FILE - In this Tuesday March 13, 2007 file photo, Jane Powell, 77, an actress who sang and danced with among others, Fred Astaire, attends a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the importance of public investing in the arts, in Washington. Jane Powell, the bright-eyed, col soprano star of Hollywood's golden age musicals who sang with Howard Keel in “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” and danced with Fred Astaire in “Royal Wedding,” has died, Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021. She was 92. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

LOS ANGELES — Jane Powell, the bright-eyed, operatic-voiced star of Hollywood’s golden age musicals who sang with Howard Keel in “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” and danced with Fred Astaire in “Royal Wedding,” has died. She was 92. Powell died Thursday at her Wilton, Conn., home, longtime friend Susan Granger said. Granger said Powell died of natural causes.

Powell performed virtually her whole life, starting about age 5 as a singing prodigy on radio in Portland, Ore. On screen, she quickly graduated from teen roles to the lavish musical productions that were a 20th-century Hollywood staple.

Her 1950 casting in “Royal Wedding” came by default. June Allyson was first announced as Astaire’s co-star but withdrew when she became pregnant. Judy Garland was cast, but was withdrawn because of personal problems. Jane Powell was next in line.

Powell had just turned 21 when she got the role; Astaire was 50. She was nervous because she lacked dancing experience, but she found him “very patient and understanding. We got along fine from the start.”

“Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” proved to be a 1954 “sleeper” hit.

Her survivors include her daughter, Lindsey Nerney, Granger said.