Stefanie Powers (born November 2, 1942) is an American actress best known for her role as Jennifer Hart on the mystery television series Hart to Hart, for which she received nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards.
Stefania Zofya Paul was born on November 2, 1942, in Los Angeles, in the Hollywood neighborhood. but her surname often was cited as Federkiewicz. In her Polish-language autobiography, Powers says, "Moje prawdziwe nazwisko to Federkiewicz", which translates to, "My real [Polish] name is Federkiewicz". At the age of 16, she was put under studio contract with Columbia Pictures, and as was the movie-industry custom in those days, a name change to the more Anglo-Saxon-sounding "Stefanie Powers" was part of the deal.
Her parents divorced during her childhood. Powers' father, Morrison Bloomfield Paul (1909–1993), a cinematographer, was born in Montreal to a Jewish immigrant family from Eastern Europe. Powers was estranged from her father, whom she barely refers to and whose name is never mentioned in her memoir One from the Hart, in which she refers to the "tension and unhappiness created by my father's presence". She remained very close throughout her life to her mother, who was born Juliana Dimitria Golan (1912–2009) on a farm near Middletown, New York to Catholic parents of Polish descent. Her mother, who died in Los Angeles from pneumonia at 96 years of age, was known late in life and in local obituaries as Julie Powers. Stefanie Powers had an older brother, Jeffrey Julian Paul (1940–2013), of Orangevale, California, as well as a half-sister, Diane Pascoe Hanson Baillie, who died in 2000. Powers was a pom pom girl at Hollywood High School and on the swim team.
In 1961, using the stage name Taffy Paul, Powers made Tom Laughlin's independent film The Young Sinner, released in 1965.
Powers appeared in secondary roles in several movies in the early 1960s, such as Experiment in Terror (1962), If a Man Answers (1962), and McLintock! (1963). She played a schoolgirl in Tammy Tell Me True (1961), and Bunny, the police chief's daughter, in Palm Springs Weekend (1963). She appeared in the 1962 hospital melodrama The Interns and its sequel The New Interns in 1964. In 1965, she played opposite Tallulah Bankhead in Die! Die! My Darling (originally released in the UK as Fanatic).
In 1966, her "tempestuous" good looks led to being cast in the starring role as the passive and demure April Dancer, in the short-lived television series The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., a spin-off of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Shortly after the series' debut, she was featured on the cover of TV Guide (December 31, 1966 – January 6, 1967). The article mentions her "117-pound frame is kept supple with 11 minutes of Royal Canadian Air Force exercises every morning... Unlike her fellow U.N.C.L.E. agents, the ladylike April is not required to kill the bad guys. Her feminine charms serve as the bait, while her partner Noel Harrison provides the fireworks." The series lasted for only one season (29 one-hour episodes), airing from September 16, 1966, to April 11, 1967.
In 1967, Powers appeared in Warning Shot with David Janssen. Her 1970s movies include The Boatniks (1970), Herbie Rides Again (a sequel to The Love Bug) and The Magnificent Seven Ride! (1972). She was a guest star in the Robert Wagner series It Takes a Thief in 1970. The two co-starred in the popular Hart to Hart series nine years later. Before success with Hart to Hart, she starred in The Feather and Father Gang as Toni "Feather" Danton, a successful lawyer, whose father, Harry Danton, was a smooth-talking ex-con man (played by Harold Gould). It ran for a half-season (13 episodes).
Powers' many guest roles in other popular TV shows include Lancer (1969), McCloud (1971), The Mod Squad (1972), Banacek (1972), Kung Fu (1974), The Rockford Files (1975), Three for the Road (1975), The Six Million Dollar Man (1976), The Bionic Woman (1976), and McMillan & Wife (1977). Powers appeared in these shows long after she signed a contract with Universal Studios in 1970. Coincidentally, her longtime friend and Hart to Hart series co-star Wagner signed a contract with Universal, but did not guest-star in more shows than Powers did.
In 1977, Powers played Sally Whalen in the six-part television miniseries Washington: Behind Closed Doors, produced by Paramount Television. It is based on John Ehrlichman's book The Company, a novel inspired by the author's time with the Nixon administration. The series also starred Cliff Robertson, Jason Robards, Robert Vaughn, Lois Nettleton, and John Houseman.
In 1978, Powers starred with Paul Clemens and Brian Dennehy in the TV movie A Death in Canaan, directed by Tony Richardson. This TV movie was a dramatization of the nonfictional account of Connecticut townspeople rising to the defense of a local teenager charged with the mutilation murder of his mother in September 1973. Powers portrayed Joan Barthel, a freelance‐writer who brought attention to the original case. Clemens, son of actress Eleanor Parker, made his film acting debut here. The TV movie also marked the American TV directing debut of Richardson, and was Emmy Award-nominated as Outstanding Special of the 1977–78 season.
In 1978, Powers and Stacy Keach were the leads in the stage play Cyrano de Bergerac in a season at the Central Theater in the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center. Directed by Rae Allen, the production was part of an eight-month Long Beach Theater Festival program. The stage production was intended to transfer to Broadway after its California season; however, the bi-coastal run was not extended due to the 1978 New York City newspaper strike of 88 days, which hindered all theatre advertising and reduced box-office sales of the new fall season.
In 1979, Powers starred with Roger Moore, David Niven, Telly Savalas, Claudia Cardinale, and Elliott Gould, in the feature film Escape to Athena, in which a group of Anglo-American prisoners of the Germans scramble to liberate themselves and some Greek art treasures, shot on location in the Dodecanese islands of Greece in 1978. This was Powers’ last theatrical film until The Artist's Wife in 2019, in which she played performance artist Ada Risi.
Powers became most widely known as a television star for her role as Jennifer Hart in the American mystery series Hart to Hart, opposite Robert Wagner as Jonathan Hart, in which they portray a married couple who continually get mixed up in mysterious and/or criminal occurrences that they then solve together, usually without the assistance of the police. Hart to Hart aired for five seasons from 1979 to 1984. Powers and Wagner later reunited for eight Hart to Hart TV movies in the 1990s.
In 1984, she starred in the TV mini-series Mistral's Daughter, based on Judith Krantz's novel.
In 1985, Powers starred as twins who swap places leading to dire consequences in the two-part TV movie Deceptions.
In 1987, she starred in the real-life TV drama At Mother's Request as the frightening Frances Schreuder, who goaded her 17-year-old-son into killing her father. The script was adapted for television by Richard DeLong Adams and aired on CBS, directed by Michael Tuchner.
Powers starred with John Barrowman in Matador, a 1991 London stage musical, at the Queen's Theater. with a book inspired by Spanish corrida legend El Cordobés. The production was staged by Elijah Moshinsky for producer Laurence Myers, with choreography by Arlene Phillips and Rafael Aguilar, and scenery by William Dudley.
Powers starred with Robert Wagner in the 1993 stage production Love Letters at the Chicago Theatre. The two portrayed Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III, telling the story of their 40-year, mostly long-distance relationship without getting up from their chairs.