Career
Interspersing jobs in the chorus line at the Copacabana Club with acting roles at Vitaphone, the diminutive 5'1" (1.55 m), weighing less than 100 pounds, 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 is highly unlikely as she was already dubbing herself "June Allyson" prior to her Broadway engagement and has even attributed the name to a later director. Allyson subsequently appeared in the chorus in the Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein II musical 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).
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, but was still relegated to the "drop list." MGM's musical supervisor, Arthur Freed, saw her test sent up by an agent and insisted that Allyson be put on contract immediately. 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 ingenue, selectively slicing years 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). Her “Thou Swell” was a highpoint of the Rodgers and Hart biopic Words and Music (1948), as performed in the “A Connecticut Yankee” segment with the Blackburn Twins. 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). She was very adept at opening the waterworks on cue, and many of her films incorporated a crying scene. Fellow MGM player Margaret O'Brien recalled that she and Allyson were known as "the town criers."
In 1950, Allyson had been signed to appear opposite her childhood idol Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding, but had to leave the production due to pregnancy. (She was replaced initially by Judy Garland, and later Jane Powell.) She starred in 1956 with a young rising star named Jack Lemmon in the musical comedy, You Can't Run Away From It. Besides Van Johnson, James Stewart was a frequent costar, teaming up with Allyson in three popular biographies, The Glenn Miller Story, The Stratton Story and Strategic Air Command.
A versatile performer, Allyson also appeared on radio, and after her film career ended she made a handful of nightclub singing engagements. In later years, Allyson appeared on television, not only in her own series, but in such popular programs as The Love Boat and Murder, She Wrote. The DuPont Show with June Allyson ran for two seasons on CBS and was an attempt to use a "high budget" formula. Her efforts were dismissed by the entertainment reviewer in the LA Examiner as "reaching down to the level of mag fiction." However, TV Guide and other fan magazines such as TV considered Allyson's foray into television as revitalizing her fame and career for a younger audience, and remarked that her stereotyping by the movie industry as the "girl next door" was the "waste and neglect of talent on its own doorstep."
Read more about this topic: June Allyson
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