The unmistakeable June Allyson
She played supportive sweethearts and wives, but as Valery McConnell discovers, there was a lot more to this husky-voiced star than meets the eye
MGM dubbed June Allyson ‘Everybody's favourite girl next door’. But a more accurate title would be the miracle child. Ella Geisman (June's real name) was just eight years old when a tree fell on her, fracturing her skull and breaking her back.
For four years she wore a steel brace and doctors feared she would always be in a wheelchair. Not a great prospect for a little girl brought up poor by her mother in Brooklyn after they were abandoned by her alcoholic father. As June remembered, “Sometimes my mother would not eat dinner when
I was eating and I'd ask why. She would say she wasn't hungry but later I realised there was only enough food for one.”
Determined little Ella stuck with the physiotherapy and swimming and learned to walk again. But Ella/June also adored the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and watched them time and time again, until she had taught herself to dance... and fallen in love with showbusiness.
A schoolfriend then dared June to audition for a Broadway show. She not only got a part but became a Broadway regular, eventually becoming Betty Hutton's understudy. Betty obligingly got the measles and June got rave reviews, leading to her own part in the show Best Foot Forward. And when MGM wanted to make a film version, they decided to keep her in it and June got a Hollywood contract in 1942 aged 25.
THE SWEETHEART TEAM
But stardom wasn't instant for the 5ft 1in bundle of energy with the husky voice that caused one producer to ask her to come back when she had got rid of her cold. As June herself said “I have big teeth. I lisp. My eyes disappear when I smile. My voice is funny. I don't sing like Judy Garland. I don't dance like Cyd Charisse. But women identify with me. And while men desire Cyd Charisse, they'd take me home to meet Mom.” She made it big when she was paired with Van Johnson in a series of lighthearted musicals that were perfect for the war years. She and Van became ‘the sweetheart team’ with MGM publicity suggesting they were sweethearts in real life, too. They did the same with her other early co-star, Peter Lawford. None of it was true.
June disliked her girl-next-door tag, complaining that in too many of her films, “I was always in the kitchen cooking eggs.” She did move on to straight dramatic roles, including playing James Stewart's wife three times, most notably in The Glenn Miller Story. They had genuine screen chemistry – and in real life had a serious romance.
But it was another Hollywood star who was to capture her heart, Dick Powell, who had himself made the break from musical star to tough-guy roles.
He nicknamed her
Junie-face and declared she was, “the cutest little thing anybody ever saw”. At the time he was married to Joan Blondell, and although Dick and June denied the affair, Joan decried June as a marriage wrecker to anybody who would listen.
They married in 1945 when June was at the height of her career. Louis B Mayer was against the union, but smart June disarmed him by asking him to give her away.
She was voted No.1 Female Box Office attraction for six years running. She was earning millions but never even opened a chequebook – leaving it all to her husband.
Dick was 13 years older than June and as she remembered, “took care of everything.” Anyway, June wanted more than her career – but as she'd been told that as a result of her childhood accident she would never have children, in 1948 she and Dick adopted a little girl – Pamela. Two years later, June was all set to star with her idol, Fred Astaire,
in Royal Wedding, when to her delight she became pregnant with Dick’s son, Richard Junior and had to pull out.
NOT SUCH A GOOD GIRL
In 1955 June finally saw the chance to break free from her wholesome image. José Ferrer cast her as a shrewish wife in his film The Shrike. June's acting more than matched the part, but at the preview the audience overwhelmingly said they didn't like seeing her in a wicked role. And even though the ending was re-shot to soften it, the film flopped. June learned she was stuck with wholesome roles. Perhaps that was why in the same year she began an affair with co-star Alan Ladd. It was serious enough for her to ask Dick for a divorce, but he declared, “I'm not going to let you go,” and they reconciled.
June's film career was slowing down but she moved into TV and had her own show in 1959 – produced by her husband. Just four years later Dick was dead, aged 58, from lung cancer. June fell apart. “When Richard went he took about three-quarters of me with him,” she was to write in her autobiography. She began drinking and made a hasty disastrous marriage to a younger man, Glenn Maxwell. He was a gambler who hit her and spent her money; they divorced in 1970. Ever the trouper, she went back on Broadway to great success and in 1972 finally said goodbye to playing only nice roles when she starred as a lesbian murderer in the film They Only Kill Their Masters. But it wasn’t until she met dentist turned actor David Ashrow in 1976 that she rediscovered personal happiness in a marriage that lasted until June's death in 2006. June quit drinking and became something of a champion for older women by becoming the face of Depend incontinence-wear at a time when it was never spoken about. She was so influential that Ronald Reagan appointed her to his Federal Council on Ageing in 1988 and in 1997 the June Allyson Foundation was set up to raise money for research and education. The determined little girl from Brooklyn made sure her unmistakable voice got put to very good use in the end.
Dick Powell on June's voice: “like Jimmy Durante, only froggier”