Mount Carmel has been and is a blue collar town. Nevertheless there existed an underlying temperment among many of its residents to provide a cultural environment for its progeny that would encourage them to persue their artistic dreams and to provide the wherewithal for them to hone their skills. Here are a few that achieved a level of success that allowed Mount Carmel to bask in the glow of their achievements.
Marie Powers
Marie was a contralto who was best known for her performance of Madame Flora in Gian Carlo Menotti's The Medium. She was hailed as a star for her dramatic performance as a phony psychic, a role she played on stage, screen and television.
She also appeared on Broadway in the revival of Carousel and the original production of Becket. Marie was one of Mount Carmel's finest and one of our famous citizens. At the age of 17, she left her hometown to travel to Milan Italy to study singing. It was here where she was able to audition for the famous conductor Arturo Tosconini at La Scala and was given a part at the legendary opera company.
It would be the start of her career that would end in Mount Carmel where she is interred next to here parents in Saint Mary's cemetery.
Although born in Philadelphia her father, George Hook, grew up in Mount Carmel in the Hook home on 6th and Walnut Streets. So the coal region can, and does, prpodly claim her as an ancestral one of their own.
She pursued a lifetime passion for music when she won scholarships to the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music and a 7-year fellowship at the Juilliard Graduate School to study piano with Olga Samaroff Stokowski and Sascha Gordnitzki.
After graduation from Juilliard in 1952, Natalie launched her career with a successful New York debut. She began touring nationally and internationally with Columbia Artists Management in 1953. Her performances earned critical acclaim and several recordings by Contemporary Records in 1958 and 1960 which were among the first records made in stereo.
Natalie has achievements that include: winner, Julliards First Concerto Competition; semi-finalist, Leventritt and Naumburg Competitions; Steinway Artist appearing in the first edition of Whos Who of American Women; and National Federation of Music Teachers Award.
She taught and inspired many outstanding students in her private studio in Westport, CT from 1985-2012.
Listen to Natalie play Rameau Cavotte Variee
Ellen Albertini Dow
Dow was best known for her work as the foul-mouth grandma in "Wedding Crashers" and performed "Rapper's Delight" in "The Wedding Singer."
Dow was born in 1913 in Mount Carmel. The Albertini famaily owned a car dealership there.
Ellen had small roles in hits like "Moonlighting," "Family Matters" and "The Golden Girls" before being featured in 1998's "The Wedding Singer," alongside Adam Sandler.
She was also Barry's grandma in "Road Trip" and Grandma Cleary in "Wedding Crashers." More recently, she was featured in the hit show "New Girl" as Aunt Ruthie in 2013.
After obtaining a bachelor's and master's from Cornell University, Dow performed alongside legendary mimes Marcel Marceau and Jacques LeCoq in Paris, according to IMDB, which lists her first on-screen credits in the mid-1980s when she was already in her 70s. She also taught drama and dance for more than three decades.
