Donald Meek

Who was born on this date:

Actor Donald Meek was born on July 14, 1878 in Scotland. A prolific character actor who appeared in over 100 movies during the Golden Age. He first worked as a stage actor and later became a film actor, starring in several movies including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Little Miss Broadway, and State Fair. He was cast as timid, worrisome characters in many of his films, and is perhaps best known for his roles as Mr. Poppins in Frank Capra's You Can't Take It With You and as Samuel Peacock in John Ford's Stagecoach. Meek died on November 18, 1946 in Los Angeles, California, and is buried at Fairmount Cemetery in Denver, Colorado.

http://www.michaelthomasbarry.com/, author of "Fade to Black: Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950"

Red Buttons, Irving Pichel, Alan Marshal

Who died on this date:

On July 13, 2006 actor, Red Buttons died. He was born Aaron Chwatt on February 5, 1919 in New York City. At sixteen years old, Chwatt got a job as an entertaining bellhop at Ryan's Tavern in City Island, Bronx. The combination of his red hair and the shiny buttoned bellhop uniform inspired orchestra leader Charles "Dinty" Moore to call him Red Buttons, the name under which he would later perform. In 1939, Buttons started working for Minsky's Burlesque; in 1941, José Ferrer chose Buttons to appear in a Broadway show The Admiral Had a Wife. The show was a farce set in Pearl Harbor, and it was due to open on December 8, 1941. It never did, as it was deemed inappropriate after the Japanese attack. In later years, Buttons would joke that the Japanese only attacked Pearl Harbor to keep him off Broadway. In September 1942, Buttons made his Broadway debut in Vickie with Ferrer and Uta Hagen. Later that year, he appeared in the Minsky's show Wine, Women and Song; this was the last Burlesque show in New York City history, as the Mayor La Guardia administration closed it down. Buttons was on stage when the show was raided.

After World War II, Buttons continued to do Broadway shows. He also performed at Broadway movie houses with the Big Bands. In 1952, Buttons received his own variety series on television - The Red Buttons Show ran for three years, and achieved high levels of success. In 1953, he recorded and had a hit with the song "Strange Things Are Happening." His role in Sayonara (1957) was a dramatic departure from his previous work and he won a best Supporting Actor Academy Award for this role. After his Oscar-winning role, Buttons performed in numerous feature films, including the Africa adventure Hatari! with John Wayne, the war epic The Longest Day, the biopic Harlow, the disaster film The Poseidon Adventure, the dance-marathon drama They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, the family comedy Pete's Dragon, the disaster film When Time Ran Out with Paul Newman and 18 Again! with George Burns. He became a nationally recognizable comedian, and his "Never Got A Dinner" routine was a standard of the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts for many years. Red Buttons died of complications from high blood pressure on July 13, 2006 at his home in the Century City area of Los Angeles. His ashes were given to family and final disposition is unknown.

On July 13, 1954 actor, Irving Pichel died. He was born on June 24, 1891 and among his most notable screen roles were the servant Sandor in Dracula's Daughter, and Fagin in the 1933 adaptation of Oliver Twist. He directed several films, including The Miracle of the Bells, Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid, and Destination Moon. His voice was heard as narrator in How Green Was My Valley, and as the voice of Jesus in the film The Great Commandment.

By the mid 1940s, Pichel played small parts in several of the films that he directed, performed on radio, and was the narrator of John Ford's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon in 1949. His last films as a director were sectarian church-basement favorites Martin Luther in 1953, and Day of Triumph in 1954. In 1947, Pichel was one of 19 members of the Hollywood community who were subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee during the United States' second Red Scare. This group became known as the "Hollywood Nineteen" and the "Unfriendly Nineteen.” While Pichel was ultimately not called to testify, he was blacklisted, although he got around the blacklist by leaving the United States. He died on July 13, 1954 and is buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California.

On July 13, 1961 actor, Alan Marshal died. He was born on January 29, 1909 in Australia. His film credits include The Garden of Allah (1936) with Marlene Dietrich, Conquest (1937) with Greta Garbo, Night Must Fall (1937), Dramatic School (1938), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), Irene (1940), The Howards of Virginia (1940), Lydia (1941), Tom, Dick and Harry (1941) with Ginger Rogers, The White Cliffs of Dover (1944) with Irene Dunne, and House on Haunted Hill (1959). He died on July 13, 1961 from a heart attack while appearing in Chicago with Mae West in a production of her play Sextette. He is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

http://www.michaelthomasbarry.com/, author of "Fade to Black: Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950"

Vera Ralston and Lon Chaney, Jr.

