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2025/26 is the 45th anniversary of the hit series "Hart
to Hart.” Still working as an actress on stage as Anna in “The King and
I,” and Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard,” as well as “On Golden Pond,”
Stefanie considers her greatest achievement the founding of the William Holden
Wildlife Foundation. Stefanie Powers was recently inducted into the
prestigious list of Agents Of Change and honored for her efforts with the
William Holden Wildlife Foundation, at the United Nations for:
- Inspiring Others: Sharing her wisdom and
experiences to motivate and empower others to pursue their
dreams and make a larger-scale impact on society through the William
Holden Wildlife Foundation (https://whwf.org/)
- Leaving a Legacy: Documention of her journey
and contributions as a lasting resource that ignites a passion
for positive change.
- Reaching Wide Audience: Her delivering her
message to a global audience.
STEFANIE POWERS (The Actress): Stefanie Powers
began her career at age 15, dancing for famed Broadway choreographer, Jerome
Robbins. She was put under contract to Columbia Pictures in the final
years of the Hollywood star system. While under contract, she appeared in
15 of the 31 motion pictures she has made, co-starring with screen legends such
as; John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, Cliff Robertson,
Elliot Gould, Roger Moore, Donald Sutherland, Bing Crosby, Glenn Ford, Lee
Remick, James Caan and Sammy Davis. She recently co-starred with
Richard Chamberlin in the critically acclaimed independent film, THREE DAYS OF
HAMLET.
Her first television series, “The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.,”
marked a milestone in U.S. television's history as the first hour long series
featuring a female in the leading role. Her television career includes
over 25 mini-series, over 200 episodic guest starring appearances, 35 movies
for television and two more television series, “Feather and Father” and the
long running “Hart to Hart,” starring opposite Robert Wagner.
She became a member of the Screen Writers' Guild of America
in the 1980s and has produced several of the screenplays she has written, one
of which, “Family Secrets,” was not only a stepping stone for the careers of
James Spader and Gary Sinise but it garnered her a nomination for the best
screenplay of the year by her peers in the Writers' Guild. Her writing
has extended itself to a memoir called, One From The Hart, published by
The Robson Press.
Throughout her career she has never neglected her theatrical
roots, appearing in productions of; How the other Half Loves, Under the Yum
Yum Tree, Sabrina Faire, View from the Bridge, Oliver, Annie Get Your Gun,
the West End debut of Matador, off-Broadway in The Vagina Monologues,
back to the West End with Robert Wagner in Love Letters, which they also
toured the United States with, becoming the cast most associated with the play
after over 500 performances.
She once again appeared in the UK in the West End production
of The King and I, which also toured the United States for ten
months. As a result of the successful remounting of the musical Sunset
Boulevard at the Ogunquit Theatre, a US revival is being planned. She
appeared once again in the UK in 2012 co-starring opposite Richard Johnson of
Royal Shakespeare Company fame, in the play, On Golden Pond. She
has recorded a CD with the legendary jazz artist Page Cavanaugh called On
the Same Page, available online at Jambomusic.com.
Also in 2012 she performed her one woman show, Hart of my Heart, a
tribute to the life and the lyrics of Lorenz Hart at the newly opened Matcham
Room at the Hippodrome.
As much a part of her life as her career, is her devotion to
animal preservation and protection, which at times becomes more of a vocation
than an avocation. She is founder and president of the William Holden
Wildlife Foundation, established in 1982 to continue and to further her
long-time partner’s conservation work in East Africa after his
death.
STEFANIE POWERS (The Activist): Throughout
her life, Stefanie Powers has had a long-time enviable and successful
career in theatre, television and films. However, foremost
in her mind has always been the protection conservation and
welfare of the natural world. This is exemplified in wildlife,
biodiversity, the environment, and domesticated animals who have
accompanied our evolution and served us in war and in peace.
