Stefanie Powers began her career at age 15, dancing for famed Broadway choreographer, Jerome Robbins. She was put under contract to Columbia Pictures in the final years of the Hollywood star system. While under contract, she appeared in 15 of the 31 motion pictures she has made, co-starring with screen legends such as; John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara, Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, Cliff Robertson, Elliot Gould, Roger Moore, Donald Sutherland, Bing Crosby, Glenn Ford, Lee Remick, James Caan and Sammy Davis. She co-starred with Richard Chamberlain in the critically acclaimed independent film, THREE DAYS OF HAMLET.
Her first television series, ͞The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.,͟ marked a milestone in U.S. television’s history as the first hour long series featuring a female in the leading role. Her television career includes over 25 mini-series, over 200 episodic guest starring appearances, 35 movies for television and two more television series, ͞Feather and Father͟ and the long running ͞Hart to Hart,͟ starring opposite Robert Wagner.
She became a member of the Screen Writers’ Guild of America in the 1980s and has produced several of the screenplays she has written, one of which, ͞Family Secrets,͟ was not only a stepping stone for the careers of James Spader and Gary Sinise but it garnered her a nomination for the best screenplay of the year by her peers in the Writers’ Guild. Her writing has extended itself to a memoir called, One from the Hart, published by The Robson Press.
Throughout her career she has never neglected her theatrical roots, appearing in productions of; How the other Half Loves, Under the Yum Yum Tree, Sabrina Fair, View from the Bridge, Oliver, Annie Get Your Gun, the West End debut of Matador, off-Broadway in The Vagina Monologues, back to the West End with Robert Wagner in Love Letters, which they also toured the United States with, becoming the cast most associated with the play after over 500 performances.
She appeared in the UK in the West End production of The King and I, which also toured the United States for ten months, and in a successful remounting of the musical Sunset Boulevard at the Ogunquit Theatre in Maine. She appeared in the UK in 2012 co-starring opposite Richard Johnson of Royal Shakespeare Company fame, in the play, On Golden Pond. She has recorded a CD with the legendary jazz artist Page Cavanaugh called On the Same Page, available online at Jambomusic.com. Also she has performed her one woman show, Hart of my Heart, a tribute to the life and the lyrics of Lorenz Hart in the Matcham Room atthe Hippodrome in London, San Francisco͛s Jazz Room, Los Angeles͛ Catalina Club, and at Feinstein͛s in New York.
While appearing in a production of ͞Love Letters͟ in the Middle East, she received a request from her dear friend, Valerie Harper, asking her to take over the role of Tallulah Bankhead in the play “Looped”. “Looped” is about the encounter between the infamous actress Tallulah Bankhead with a sound editor who is overseeing her recording of a line of dialogue for the 1965 film “Die! Die! My Darling!͟ the last film Ms. Bankhead would ever make. During the ͞looping session,͟ Bankhead had trouble re-recording the infamous line, “And so Patricia, as I was telling you, that deluded rector has in literal effect closed the church to me,” which sparks the play. Ironically, Stefanie co-starred in ͞Die! Die! My Darling!͟ playing ͚Patricia͛ that the line refers to.
In December 2016 she starred in a successful run of the musical ͞Gotta Dance͟which opened in Chicago.
This year began with her filming the independent film ͞The Artist͛s Wife͟ to be released in 2019, and starring in the British production of ͞84 Charing Cross Road͟.
As much a part of her life as her career, is her devotion to animal preservation and protection, which at times becomes more of a vocation than an avocation. She is founder and president of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation, established in 1982 to continue and to further her long-time partner͛s conservation work in East Africa after his death.
She was appointed conservation consultant to Jaguar and Land Rover after creating the Jaguar Conservation Trust which she has operated in Central America and is on the advisory board of the Vanishing Herds Foundation in India, whose primary effort is the protection and preservation of the only remaining population of AsiaticLions located in Gujarat India.
She has been on the advisory board of four zoos in the United States and is a fellow of the Los Angeles Zoo, the Explorers’ Club, and the Royal Geographic Society. She is active in the movement to preserve and protect the remaining herds of the North American wild horses and has received numerous international awards for her grass roots work in conservation which she considers a life-long commitment.
She is a frequent speaker and also serves on the board of the Oxford LiteraryFestival at Christchurch, Oxford.
She is a board member of long standing on three of the mutual funds within the family of funds called The American Funds.
She resides part of the year in Kenya and has done so since 1973.
