“Women identify with me... while men desire Cyd Charisse, they’d take me home to meet Mom.”
Darlings! Another centenary to celebrate today - that of the lovely June Allyson, star of many a Van Johnson or James Stewart vehicle in the 40s and 50s, inevitably in the part of "doting girlfriend or wife".
To the end, Miss Allyson was described as "the screen embodiment of sweetness and light" - yet she showed a good deal of feistiness when she openly defied the omnipotent studio boss Louis B Mayer by marrying the much older, twice-divorced Dick Powell (he argued that it would ruin her image), and went on to carve for herself a fair-to-middling career in a series of Technicolor remakes of black and white classics such as Little Women, My Man Godfrey, and (of course) the musical "update" of every queen's favourite The Women.
And by way of a tribute to the lady I have rediscovered this extravagant number of hers, replete with a whole army of athletic safety gays, from that very musical - The Opposite Sex:
Sublime.
June Allyson (born Eleanor Geisman, 7th October 1917 – 8th July 2006)