Of the activities she has pursued to arrive at her
current position are the following: In childhood, she was a member of 4H
and at home we had a private sanctuary for anything that fell out of a
tree, crawled into her backyard, or was hit by a car. She was raised
partially on her stepfather’s stud farm where they were taught all of
the hard lessons of animal husbandry and the commitment
to the responsibility and welfare of animals both domestic and
exotic. Those lessons lead her to rescue a baby Malaysian Sun Bear
that had been sold to the pet trade, thus opening the door to the
community of professionals and enthusiasts who look after wildlife in
captivity. She has served on the board of 4 zoos in the United States
and as conservation consultant for Jaguar North America where she created
the Jaguar Conservation Trust which she operated in Belize, Guatemala and
Costa Rica for 5 years. She was active in the movement to protect North
American wild horses and was instrumental in obtaining a
6-month moratorium on wild horse roundups and sales from feed lots.
In addition, she was able to affect the transfer of 40 wild horses
whose DNA was traced to Spanish bloodlines. These horses were saved,
collected, and transported to a private ranch in South Dakota where
they survive and prosper thanks to Ford Motor Company and their
negotiations with the BLM in Washington D.C.
Through her long-time relationship with William
Holden, whose conservation work was never publicized, she became a
shareholder in the Mount Kenya Game Ranch. The MKGR, now a
conservancy, is a 2000-acre converted farm on the slopes of
Mount Kenya where Bill established the first game ranch for
the preservation of species in all of Sub-Saharan Africa in 1959. It
was Bill’s hope to build a wildlife education center for the youth of
Kenya to learn about the importance of preserving their world
heritage wildlife. Thus, after his death in 1981, she founded a
501(c)3 public charity called the William Holden
Wildlife Foundation in order to build and endow the education center
Bill had imagined whose mission statement is ‘Wildlife conservation
through education and alternatives to habitat destruction’.
At the time, she couldn’t envision that they would grow
into the service of our mission statement as we have. It is the work all
her staff and she do that brings their mission to the communities
they serve, which number over 6000 in our outreach and 11000 at their
main center annually.
After years of concentrating on the first half of our
mission statement, they are now concentrating on their second half.
In 2017, they began a program of habitat restoration including farmland in
rural areas with an emphasis on carbon capture. They created 7 pilot
projects attached to primary and secondary schools where we have over
the years rebuilt their campus infrastructure. Our outreach to
students, their teachers and parents, introduces a practice of regenerative soil
and farming techniques which produce higher quality and quantity of
food even in drier conditions. This program of Agro Ec teaches small
farmers how they may become more productive and averts them from the
need to further exploit and damage land through over-chemicalization
and poor farming practices.
They are currently in the process of establishing a
protocol with criteria to prove and qualify a given piece of land as
having accomplished measurable soil regeneration. The have partnered with
2 laboratories in Kenya and 1 in the United States for soil analysis as
well as a local Kenyan laboratory who specializes in carbon
measurement in soil.
Their multiple achievements since 1982 are thanks to
our donors and our careful husbandry of their donations. They keep
their overheads to a bare minimum and, by the grace of one donor, all
of our operational costs in Los Angeles are covered. In spite of this
good news, it is still a constant challenge to raise funds for our
ongoing projects as well as our ever-increasing new ones. Since Ms
Powers is the chief fundraiser, it rests on her to seek grants and
funding at great personal sacrifice. Whatever she has sacrificed in
her personal and professional life, it is compensated by the impact
they have made and the help they have given to the countless
people who have benefited from the efforts of our work at WHWF.
THE WILLIAM HOLDEN WILDLIFE FOUNDATION
The William Holden Wildlife Foundation Education Center
offers visiting students a unique opportunity to experience the outdoors in a
rare communication with nature often unavailable to them in their own
environment.It is essential to build respect and appreciation for both flora
and fauna and the understanding of their delicate balance. Nature is a
renewable resource, but only if we assume responsibility for its protection.
For more information please visit: https://whwf.org/about/
For more information please send an email to harlan@bhbpr.com
or call 626.296.3757
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