June Allyson, Hollywood's `Girl Next Door,' Dies at Age 88

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June Allyson, Hollywood's `Girl Next Door,' Dies at Age 88

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- June Allyson, the husky-voiced actress who was Hollywood's ``girl-next-door'' and played opposite such stars as Dick Powell, Van Johnson and Jimmy Stewart in the 1940s and 1950s, has died. She was 88.

Allyson died at her home in Ojai, California, of pulmonary respiratory failure and acute bronchitis, the Associated Press reported, citing her daughter, Pamela Allyson Powell.

In addition to co-starring with Powell, her first husband, she made five films with bobby-sox idol Johnson and several with Stewart, including ``The Stratton Story,'' ``The Glen Miller Story'' and ``Strategic Air Command.''

She was Jo in the 1949 film version of ``Little Women,'' a movie that included such other young stars as Elizabeth Taylor, Janet Leigh and Margaret O'Brien.

Allyson's off-camera life didn't always match her wholesome movie image. Her marriage to Powell was troubled, though it lasted nearly 17 years until his death in 1963.

She admitted to struggling with alcohol but continued to work and in 1970 returned to Broadway in the cast of ``Forty Carats.''

The actress's health and life improved when she married David Prince Ashrow in 1976 and moved to Ojai, California, a 90- minute drive from Los Angeles.

Born on October 7, 1917, in New York City's Bronx borough, she was named Eleanor by her parents, Robert and Clara Geisman. Her father, a janitor, left when she was six and her mother was hard-pressed to make ends meet.

A freak accident created more hardship. Shortly before her eighth birthday, a dead tree-limb fell on the future actress as she rode a bicycle, ``totaling the bike, killing my dog, and breaking half the bones in my body,'' as she related in her autobiography, written with Frances Spatz Leighton.

In Astaire's Footsteps

Several years passed before she recovered her health and taught herself to dance by watching Fred Astaire movies, she said.

On a dare, she auditioned for ``Sing Out the News'' and won a role in the chorus of the 1938 Broadway musical. She adopted the stage name June Allyson at the time.

Allyson appeared in two other musicals before becoming Betty Hutton's understudy in ``Panama Hattie,'' attracting notice in the part when Hutton fell ill with measles.

Her role in the Broadway musical ``Best Foot Forward'' took her to Hollywood and a part in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's 1943 movie version.

Allyson also began seeing Dick Powell, who was 13 years older and gave her career advice. In a thinly fictionalized autobiography, Joan Blondell later wrote that Allyson was the woman who broke up her marriage to Powell.

Allyson and Powell were married in 1946, adopted a baby girl and had a son in 1950.

Powell, an astute and ambitious businessman, began to direct and produce films and then branched into television. His long hours became a source of contention and Allyson said she fell in love with actor Alan Ladd while filming a 1955 movie.

Rocky Patch

Though she and Powell remained together, the marriage was rocky. They divorced in 1961, then reconciled before the decree became final. Within two years, however, Powell had died of cancer and his widow entered a dark period that she later described as ``the tunnel.''

After Powell's death, Allyson married his former barber, Glenn Maxwell. She and Maxwell were divorced, remarried and divorced again after Allyson replaced Julie Harris on Broadway in ``Forty Carats'' in 1970.

Her life stabilized with marriage to Ashrow, a dentist and amateur actor with whom she appeared in a play. She also worked occasionally in television and became a TV celebrity spokeswoman in the 1980s for Depends, a maker of incontinence products that she represented for more than a dozen years.

Survivors include her husband, her daughter, son Richard Powell Jr. and a half-brother, Arthur Stanley Peters.

Last Updated: July 10, 2006 18:09 EDT