LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jane Powell, the bright-eyed, operatic-voiced star of Hollywood’s golden age musicals who sang with Howard Keel in "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" and danced with Fred Astaire in "Royal Wedding," has died. She was 92.Powell died Thursday at her Wilton, Connecticut, home, longtime friend Susan Granger said. Granger said Powell died of natural causes.
"Jane was the most wonderful friend," Granger said. "She was candid, she was honest. You never asked Jane a question you didn’t want an absolutely honest answer to."
Granger was a youngster when she met the then-teenaged Powell, who was making her film debut in 1944′s "Song of the Open Road," directed by Granger’s father, S. Sylvan Simon.
She performed virtually her whole life, starting about age 5 as a singing prodigy on radio in Portland, Oregon. On screen, she quickly graduated from teen roles to the lavish musical productions that were a 20th-century Hollywood staple.