Van Johnson, film star in 1940s and ’50s, dies at 92
Published 10:29 pm Friday, December 12, 2008
NEW YORK — Van Johnson, whose boy-next-door wholesomeness made him a popular Hollywood star in the 1940s and ’50s with such films as “30 Seconds over Tokyo,” “A Guy Named Joe” and “The Caine Mutiny,” died Friday of natural causes. He was 92.
Johnson died at Tappan Zee Manor, an assisted living center in Nyack, N.Y., said Wendy Bleisweiss, a close friend.
With his tall, athletic build, handsome, freckled face and sunny personality, the red-haired Johnson starred opposite Esther Williams, June Allyson, Elizabeth Taylor and others during his two decades under contract to MGM.
He proved to be a versatile actor, equally at home with comedies (“The Bride Goes Wild,” “Too Young to Kiss”), war movies (“Go for Broke,” “Command Decision”), musicals (“Thrill of a Romance,” “Brigadoon”) and dramas (“State of the Union,” “Madame Curie”).
His big break was the wartime fantasy “A Guy Named Joe,” with Irene Dunne and Spencer Tracy.
During the height of his popularity, Johnson was cast most often as the all-American boy. He played a real-life flier who lost a leg in a crash after the bombing of Japan in “30 Seconds Over Tokyo.” He was a writer in love with a wealthy American girl (Taylor) in “The Last Time I Saw Paris.” He appeared as a post-Civil War farmer in “The Romance of Rosy Ridge.”
More recently, he had a small role in 1985 in Woody Allen’s “The Purple Rose of Cairo.”
A heartthrob with bobbysoxers — he was called “the non-singing Sinatra” — Johnson married only once. In 1947, at the height of his career, he eloped to Juarez, Mexico, to marry Eve Wynn, who had divorced Johnson’s good friend Keenan Wynn four hours before.
The marriage produced a daughter, Schuyler, and ended bitterly 13 years later. “She wiped me out in the ugliest divorce in Hollywood history,” Johnson told reporters.
