June Allyson (1917-2006)

June Allyson

June Allyson was one of the top Hollywood stars of the 1950's and continued to be an important movie and television actress for many years after. In 1951 she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her performance in 'Too Young to Kiss'.

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June Allyson was born Eleanor Geisman in the Bronx, New York City on October 7. 1917 and brought up in near poverty by her mother after her father, who was an alcoholic, abandoned the family when she was 6 months old.

She was injured in a cycling accident when she was eight, and told by doctors that she would not walk again. She spent the next four years wearing a steel brace, and regained her health with a regimen of swimming and dancing. She taught herself to dance by continually watching movies of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. She started to enter dance competitions in her teens, and went on to make her Broadway debut in the 1938 musical 'Sing Out the News', and to appear in musical film shorts, such as 'Dime a Dance' in 1937, first with Educational Pictures and when they folded she moved to Vitaphone until that studio discontinued production in New Yorkin 1940.

She made her feature debut in a Lucille Ball vehicle, 'Best Foot Forward' in 1943 after appearing in the stage version two years earlier. After appearing as a peppy, good-humored ornament in the likes of 'Two Girls and a Sailor' in 1944 and 'Good News' in 1947, she rose to leading roles, most happiily cast as Jo March in 'Little Women' in 1949. She was extremely good at being able to cry real tears on demand, and she and Margaret O'Brien, who was equally adept, became known as 'the town criers'.

After playing the wife of James Stewart's baseball player in the biopic 'The Stratton Story' in 1949, she became typecast as the perfect 1950's wife - a military or sports widow - standing by her husband in two more biopics, Stewart again in 'The Glenn Miller Story' in 1953 and Alan Ladd in 'The McConnell story' in 1955.

Allyson's throaty, sexy voice was slightly at odds with her starched blonde looks, which served her well in melodramas such as 'Woman's World' in 1954 and comedies such as 'My Man Godfrey' in 1957.

She was a major Hollywood star during the 1950's and in 1955 she was voted second-most-popular female star, behind Grace Kelly. The following year she starred with the up-and-coming young star, Jack Lemmon in a musical comedy, 'You Can't Run Away From It'.

June married actor and director Dick Powell in August 1945. He was 13 years her senior and had been previously married to Mildred Maund and Joan Blondell. They adopted a daughter, Pamela, in 1948 and their own son, Richard, was born in 1950. After a brief separation in 1955 when she fell in love with actor Alan Ladd during filming of 'The McConnell Story', the couple reconciled and remained married until Powell's death in January, 1963. After this June struggled, successfully, with alcoholism and effectively retired from the screen. Powell had been a rich man and she was left very well off after his death and had no need to work.

Her second husband, Glenn Maxwell, was Dick Powell's former barber. Her last husband, David Ashrow, to whom she was married from 1976 until her death, was a retired dentist turned actor.

In 1959, June became one of the first movie stars to have her own regular television show, 'The Dupont Show with June Allyson.' The show was a weekly drama series hosted by and occasionally starring June and was produced by her husband, Dick Powell. The show was very successful and ran for 57 episodes in total.

In later years Allyson performed extensively on TV, firstly with her husband in 'The Dick Powell Show' from 1961-63, and then did guest spots on the likes of 'The Incredible Hulk' in 1979. She also became well known on television for her commercials for Depend & Poise products. Also in the 1970's she returned to the stage in the musical-comedy, 'Forty Carats' on Broadway and then touring for one year with 'No, No Nanette' in 1971.

Her most distinctive late career film role found her trashing her good-gal image by playing a psycho lesbian murderess in 'They Only Kill Their Masters' in 1972.

After a long illness June Allyson died of pulmonary respiratory failure and acute bronchitis at her home in Ojai, California on July 8, 2006, aged 88.

June Allyson Filmography