Who was born on this date:

Actress Vera Ralston was born on July 12, 1919 (the year is questionable) in Prague, Czchoslovakia. She competed at the 1936 European Figure Skating Championships and placed 15th. Later that season, she competed at the 1936 Winter Olympics, where she placed 17th. During the games, she personally met and insulted Adolf Hitler. Hitler asked her if she would like to "skate for the swastika." As she later recalled, "I looked him right in the eye, and said that I'd rather skate on the swastika. She immigrated to the United States in the early 1940s and became a naturalized citizen in 1946 and moved to Hollywood with her mother. She signed a contract Republic Pictures in 1943.

During her film career she was known as both Vera Hrubá Ralston and later Vera Ralston. She normally played an immigrant girl, because of her limited English skills. Her film credits include Storm over Lisbon (1944), Dakota (1945) and The Fighting Kentuckian with John Wayne (1949), A Perilous Journey (1953), and Fair Wind to Java (1953). She retired from films in 1958.

In 1952 Ralston married the head of Republic Studio’s, Herbert Yates. Yates was nearly 40 years her senior, and had left his wife and children to be with Ralston. Yates used his position to obtain roles for Ralston, and at one point was sued by studio shareholders for using company assets to promote his wife. Yates died in 1966, leaving his $10 million estate to Ralston. She suffered a nervous breakdown shortly thereafter, then remarried and lived quietly in southern California until her death from cancer on February 9, 2003. She is buried at the Santa Barbara Cemetery.

Who died on this date:

On July 12, 1973, actor Lon Chaney, Jr., died. He was born Creighton Tull Chaney on February 10, 1906 in Oklahoma City and is the son of silent film legend, Lon Chaney. He is best known for his roles in monster movies. From an early age, he worked hard to get out of his famous father's shadow. In young adulthood, his father discouraged him from show business, and he attended college and became successful in a Los Angeles appliance corporation. It was only after his father's death that Chaney started acting in movies, beginning with an uncredited role in the 1932 film Girl Crazy. He appeared in films under his real name until 1935, when he began to be billed as "Lon Chaney, Jr."

Chaney first achieved film stardom and critical acclaim in the 1939 feature film version of Of Mice and Men, in which he played Lennie Small. In 1941, Chaney starred in the title role of The Wolf Man for Universal Pictures, a role which would typecast him for the rest of his life. He maintained a career at Universal over the next few years, replaying the Wolf Man in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Frankenstein's monster in The Ghost of Frankenstein, Kharis the mummy in The Mummy's Tomb, The Mummy's Ghost and The Mummy's Curse. He also played the title character in Son of Dracula. Chaney is thus the only actor to portray all four of Universal's major monsters: the Wolf Man, Frankenstein's Monster, the Mummy, and the vampire son of Count Dracula. Universal also starred him in a series of psychological mysteries associated with the Inner Sanctum radio series. He also established himself as a favorite of producer Stanley Kramer, taking key supporting roles in the western High Noon (1952), Not as a Stranger (1955), and The Defiant Ones (1958). In later years, he battled throat cancer and chronic heart disease after decades of heavy drinking and smoking and died on July 12, 1973 in San Clemente, California. His body was donated to medical research.

http://www.michaelthomasbarry.com/, author of "Fade to Black: Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950"

Yul Brynner, Thomas Mitchell, Sally Blane, Laurence Olivier, Frances Langford

Who was born on this date:

Actor Yul Brynner was born on July 11, 1920 in Primorsky Krai, Russia. He was best known for his portrayal of Mongkut, king of Siam, in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor; he also played the role more than 4,500 times on stage. He is also remembered as Rameses II in the 1956 Cecil B. DeMille film The Ten Commandments, General Bounine in Anastasia and Chris Adams in The Magnificent Seven. Brynner was noted for his distinctive voice and for his shaven head, which he maintained as a personal trademark long after adopting it for his initial role in The King and I. Brynner is one of only nine people who have won both a Tony Award and an Academy Award for the same role.

