mine, and who won an Oscar, who won an Oscar, well deserved, and and the great dancers,
Steve Kmetko
and also, What about Leonard Bernstein was part of the whole thing too, wasn't he?
Stefanie Powers
Yes, but I never met him. Oh, no, no. Sadly,
Steve Kmetko
you were also the first female lead in an adventure series.
Stefanie Powers
Yes, although we didn't realize it at the time, and nothing was made of it. The girl from Uncle. Uh, so I was under contract to Columbia. I did, I had done 15 motion pictures. And then one day my agent called and said, Actually, I was in England at the time. Was in England at the time because my boyfriend was doing a little movie called 2001 A Space Odyssey, and I was fascinated by everything about it and and I didn't want to come home. And my agent called and said, Well, you have to come home because you're you've been sold. You've been sold to to MGM to do the girl from Uncle. So my contract was sold, and I went along with it.
Steve Kmetko
What was that like? The girl from Uncle No, no, haven't been sold
Stefanie Powers
well, it was the way things were, you know,
Steve Kmetko
able to accept it that way? Yes, a matter of fact, just the way it was.
Stefanie Powers
And, I mean, to be honest, one should have been grateful, and I was, for the experience and the privilege of being under contract and making those movies and learning as you did, you know so much to learn. Wow,
Steve Kmetko
was there a role you ever turned down that you later regretted?
Stefanie Powers
Oh no, there was a role that I didn't get that I regretted. And I always thought that there was some reason, there was that my agent in England could have done a bit more to push and everything. It was the it was the the alien. I was the first person to get the script. I was doing another movie in in Europe, and
Steve Kmetko
the Sigourney Weaver, yeah, the
Stefanie Powers
Sigourney Weaver alien, and I was, I met the director, and I met the producers and all of that, and they gave me a script and said, read it and let us know. And and I had to go back to work with Roger Moore. And, oh my gosh, that was a wonderful cast of character. David Niven, Roger Moore, Elliot, Gould, Claudia cardinelli, was a great Wow, yes. So I went back to work to finish and, and I kept calling my agents and saying, yes. I mean, this is fabulous. I would love to do this role, please, please, please. And, and then nothing happened. Well, that's part of life. That's life. Easy, come easy, go
Steve Kmetko
easy, come easy, go. What's a lesson you learned in Hollywood the hard way? Whoa.
Speaker 1
Well, I think you know you.
Stefanie Powers
I think when things let you down, or when you miss an opportunity or or have feel that you've done something wrong that would have made it facilitated either getting that part or something, I guess that's disappointing, but I've been so lucky. I have so much to be grateful for that I
Steve Kmetko
look forward to. Are you a forward looking person?
Stefanie Powers
Yes, absolutely, yes, without a doubt.
Steve Kmetko
How much time do you spend, on average in Africa during the course of a year,
Stefanie Powers
usually half of my time doing half the year because we're we're so involved in our latest project, which is our our laboratory, and the results of the testing and verification of the science of what We're doing to regenerate agriculture, very, very exciting and animals, oh, yes, constant.
Steve Kmetko
And I've been reading a lot about the white rhinoceros lately, on the verge of extinction, yeah.
Stefanie Powers
Well, it is, I mean, it's, I don't know if that can be any more on the verge, because there aren't any. And the last the white rhino. So the difference between the black rhino and the white rhino, it's not white. It's it's the Afrikaans word for wide W, i, d, e, is vite and the the wide white white rhino is a grazing animal. It grazes like and it's got a big, big mouth that's like a vacuum cleaner. And it grazes along the along the. Up on the ground, whereas the black rhino is a browser and it has a prehensile lip, so the mouth goes straight forward and the lip is independent prehensile, so it it grabs the greenery, the vegetation, and tears it, and that's the way it eats. So it's a grazer, a browser, and a grazer, the browser eats things higher up, and the grazer eats things from
Steve Kmetko
the ground. Do you have a favorite animal?
Stefanie Powers
I love elephants. They are. I mean, I can't say enough about them. I bore the world. I clear the room with my precious observations and the brilliant moments that I've had in the bush just observing them. They are extraordinary creatures,
Steve Kmetko
and we'll be right back. Are you in favor of zoos?
Stefanie Powers
Zoos have a great purpose and responsible zoos, meaning zoos that the the the new age of zoos that enlightened, zoos that gave enough space for habitat. In some cases, zoos are the only refuge for species to survive. It's it used to have a much more sinister reputation. Well, not a reputation sinister. There used to be much more sinister activities. So they the way in which zoos were were made, were inhibiting the health and the welfare of the animals by virtue of confined quarters. Now I think and hope and pray that most of the zoos in the world are are enlightened, although there are still species that are living in war zones, which is very worrying, and a lot of people have done an awful lot of work rescuing animals out of war zones. But it's it's very difficult.
