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At 22, Eleanor Powell is generally considered the ablest female tap-dancer in the world. She started her professional career in 1929 after her father, a Springfield, Mass., gentleman farmer, lost money in Florida real estate. Her first engagement was a 20-week vaudeville tour at $100 a week, when she was 15. Since then she has appeared in Follow Through, Fine & Dandy, two of George White's Scandals, toured in Billy Rose's Crazy Quilt. At Manhattan's Casino de Paree, where the average engagement is two weeks, she stayed for 19.
In Scandals, experts estimate that Dancer Powell covers four miles in the course of her routine. She has brown hair, blue eyes, weighs 117 Ib. Her next picture: Broadway Melody of 1935 (MGM).