Stefanie Powers began her career at age 15, dancing briefly for famed choreographer Jerome Robbins. Under contract to Columbia Pictures for five years, she appeared in 15 motion pictures, including “Experiment in Terror,” “The Interns” and “Love Has Many Faces,” before landing her first TV series, “The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.”
More motion pictures followed, plus dozens of TV guest appearances, more than 20 mini-series including “Mistral’s Daughter,” “At Mother’s Request” and “Beryl Markham: A Shadow on the Sun,” and tours in theatrical productions such as Under the Yum Yum Tree, How the Other Half Loves, Sabrina, A View From the Bridge, Oliver! and Annie Get Your Gun.
Two more television series, “The Feather & Father Gang” and the long-running “Hart to Hart” established Powers’ reputation for glamour and versatility. For her performance in “Hart to Hart,” Powers garnered two Emmy® nominations and five Golden Globe nominations. She toured extensively with “Hart to Hart” co-star Robert Wagner in Love Letters, including the play’s London West End run and returned to the West End in the musical Matador. After completing eight two-hour television movie versions of “Hart to Hart,” she returned to the musical theater in the first revival of Applause, the musical version of All About Eve. She appeared Off-Broadway in The Vagina Monologues before returning to England to star in the debut of the American play, The Adjustment.
England summoned her again to take over for Elaine Page in the elaborate UK production of The King and I, and a year later she returned to the role of Anna in the US tour of the production. Again in England, she appeared in the comedy film “Rabbit Fever,” followed by a dramatic film production “Jump,” shot in Austria. She released her debut CD, “On the Same Page,” a collection of tunes from the classic American songbook era, a collaboration with musician Page Cavanaugh, and followed that with her one-woman show, One From the Hart.
As much a part of her life as her career is, Powers’ devotion to animal preservation and protection often seems more of a vocation than an avocation. She is the co-founder and president of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation, established in 1982 as a public charity to continue the late actor’s conservation work in Africa. Powers resides part-time in Kenya, serves on the advisory board of three major zoos, is a Fellow of the Los Angeles Zoo, the Royal Geographic Society and the Explorers Club of America, and she created the Jaguar Conservation Trust for Jaguar Cars North America, all as part of her lifetime commitment to conservation.
Powers recently signed with Simon and Schuster to write her memoir, which is set to be released in 2010.
