June Allyson Net Worth

June Allyson's Quotes

• In real life I'm a poor dressmaker and a terrible cook - anything in fact but the perfect wife.
• MGM was my mother and father, mentor and guide, my all-powerful and benevolent crutch. When I left them, it was like walking into space.
• [on Joan Crawford] I tried to be a good listener. I decided that was what she wanted all along - not so much a friend as an audience.
• [assessing her appeal as a performer] I have big teeth. I lisp. My eyes disappear when I smile. My voice is funny. I don't sing like Judy Garland. I don't dance like Cyd Charisse. But women identify with me. And while men desire Cyd Charisse, they'd take me home to meet Mom.
• I couldn't dance, and, Lord knows, I couldn't sing, but I got by somehow. Richard Rodgers was always keeping them from firing me.

Interesting Facts about June Allyson

1. On contract to MGM for 12 years.
2. Was a good friend of Judy Garland. They were both under contract at MGM in the 1940s, and Judy used to give June rides in Judy's car to the studio whenever possible. In interviews after Garland's passing, Allyson said that she could hardly talk about Garland without getting tears in her eyes because she was such a special lady who didn't have appropriate help available to her in her lifetime.
3. She was just 5' 1" and weighed 99 lbs. in 1945.
4. From 1963 to 1975, she had a long term, ill-fated romance with writer/director Dirk Wayne Summers, often announcing to the press that the couple would be married soon. She and Summers were the lead item in Walter Winchell's then influential column more than a few times. They often traveled together through Europe. Although Summers apparently loved her and their life together, he refused her many proposals of marriage, much to her chagrin. Members of the nascent jet-set, they were frequently seen in Cap d'Antibes, Madrid, Rome and London, where they called Hugh Hefner's borrowed Mayfair penthouse home.
5. After the death of first husband Dick Powell, she went through a bitter court battle with her mother over custody of her son Dick Powell Jr., and adopted daughter Pamela Powell. Reports at the time revealed that Dirk Wayne Summers was named legal guardian for Dick and Pamela, as a result of a court petition.
6. Witnessed Joan Crawford's cruel treatment of her daughter Christina Crawford and claims the book and film adaptation Mommie Dearest (1981) are honest accounts of how Joan treated her children.
7. After her film career was over, she continued to do occasional Broadway & off-Broadway plays, television appearances and commercials, including her famous Depends commercials, from the 1960s through the 1990s.
8. She was a valued resource in preserving information about Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) and Hollywood's golden years. She was a spokesperson on the issue of incontinence, and was instrumental in establishing the June Allyson Foundation for Public Awareness and Medical Research. She and her husband, Dr. David Ashrow, actively supported fund-raising efforts for both the James Stewart and Judy Garland museums. Stewart and Garland were both close friends.
9. Mother of Dick Powell Jr., and Pamela Powell from her marriage to Dick Powell.
10. Separated from Powell once when she fell in love with actor Alan Ladd during filming of The McConnell Story (1955). Ladd was also married at the time.
11. Very seldom was able to break out of her spry "goody two shoes" types. The couple of times she did, however, were extreme. She played a harsh, cold-hearted wife to José Ferrer in The Shrike (1955) who nags him to the point of a nervous breakdown. Audiences would not accept her in the role and the movie failed at the box office. Another time she played a lesbian murderess in They Only Kill Their Masters (1972), one of her final films.
12. Filed for divorce once during her marriage to Dick Powell, but the turbulent marriage lasted until his death from cancer in 1963. She struggled with alcoholism following his death which may have triggered a custody battle against her mother.
13. Her second husband, Glenn Maxwell, was Dick Powell's former barber. Her last husband, David Ashrow, who survived her, was a retired dentist turned actor.
14. Her father, an alcoholic, abandoned the family when she was six months old.
15. When she was eight years old, she was crushed by a falling tree limb while riding a bicycle. She wore a back brace for four years and taught herself to dance by watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies. She was told that the accident would prevent her from having children. Her first child, Pamela Powell, was adopted in 1948. In 1950, however, she gave birth to her son, Dick Powell Jr..
16. In 1945, Harvard Lampoon voted her worst actress of the year. That year's worst actor was regular co-star Van Johnson.
17. Longtime friend of Esther Williams.
18. Along with her husband Dick Powell, she persuaded future President of the United States Ronald Reagan to switch from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in 1962.
19. Married to husband David Ashrow at the Ingleside Inn in Palm Springs, California, in October 1976. There is a photograph of the wedding party hanging at the historic hotel garden to this day.
20. In Italy, her films were dubbed mainly by Miranda Bonansea. As she matured, she was dubbed by Rosetta Calavetta and Rina Morelli. She was once dubbed by Andreina Pagnani in Two Girls and a Sailor (1944), released in Italy after the war.