Brynner was married four times, the first three ending in divorce. He fathered three children and adopted two. According to Marlene Dietrich's daughter Maria Riva (as she wrote in her memoir Marlene Dietrich, 1994), he had a passionate affair with the famous actress during the first production of The King and I. Brynner died of lung cancer on October 10, 1985, in New York City. Knowing he was dying of cancer, Brynner starred in a run of farewell performances of his most famous role, The King and I, on Broadway from January 7 to June 30, 1985.
Throughout his life, Brynner was often seen with a cigarette in his hand. In January 1985, nine months before his death, he gave an interview on Good Morning America, expressing his desire to make an anti-smoking commercial. A clip from that interview was made into just such a public service announcement by the American Cancer Society, and released after his death; it includes the warning "Now that I'm gone, I tell you, don't smoke. Whatever you do, just don't smoke. If I could take back that smoking, we wouldn't be talking about any cancer. I'm convinced of that." He is interred, in France, on the grounds of the Saint-Michel-de-Bois-Aubry Russian Orthodox monastery, near Luzé.

Actor Thomas Mitchell was born on July 11, 1892 in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He was known as one of Hollywood’s greatest character actors. Mitchell is best known for his portrayal of Gerald O’Hara, the father of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939). In a show business career that spanned nearly four decades, 1923-1961, he appeared in fifty-seven motion pictures and numerous television programs that include: Lost Horizon (1937), Man of the People (1937), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), Dark Waters (1944), and High Noon (1952). Other famous films in which he appeared are It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), starring Jimmy Stewart, in which Mitchell portrayed the absent minded, Uncle Billy, and his last film A Pocket Full of Miracles (1961), which starred Bette Davis and Glenn Ford. During his long and successful film career, Mitchell was twice nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar, for the role of Dr. Kersaint in The Hurricane (1937) and won the award for his portrayal of Doc Boone in Stage Coach (1939).

Mitchell was the first actor to win the Triple Crown of acting, best supporting actor Academy Award for Stage Coach (1939), a Tony Award in 1953 for Hazel Flagg, and an Emmy for best actor in 1953. On December 17, 1962, Mitchell died at his Beverly Hills home after a long struggle with bone cancer. His funeral service was private and held at his home with only family members and a few close friends in attendance. Mitchell’s remains were cremated and it is alleged that his ashes are held in storage at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles, California.

Actress Sally Blane was born on July 11, 1910 in Salida, Colorado. She was the sister of actresses Polly Ann and Loretta Young, and half-sister to actress Georgiana Young, the wife of actor Ricardo Montalban. She made her film debut at the age of seven when she appeared in Sirens of the Sea in 1917. She returned to the film business as an adult in the 1920s where she played small parts in a number of silent films. Her career continued into the 1930s when Blane appeared in a number of low-budget films, among them Once a Sinner (1930), A Dangerous Affair (1930), Arabian Knights (1931), Anabelle's Affairs (1931), Hello Everybody! (1933), City Limits (1934), Against the Law (1934) and This Is the Life (1935). Some of her scenes, including one in Annabell's Affairs, in which she appeared in skimpy lingerie with Jeanette Macdonald and Joyce Compton, were quite risqué for their day, pre-dating the industry's Hays Code that largely forbade such shots after 1934.

Although her film appearances tapered off toward the late 1930s, Blane eventually appeared in over 100 films. She appeared onscreen at one time or another with all her sisters, for example with Georgina in The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939). After that Blane appeared in only four more movies in small supporting roles, Fighting Mad (1939), Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939), La Fuga (1944) and A Bullet for Joey (1955). Blane died of cancer, as had her sisters Polly and Loretta, on August 27, 1997 and is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

Who died on this date:

On July 11, 1989, actor Laurence Olivier died. He was considered by many to be the greatest actor of his time and a living reincarnation of the traditional Shakespearian thespians of times long past, Sir Laurence Kerr Olivier was born on May 22, 1907 in Dorking, Surrey, England. The youngest of three children, Olivier was raised in a very strict religious home. His father was a high ranking Anglican priest and his mother, while tender and doting, died when Laurence was only twelve. Laurence’s Uncle Sydney Olivier was the first Baron Olivier and was Governor of Jamaica and Secretary of State for India.
His love for acting began at an early age, performing in school plays. Because of his natural talent for the performing arts, his father agreed to support this calling. While a student at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, he appeared in numerous Shakespearian productions and his roles became more and more significant. Moving to New York City in the late 1920’s, Olivier’s star status rapidly gained momentum and soon caught the eye of Hollywood studio executives. His first foray into film came in 1930 with The Temporary Widow and his first starring role came the next year in The Yellow Ticket (1931), Olivier did not hold either of these films in high regard. Although his greatest successes were to come on the silver screen, he always held contempt for the medium; his first love would always be the stage.

