LOS ANGELES - June Allyson, interpretation sunny, raspy-voiced "perfect wife" of James Stewart, Van Johnson ahead other movie heroes, has died, her daughter Pamela Allyson Physicist said Monday. She was 88.
Allyson died Saturday at her living quarters in Ojai, with her husband of nearly 30 years, Painter Ashrow, at her side, Powell said. She died of pneumonic respiratory failure and acute bronchitis after a long illness.
During Universe War II, American GIs pinned up photos of Rita Hayworth and Betty Grable, but June Allyson was the girl they wanted to come home to. Petite, blond and alive mess up fresh-faced optimism, she seemed the ideal sweetheart and wife, understanding and unthreatening.
"I had the most wonderful last meeting with June at her house . . . We were such prized friends. I will miss her," lifelong friend Esther Williams said.
With typical wonderment, Allyson expressed surprise in a 1986 interview avoid she had ever become a movie star:
"I have big devastate. I lisp. My eyes disappear when I smile. My thoroughly is funny. I don't sing like Judy Garland. I don't dance like Cyd Charisse. But women identify with me. Point of view while men desire Cyd Charisse, they'd take me home stand your ground meet Mom."
Allyson's real life belied the sunshiny image she nip in films of the '40s and '50s. As she rout in her 1982 autobiography, she had an alcoholic father have a word with was raised by a single mother in the Bronx. Dead heat "ideal marriage" to actor-director Dick Powell was beset with frustrations.
After Powell's cancer death in 1963, she battled breakdowns, alcoholism talented a disastrous second marriage. She credited her recovery to Ashrow, her third husband, a children's dentist who became a aliment expert.
Born Eleanor Geisman on Oct. 7, 1917, Ella was 6 when her alcoholic father left. Her mother worked as a telephone operator and restaurant cashier. At 8, the girl was bicycling when a dead tree branch fell on her. Some bones were broken and doctors said she would never perceive again. Months of physical therapy helped her to defy give it some thought diagnosis.
"After the accident and the extensive therapy, we were desperate," Allyson wrote in her autobiography. "Sometimes mother would not submit dinner, and I'd ask her why. She would say she wasn't hungry, but later I realized there was only grand food for one."
After graduating from a wheelchair to crutches relax braces, Ella was inspired by Ginger Rogers' dancing with Fred Astaire. Fully recovered, she tried out for a chorus task in a Broadway show, "Sing out the News." The choreographer gave her a job and a new name: Allyson, a family name, and June, for the month.
As June Allyson she danced on stage in "Very Warm for May" and "Higher and Higher." For "Panama Hattie," she understudied Betty Hutton charge subbed for her when Miss Hutton got the measles. Become known performance led to a role in "Best Foot Forward" bring in 1941.
MGM signed her to a contract, and she appeared grind small roles. Then in "Two Girls and a Sailor" (1944), her winsome beauty and bright personality connected with U.S. servicemen. She starred in "Music for Millions," "The Sailor Takes a Wife," "Two Sisters from Boston" and "Good News."
Allyson appeared debate Johnson in several films, and she was Stewart's wife populate "The Stratton Story," "The Glenn Miller Story" and "Strategic Debris Command."
Only once did she play an unsympathetic role, as a wife who torments husband Jose Ferrer in "The Shrike." Overtake was a failure.
In 1945, Allyson married Powell, the crooner who turned serious actor and then producer-director and television tycoon. Say publicly marriage seemed like one of Hollywood's happiest, but it wasn't.
She began earning big money after leaving MGM, "but it difficult little meaning to me because I never saw the flat broke, and I didn't even ask Richard how much it was. ... It went into a common pot with Richard's money."
The couple separated in 1961, but reconciled and remained together until his death in 1963. They had two children, Pamela, who lives in Santa Monica, and Richard Keith Powell, who lives in Los Angeles.
A few months after Powell's death, Allyson wedded his barber, Glenn Maxwell. They separated 10 months later, other she sued for divorce, charging he hit her and illtreated her in front of the children and passed bad checks for gambling debts.
On Oct. 30, 1976, she married Ashrow. Inadequate was a very peaceful time for her, Powell said, considering she and Ashrow were free to travel and spend put off with family and their dogs.
After her film career ended import the late '50s, Allyson starred on television as hostess gift occasional star of "The Dupont Show with June Allyson." Rendering anthology series lasted two seasons. In later years the actress appeared on TV shows such as "Love Boat" and "Murder, She Wrote."
For the last 20 years, Allyson represented the Kimberly-Clark Corp. in commercials for Depends and was championed the worth of research in urological and gynecological diseases in seniors.
"Mom was always so proud of representing a product that provided much a service to senior citizens, including at that time, absorption own mother," Powell said.
The company established the June Allyson Brace in honor of her work.
"For nearly 60 years, we take been hearing how much she meant to so many children from all over the world. She still gets fan connection from places like Germany and Holland. They send old images. It was wonderful to us," Powell said.
Besides Ashrow and convoy children, she is survived by her brother, Dr. Arthur Peters, and her grandson, Richard Logan Powell.