June Allyson

Rating:
Summary: Raises as Many Questions as it Answers
Review: June Allyson's life and career are stuff of Hollywood legend. She was born in poverty, raised in a broken home, had little formal education, still less in the way of social graces. She taught herself to dance by watching Fred Astaire on the silver screen. Then, while still a teenager, she crashed Broadway on a schoolgirl dare, making her mark with the hit BEST FOOT FORWARD. When MGM bought the screen rights she went along for the ride--and hit the career jackpot, emerging as one of the most popular stars of the 1940s and 1950s. Married to movie star, director, producer, and noted Republican Dick Powell, she lived at the center of both Hollywood's film and political scene for more than two decades. It's a biographer's dream.

And yet-- This is not the great autobiography that it could have been, largely because Allyson is so completely uncritical in her thinking about her own life and the various people who moved through it. Although such figures as George Murphy, Richard and Pat Nixon, and Ronald and Nancy Regan were frequent guests in the Powell-Allyson home, we learn little more about them beyond the occasional antedote--certainly nothing about their politics or what Allyson herself thought of politics, if indeed she had any thoughts on the subject at all. Perhaps more startling, given Allyson's own star-status, is her take on such figures as Judy Garland and Alan Ladd, both of whom figure heavily in the Allyson autobiography; while Allyson acknowledges that Garland used drugs and that Ladd was a heavy drinker, she never really references the dark sides of their behavior, and again it is difficult to know if this is because she feels loyalty to them or if indeed she herself ever knew anything of it to begin with. Even so, when Allyson writes of individuals that she flatly did not like, she doesn't pull any punches. Her portrait of an afternoon with Joan Crawford is chilling, she repeatedly slams gossip columnist Hedda Hopper--and when considering such individuals as Alan Ladd's formidable wife Sue or Dick Powell's previous wife Joan Blondell, Allyson's tone turns rather steely.

But what ultimately emerges from this autobiography, and emerges whether Allyson intended it or not, is a portrait of a woman who married a man that was determined his wife should never challenge him in any way. Indeed, June Allyson might have coined the term "co-dependent" on the basis of her marriage to Dick Powell. In reading Allyson's autobiography (which was co-written with Frances Spatz Leighton), it is very clear that she loved Dick Powell, and loved him deeply; it is also very clear that, in spite of his often glitchy personality, he returned that love. But again, it is difficult to know if Allyson herself is aware of the fact that Powell essentially forced her dependency or whether or not she recognizes that the degree of that dependency was largely responsible for her collapse in the wake of Powell's death. While it may be difficult to know how to take this book in an overall sense, it does do one thing very, very effectively: the tone of voice here is distinctly June Allyson. You can almost hear that unique voice, with its odd mix of rasp and velvet, speaking the words aloud. And while it may raise as many questions as it ultimately answers, it is a well written book and an entertaining read. Recommended--if you can find it.

Rating:
Summary: Raises as Many Questions as it Answers
Review: June Allyson's life and career are stuff of Hollywood legend. She was born in poverty, raised in a broken home, had little formal education, still less in the way of social graces. She taught herself to dance by watching Fred Astaire on the silver screen. Then, while still a teenager, she crashed Broadway on a schoolgirl dare, making her mark with the hit BEST FOOT FORWARD. When MGM bought the screen rights she went along for the ride--and hit the career jackpot, emerging as one of the most popular stars of the 1940s and 1950s. Married to movie star, director, producer, and noted Republican Dick Powell, she lived at the center of both Hollywood's film and political scene for more than two decades. It's a biographer's dream.

And yet-- This is not the great autobiography that it could have been, largely because Allyson is so completely uncritical in her thinking about her own life and the various people who moved through it. Although such figures as George Murphy, Richard and Pat Nixon, and Ronald and Nancy Regan were frequent guests in the Powell-Allyson home, we learn little more about them beyond the occasional antedote--certainly nothing about their politics or what Allyson herself thought of politics, if indeed she had any thoughts on the subject at all. Perhaps more startling, given Allyson's own star-status, is her take on such figures as Judy Garland and Alan Ladd, both of whom figure heavily in the Allyson autobiography; while Allyson acknowledges that Garland used drugs and that Ladd was a heavy drinker, she never really references the dark sides of their behavior, and again it is difficult to know if this is because she feels loyalty to them or if indeed she herself ever knew anything of it to begin with. Even so, when Allyson writes of individuals that she flatly did not like, she doesn't pull any punches. Her portrait of an afternoon with Joan Crawford is chilling, she repeatedly slams gossip columnist Hedda Hopper--and when considering such individuals as Alan Ladd's formidable wife Sue or Dick Powell's previous wife Joan Blondell, Allyson's tone turns rather steely.

But what ultimately emerges from this autobiography, and emerges whether Allyson intended it or not, is a portrait of a woman who married a man that was determined his wife should never challenge him in any way. Indeed, June Allyson might have coined the term "co-dependent" on the basis of her marriage to Dick Powell. In reading Allyson's autobiography (which was co-written with Frances Spatz Leighton), it is very clear that she loved Dick Powell, and loved him deeply; it is also very clear that, in spite of his often glitchy personality, he returned that love. But again, it is difficult to know if Allyson herself is aware of the fact that Powell essentially forced her dependency or whether or not she recognizes that the degree of that dependency was largely responsible for her collapse in the wake of Powell's death. While it may be difficult to know how to take this book in an overall sense, it does do one thing very, very effectively: the tone of voice here is distinctly June Allyson. You can almost hear that unique voice, with its odd mix of rasp and velvet, speaking the words aloud. And while it may raise as many questions as it ultimately answers, it is a well written book and an entertaining read. Recommended--if you can find it.