In a show business career that would span nearly six decades (1930-1989), Olivier would appear in over eighty feature films and television programs. His greatest film achievements include; Perfect Understanding (1933), Conquest of the Air (1936), Pride and Prejudice (1940), 21 Days (1940), That Hamilton Woman (1941), The Prince and the Show Girl (1957), Spartacus (1960), Khartoum (1966), Battle of Britain (1969), Dracula (1979), The Jazz Singer (1980), and Clash of the Titans (1981). He was nominated for eight best acting Oscars, Wuthering Heights (1939), Rebecca (1940), The Chronicles History of King Henry V (1944), Hamlet (1948), Richard III (1955), The Entertainer (1960), Othello (1965), Sleuth (1972), and The Boys from Brazil (1978). Olivier was also nominated for a best director and supporting actor Oscar’s for Hamlet (1948) and The Marathon Man (1976), respectively. His only win came in 1949 for his portrayal of the title role of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark in Hamlet (1948). He was also the recipient of two honorary Academy Awards, 1947 for outstanding achievement as an actor, producer, and director for Henry V (1946), and 1979 for lifetime achievement in film.

Unlike his professional career, his personal life was filled with turmoil. He was married three times and divorced twice, most notably to fellow Academy Award winning actress Vivien Leigh. Olivier met Leigh while the pair were still married and carried on a torrid love affair. They eventually married on August 30, 1940, and their tumultuous union lasted twenty years. Throughout his life Olivier was known as notorious womanizer and had numerous affairs which included his second wife Vivien Leigh, Claire Bloom, and his third wife, Joan Plowright. It has been alleged, but never proven, that he was bi-sexual. Rumors of romantic trysts with fellow actors Danny Kaye and Henry Ainley have persisted but no actual evidence has ever been produced. But in a tantalizing 2006 radio interview, Joan Plowright responded to a question about these rumors by saying “If a man is touched by genius, he is not an ordinary person. He doesn’t lead an ordinary life. He has extremes of behavior which you understand and you just find a way not to be swept overboard by his demons.”

Laurence Olivier died on July 11, 1989 at his country home in Steyning, West Sussex, England. The exact cause of his death is in dispute, some sources point to kidney failure and others to complications from a muscle disorder. What is known is that Olivier had been in poor health for many years and just four months prior to his death; the actor had undergone hip replacement surgery after a fall. His cremated remains are interred at Westminster Abbey, London, England in Poets Corner, one of only four actors to have been accorded this honor and he is interred ironically near many of the famous people he portrayed both on stage and screen.

On July 11, 2005, actress Frances Langford died. She was born on April 4, 1913 in Lakeland, Florida. At age 17, she was singing for local dances. Cigar manufacturer Eli Witt heard her sing at an American Legion party and hired her to sing on his local radio show. While singing for radio during the early 1930s, she was heard by Rudy Vallee, who invited her to become a regular on his radio show and from 1935 until 1938 she was a regular performer on Dick Powell's radio show. She made her film debut in Every Night at Eight (1935) she introduced what became her signature song: "I'm in the Mood for Love." She then began appearing frequently in films such as Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935), Born to Dance (1936) and Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) with James Cagney. During World War II, she joined Hope, Jerry Colonna, and other performers on U.S.O. tours through Europe, North Africa, and the South Pacific, entertaining thousands of G.I.'s throughout the world. Her association with Hope continued into the 1980s. In 1989 she joined him for a USO tour to entertain troops in the Persian Gulf. She died on July 11, 2005 at her Jensen Beach home from congestive heart failure and her ashes were scattered at sea.

http://www.michaelthomasbarry.com/, author of "Fade to Black: Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950"

Joan Marsh and Thomas Gomez

Who was born on this date:

Actress Joan Marsh was born on July 10, 1913 and she made her first film appearance as an infant in the Universal Pictures film Hearts Aflame (1915), billed as Dorothy Rosher. After a number of baby roles, Marsh became a child star in Pickford films such as Daddy-Long-Legs (1919) and Pollyanna (1920). Marsh made her last film appearance as a child in 1921, and returned to films with a role in King of Jazz (1930), in which she sang with Bing Crosby. She played W.C. Fields' daughter in You're Telling Me! (1934). She continued in small roles until the early 1940s. During production of Charlie Chan on Broadway (1937), Marsh met and later married Charles Belden, who had co-written the film's screenplay. The marriage ended in divorce in 1943, and the following year Marsh made her final film appearance in Follow the Leader (1944). She on August 10, 200 in Ojai, California and her cremated remains were given to family with final disposition being unknown.

