Van Johnson

Charles Van Dell Johnson was born on August 25, 1916, in Newport, Rhode Island, the only child of Charles E. Johnson, a plumber and later a real-estate salesman of Swedish birth, and Loretta Johnson, née Snyder, who had Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. His mother left the family when he was a child, and he was not close to his father. Johnson died on December 12, 2008, and was at that time one of the last surviving matinee idols of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Johnson began performing at social clubs in Newport during his high school years. After graduating in 1935, he moved to New York City and joined the off-Broadway revue Entre Nous. He subsequently toured New England with a theater troupe as a substitute dancer before making his Broadway debut in the revue New Faces of 1936. He returned to chorus work after that production and spent time working at summer resorts near New York City. His Broadway career, which spanned from 1936 to 1987, included appearances in Mating Dance, Come on Strong, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Happy Birthday, Mr. Abbott!, and other productions.

In 1939, director and playwright George Abbott cast Johnson in the Rodgers and Hart musical Too Many Girls, in the role of a college boy, with Johnson also serving as understudy for all three male leads. Abbott subsequently hired him as a chorus boy and as understudy to Gene Kelly in Pal Joey. Johnson had an uncredited role in the film adaptation of Too Many Girls, which costarred Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

It was Ball who introduced Johnson to MGM casting director Billy Grady at Chasen's Restaurant, an encounter that led to screen tests at Hollywood studios. Warner Brothers placed him under contract at $300 a week, casting him opposite Faye Emerson in the 1942 film Murder in the Big House, for which his hair and eyebrows were dyed black. The studio dropped him at the end of his six-month contract. He was soon signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which provided him with classes in acting, speech, and diction.

At MGM, Johnson attracted notice in a small part in The War Against Mrs. Hadley (1942), which led the studio to cast him as Dr. Randall Adams in Dr. Gillespie's New Assistant (1942), a role he reprised in several subsequent entries in the series. His breakthrough came with A Guy Named Joe (1943), in which he played a young pilot opposite Spencer Tracy and Irene Dunne. During production, Johnson was involved in a serious car accident that left him with a metal plate in his forehead and facial scarring that plastic surgery could not fully conceal; he wore heavy makeup to hide the scars for the remainder of his career. Tracy insisted that Johnson be allowed to complete the picture despite his extended absence, and the film earned a profit of over one million dollars, establishing Johnson as a star. His injuries from the accident also exempted him from military service during World War II.

MGM built Johnson's image around war dramas and musicals, casting him frequently as soldiers, sailors, and pilots. His first top-billed role in an A-picture was the musical Two Girls and a Sailor (1944). He played Ted Lawson in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944), which depicted the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo. In 1945, he tied with Bing Crosby as the top box office star. His postwar MGM work included the musicals Thrill of a Romance (1945) and Week-End at the Waldorf (1945), the latter a remake of Grand Hotel featuring Lana Turner, Walter Pidgeon, and Ginger Rogers. In 1949, he starred with Judy Garland in In the Good Old Summertime, which also marked the first film appearance of Liza Minnelli. He played an officer leading Japanese-American troops of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in the Dore Schary-produced Go for Broke! (1951). MGM lent him to Columbia for The Caine Mutiny (1954), in which he played Stephen Maryk.

Following the end of his MGM contract, Johnson transitioned substantially into television, though he continued to make film appearances in featured and supporting roles. He received an Emmy Award nomination for his performance in the miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man. He maintained a sustained presence in musical theatre throughout this period, appearing in West End productions of The Music Man, in which he played Professor Harold Hill, and La Cage aux Folles, in which he played Georges. Johnson retired from acting in the early 1990s, closing a career in film, television, theatre, and radio that spanned more than fifty years.