Lillian Powell

Lillian Ruth Powell (May 29, 1896 – May 31, 1992) was a Canadian-born American Denishawn-trained dancer who performed in early experimental silent film musicals. She would later teach dance and physical education before embarking on a nearly two-decade career in television.

Life and career

She was born in Victoria, British Columbia where some six months after her birth she was adopted by Charles and Eliza Powell and brought south to live in Ventura, California. Powell's adoptive parents later divorced and by 1910 she was living in San Diego where Eliza Powell worked as a milliner at a local department store. Powell later studied piano and would attended Technical High School in Oakland, California.

By 1918, Powell was a dancer with Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn at their Denishawn studio in Hollywood, California. That September she appeared in a Denishawn concert staged at Oakland’s Pantages Theatre in a dance called The Driad. The following year she began touring with the Denishawn Dancers playing the title rôle in Julnar of the Sea a spectacular ballet Shawn based on the Arabian Nights character, Julnar, the sea queen.