Actor Thomas Gomez was born on July 10, 1905 in New York City. He began his acting career in theater during the 1920s and made his first film Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror in 1942 and by the end of his career had appeared in sixty films. He received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film Ride the Pink Horse (1947). His other film roles include Who Done It? (1942), Key Largo (1948), Force of Evil (1948), The Conqueror (1956) and Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970). A frequent performer on television, Gomez also appeared in guest roles in such series as The Twilight Zone, Route 66, Dr. Kildare, Mr. Ed, Burke's Law, The Virginian, It Takes a Thief, Bewitched and Gunsmoke. Gomez had many notable stage roles and replaced Leo McKern as Thomas Cromwell in the original Broadway run of A Man for All Seasons. He died in Santa Monica, California on June 18, 1971 from injuries sustained in a car accident and is buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

http://www.michaelthomasbarry.com/, author of "Fade to Black: Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950"

Rod Steiger, Charles Lane

Who died on this date:

On July 9, 2002, actor Rod Steiger died. He was born on April 14, 1925 in Westhampton, New York. He started acting late in the Golden Age and appeared in over 100 films. He began his acting career in theatre and on live television in the early 1950s. On May 24, 1953, an episode of Goodyear Television Playhouse jump-started his career. He won the Best Actor Oscar for In the Heat of the Night (1967), opposite Sidney Poitier. He was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for On the Waterfront (1954) and was nominated again, for Best Actor in The Pawnbroker (1965). He also appeared Doctor Zhivago (1965), The Big Knife, Al Capone (1959), The Loved One, No Way to Treat a Lady and The Sergeant (1968) and Waterloo (1970). In his later years he appeared in The Amityville Horror (1979); The Specialist (1994), and Mars Attacks!. On television, he appeared in the miniseries Hollywood Wives (1985), and Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City (1993). Among his final roles was the judge in the prison drama, The Hurricane (1999).

He was offered the title role in Patton, but turned it down because he did not want to glorify war. The role was then given to George C. Scott, who won a Best Actor Oscar. Steiger called this refusal his "dumbest career move.” After undergoing triple heart bypass surgery in 1976, Steiger reportedly fell into a serious depression for eight years. He died in Los Angeles on July 9, 2002 from pneumonia and complications from surgery for a gall bladder tumor. He is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills.

On July 9, 2007, character actor Charles Lane died. He was born on January 26, 1905 in San Francisco, California. He appeared in numerous movies and TV shows, and at the time of his death may have been the oldest living professional American actor. He appeared in many Frank Capra films, including You Can't Take It With You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946). He was a favored supporting actor of Lucille Ball, who often used him as a no-nonsense authority figure and comedic foe of her scatterbrained TV character on her TV series I Love Lucy, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour and The Lucy Show.

Lane also appeared in the 1949 film Mighty Joe Young, and 1963’s It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. His final acting role was at the age of 101 in 2006's The Night Before Christmas. His last television appearance was at the age of 90, when he appeared in the 1995 Disney TV remake of its 1970 teen comedy The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, with Kirk Cameron. Lane died on July 9, 2007 and is buried at Home of Peace Cemetery in Colma, California.

http://www.michaelthomasbarry.com/, author of "Fade to Black: Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950"

Eugene Pallette, June Allyson

Back from a weeks vacation in London...

Who was born on this date:

Actor Eugene Pallette was born on July 8, 1889 in Winfield, Kansas. He appeared in over 240 silent era and sound era motion pictures between 1913 and 1946. An overweight man with large stomach and deep, gravelly voice, Pallette is probably best-remembered for comic character roles such as Alexander Bullock, Carole Lombard's father, in My Man Godfrey (1936), his role as Friar Tuck in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) starring Errol Flynn and his similar role as Fray Felipe in The Mark of Zorro (1940) starring Tyrone Power. Pallette began his silent movie career as an extra in about 1911.

His first credited appearance was in the one-reel short western/drama, The Fugitive (1913). He worked with D.W. Griffith on such famous films as The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916). At this time, he had a slim, athletic figure, a far cry from the portly build that would gain him fame later in his career. After gaining a substantial amount of weight, Pallette gained status as a recognizable character actor. In 1927, he signed as a regular for Hal Roach Studios and was a reliable comic foil in several early Laurel and Hardy movies. In later years, Pallette's weight may have topped out at 300 pounds.

