Turner Classic Movies Pays Tribute to Van Johnson on Tuesday, December 23rd with the following festival of films. This program will replace the previously scheduled movies for that day so please take note.
The new schedule for the evening of Tuesday, December 23rd will be:
8:00 PM In the Good Old Summertime
9:45 PM A Guy Named Joe
12:30 AM Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
2:30 AM The Last Time I Saw Paris
4:30 AM Thrill of a Romance
Van Johnson (1916-2008)
Van Johnson, the boyish leading man whose clean cut, All-American appeal made him a top box-office draw for
MGM during World War II, died on December 12 in Nyack, New York of natural causes. He was 92.
He was born Charles Van Dell Johnson on August 25, 1916, in Newport, Rhode Island. By his own account, his
early childhood wasn't a stable one. His mother abandoned him when he was just three and his Swedish-born
father offered little consolation or nurturing while he was growing up. Not surprisingly, Johnson found
solace in singing and dancing lessons, and throughout his adolescence, he longed for a life in show business.
After graduating high school in 1934, he relocated to New York City and was soon performing as a chorus boy on
Broadway in shows such as
New Faces of 1936 and eventually as an understudy in Rodgers and Hart's
musical,
Too Many Girls in 1939.
Johnson eventually made his way to Hollywood and landed an unbilled debut in the film version of
Too Many
Girls (1940). By 1941, he signed a brief contract with Warner Bros., but it only earned him a lead in a
"B" programmer
Murder in the Big House (1941); his contract soon expired and he was dropped by the
studio. Johnson was on his way back to New York, but as luck would have it - in the truest Hollywood sense -
friends Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz introduced him to Billy Grady, a lead talent scout at MGM, which was
currently Ball's new studio. Johnson was signed up and almost immediately MGM had a star on its
hands.
It might have been slow going at first, with Johnson playing able support in films such as
Dr. Gillespie's
New Assistant and
The War Against Mrs. Hadley (both 1942). By 1943 the studio capitalized on his
broad smile and freckles and starred him in two of the studio's biggest hits:
A Guy Named Joe and
The Human Comedy. Those two films transformed him into a boxoffice draw with a huge following,
particularly among teenage girls. A near fatal car accident that same year only accentuated the loyalty of
his fans, and his 4-F status as the result of that accident created an opportunity for him when so many other
leading actors of the era (James Stewart, Clark Gable) were off to war. Johnson was quickly promoted as
MGM'sleading man in war heroics and sweet romancers on the big screen:
The White Cliffs of Dover,
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (both 1944),
Thrill of a Romance, the episodic
Week-End at the
Waldorf (both 1945), and a musical remake of
Libeled Lady entitled
Easy to Wed
(1946).
Hits though these were, it wasn't until after the war that Johnson began to receive more dramatic parts and
better material such as supporting Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in the political farce
State of the
Union (1948). other significant roles included the well-modulated noir thriller
The Scene of the
Crime, the grim war spectacle
Battleground (both 1949), the moving domestic drama
Invitation
(1952) in which he played a man who is paid to marry a woman (Dorothy McGuire) by her father. Before he left
MGM, he closed his career out in fine form with the sweeping musical
Brigadoon, co-starring Gene Kelly
and Cyd Charisse; and the lilting soaper
The Last Time I Saw Paris (both 1954) with Elizabeth
Taylor.
After he left MGM, the parts that came Johnson's way weren't as varied, but he had his moments in
The Caine
Mutiny (1954), the beguiling romance drama
Miracle in the Rain (1956) with Jane Wyman; and his lead
performance in one of the first successful made for-TV-movies
The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1957). By
the '60s, Johnson returned to the stage, and played the title role in London's West End production of
The
Music Man. He then returned to Broadway in the drama
Come on Strong. He still had a few good
supporting parts, most notably as Debbie Reynolds' suitor in Norman Lear's scathing satire on marital
differences
Divorce American Style (1967); and television welcomed his presence on many popular shows
in the '70s and '80s such as
Maude,
Fantasy Island,
The Love Boat and of course
Murder
She Wrote. There was one last graceful cameo in Woody Allen's
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), yet
for the most remainder of his career, Johnson worked mainly on the dinner theater circuit before retiring from
showbiz completely by the mid-90s. He is survived by a daughter, Schuyler.
by Michael T. Toole
