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| Mrs. Maxine Powell, with music legend Smokey Robinson, Detroit’s tribute to Powell at the Motown Museum in August, 2013. |
by contributing writer Michael P. Coleman
The music world lost a legend this morning with the passing of legendary Motown Records etiquette coach Mrs. Maxine Powell, after a long illness. She was 98 years old.
Powell was born in Texarkana, Texas, but moved to Chicago as an infant to be raised by an aunt, who taught etiquette and refinement. She graduated from Hyde Park High School in 1933. She attended Madame C.J. Walkerʼs School of Beauty Culture and worked as a manicurist to finance her acting studies, working with James Baron, director of the Negro Drama League and taking dance and movement lessons from Chicago legend Sammy Dyer.
Powell developed a one-woman show called “An Evening with Maxine Powell” that featured pantomime and skits and performed with the first African American group to perform at the Chicago Theatre. She relocated to Detroit in 1945, and began teaching self-improvement and modeling classes. In 1951, Powell established the Maxine Powell Financing and Modeling School, becoming one of the first female entrepreneurs in Detroit.
She was recruited to Motown Records in 1964 by Gwen Gordy Fuqua, a top Powell model and the sister of the companyʼs founder Berry Gordy. As the labelʼs new Director of Artistic Development, she taught on- and off-stage etiquette and helped developed the stage personas of a number of future Motown superstars, including Diana Ross & The Supremes, The Temptations, Martha & The Vandellas, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder.
“We have lost a true unspoken hero,” Supremes founding member Mary Wilson exclusively told The Hub. “She inspired so many people to be the very best. She told us Supremes that we were “diamonds in the rough” and that she, and Motown, were there to polish us.”
After Motown relocated to Los Angeles in the late 1960s, Powell taught personal development Detroitʼs Wayne County Community College from 1971 to 1985. Afterward, she severed as a personal consultant on an individual basis until close to the time of her death. Last August, Detroitʼs Motown Museum honored Powell for her contributions to the label with a tribute that featured Smokey Robinson, Martha Reeves, and Duke Fakir of the Four Tops.
Funeral arrangements are being made at press time.
Email mikelsmindseye@me.com or follow him on Twitter: @ColemanMichaelP