Pallette with Errol Flynn in "The Advetures of Robinhood"

The advent of the talkies proved to be the second major career boost for Pallette. His inimitable rasping gravel voice made him one of Hollywood's most sought-after character actors in the 1930s and 1940s. In increasingly ill health by his late 1950s, Pallette made fewer and fewer movies, and for lesser studios. His final movie was Suspense, released in 1946. He died on September 3, 1954 from cancer at his apartment in Los Angeles. His cremated remains are interred in an unmarked grave at Green Lawn Cemetery in Grenola, Kansas.

Who died on this date:

On July 8, 2006, Actress June Allyson died. She was born Eleanor Geisman on October 7, 1917 in the Bronx, New York. Interspersing jobs in the chorus line at the Copacabana Club with acting roles at Vitaphone, red-headed Allyson landed a chorus job in the Broadway show Sing out the News in 1938. The legend is that the choreographer gave her a job and a new name: Allyson, a family name, and June, for the month, although like many aspects of her career resume, the derivation was highly unlikely as she was already dubbing herself as "June Allyson" prior to her Broadway engagement and has even attributed the name to a later director. Allyson subsequently appeared in the chorus in Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein II's Very Warm for May (1939). When Vitaphone discontinued New York production in 1940, Allyson returned to the New York stage to take on more chorus roles in Rodgers and Hart's Higher and Higher (1940) and Cole Porter's Panama Hattie (1940). Her dancing and musical talent led to a stint as an understudy for the lead, Betty Hutton, and when Hutton contracted measles, Allyson appeared in five performances of Panama Hattie. Broadway director George Abbott caught one of the nights, and offered Allyson one of the lead roles in his production of Best Foot Forward (1941).

During World War II, after her appearance in the Broadway musical, Allyson was selected for the 1943 film version of Best Foot Forward. When she arrived in Hollywood, the production had not started so MGM "placed her on the payroll" of Girl Crazy (1943). Despite playing a "bit part," Allyson received good reviews as a sidekick to Best Foot Forward's star, Lucille Ball. Another musical, Thousands Cheer (1943) was again a showcase for her singing and dancing, albeit still in a minor role. As a new starlet, although Allyson had already been a performer on stage and screen, she was presented as an "overnight sensation,” with Hollywood press agents attempting to portray her as an ingénue, selectively slicing almost a decade off her true age. Studio bios listed her variously as being born in 1922 and 1923.

Allyson's breakthrough was in Two Girls and a Sailor (1944) where the studio image of the "girl next door" was fostered by her being cast alongside long-time acting chum, Van Johnson, the quintessential "boy next door." As the "sweetheart team," Johnson and Allyson were to appear together in four later films. Allyson's early success as a musical star led to several other postwar musicals, including Two Sisters from Boston (1946) and Good News (1947). Allyson also played straight roles such as Constance in The Three Musketeers (1948), the tomboy Jo March in Little Women (1949), and a nurse in Battle Circus (1953). On her arrival in Hollywood, studio heads attempted to enhance the pairing of Van Johnson and Allyson by sending out the two contracted players on a series of "official dates" which were highly publicized and led to a public perception that a romance had been kindled. Although dating David Rose, Peter Lawford and John F. Kennedy, Allyson was actually being courted by movie heartthrob and powerful Hollywood "player" Dick Powell, who was 13 years her senior and had been previously married to Mildred Maund and Joan Blondell.

Allyson with husband Dick Powell

On August 19, 1945, Allyson caused MGM studio chief, Louis B. Mayer some consternation by marrying Dick Powell. The couple briefly separated in 1961, but reconciled and remained married until his death on January 2, 1963. Powell's wealth made it possible for Allyson to effectively retire from show business after his death, making only occasional appearances on talk and variety shows. Allyson returned to the Broadway stage in 1970 in the play Forty Carats and later toured in a production of No, No Nanette. Following hip-replacement surgery in 2003, Allyson's health began to deteriorate. She died on July 8, 2006 from pulmonary respiratory failure and acute bronchitis at her home in Ojai, California. Her cremated remains were given to family and eventual disposition is unknown.

http://www.michaelthomasbarry.com/, author of "Fade to Black: Graveside Memories of Hollywoo Greats, 1927-1950"