Steve Kmetko
What could someone do if they wanted to support the work you're doing in Africa?
Stefanie Powers
I'm afraid it has to do with money. I'm afraid that in order to continue to do the work that we do and beyond, we need financing. And it's one of those horrible things we need. We need support. We have a very strong ethic about the way in which we we treat and collect funds we have. We do not use any funds for personal for any personal activities. So nobody pays for my airplane ticket. I don't take donor money for transport to Kenya or for any of the services that support our our foundation, the work of our foundation. So all of our donations go 100% without tampering to the donation, to the work of the Foundation, and to the money that donors have generous enough to give
Steve Kmetko
us the reading you're doing in January with Patrick Wayne, yes, do you know him? Well? Just out of curiosity,
Stefanie Powers
well, we, we've, we've known each other for years and years and years. You know our lives have come, ebbed and flowed and everything, and it's we've I'm not a constant in his life, but it it seems as if, for some unknown reason we just seem to have have a connection and and and a friendship that goes beyond just something that we did because we work together
Steve Kmetko
and this. Um, production reading will benefit your foundation.
Stefanie Powers
That's what it's for. Yes,
Steve Kmetko
did you ever concern yourself with aging in a business that seems obsessed with youth?
Stefanie Powers
Well, there's nothing I can do. Is there?
Steve Kmetko
No, there really isn't.
Stefanie Powers
It's if you, if you, if you worry about it, then you can't get anything done, right?
Steve Kmetko
Tell me if you will. How did this all get started? Which life?
Stefanie Powers
Oh, life, acting career. Well, my mother came to California and met my father. That is the beginning. That is the beginning. Two Polish people found each other. It's quite amazing. And then they divorced. And so I was raised by Irishman, Irish Catholic breeder of racehorses, which was right up my alley, because I loved anything to do with animals, and I still do the the evolution of career I was, I my mother when she was pregnant, always said that she had she loved the ballet, and she loved the symphony and all but the ballet in particular. So when she was pregnant with me, she went to see a lot of ballet, and so maybe when I popped out and kept dancing around the house, because we always had music playing. She decided that when I got to a certain age, that probably might be good idea to get dancing lessons. So there was a wonderful man in Hollywood. And you remember how small this community was? It can be, yes, it could be. Well, it was then this I'm talking about the the 50s and when there was somebody in town that had a great reputation and and was offering and a great provenance, as as this man did, All the Mummer mummies and daddies wanted their children to be to have dance lessons with him. His name was Michel panaev, and he had been a partner to Danilova, the famous ballerina of the ballet Russ they were both with the Ballet Russe when the war broke out, Second World War, and because in those days, if we declared war, anybody who male, who was not, whether they were citizen or not, they were drafted. And here was this ballet dancer drafted into a tank. So he went back to Europe, where he couldn't go because Bally Rose was on tour in the United States when the war broke out in Europe, and of course, when the war was over, because he had served in the military, he was given a fast track to citizenship if he wished, it, which he did Wish, because Europe was in tatters and shambles. And he decided that because, because California had palm trees and reminded him of the South of France, where he where the Ballet Russe was located, he decided to come to California and Hollywood, of course, and he opened a ballet studio on Highland, and people gravitated to it, not just parents who wanted their children, their their girl children in particular, to be graceful and have Have dance lessons, but every one of the great dancing stars at MGM at 20th Century Fox would go there to take ballet classes, the professional ballet classes at noon, and we would see people like Leslie Caron and Jean Mayer and Roland Petit and all of these incredible Sid Charisse they would come to have class because he was the Russian school of ballet, and he was an excellent teacher in our little kiddies class, though, to show what a tiny world Hollywood was in those days, I have a wonderful photograph of our little kiddies dance class. And in this dance class there is, there are three girls among some other girls, and they, they sort of the step ladder of the three girls. Is Natalie Wood and. Jill St, John and me. Hmm, who knew that we would all be married in one way or another to Robert
Steve Kmetko
Wagner? Was foretelling, wasn't it?
Stefanie Powers
And that's how small the world was. It's very hard to discuss it with people who didn't live any part of it, because people always say, what was it like to grow up in Hollywood, and it was a small town and very much connected to the industry that created it.
Steve Kmetko
Tell me more about love letters, where and when it's
Stefanie Powers
going to be on the 11th of January, which in a matinee. We're going to have a matinee at the wonderful el portal theater, and I hope people will come.
Steve Kmetko
Okay, great. Thank you very much. Thank you. I've enjoyed sitting down and talking with you,
Stefanie Powers
and I've enjoyed you
Steve Kmetko
still here. Hollywood is a production of the still here network, all things technical, run by Justin zangerly, theme music by Brian sanoshin, and executive producer is Jim Lichtenstein. You.