New Beatles book: Shake It Up, Baby!

Ken McNab’s new book, Shake It Up, Baby! The Rise of Beatlemania (May 7, 2024) is a gritty account of the Beatles’ rise to fame. McNab, an award-winning journalist from Glasgow, breaks down the Beatles’ concerts, business deals and bloody fights month by month during the transitional year of 1963. Much of the grit stems from Brian Epstein, the dapper, driven manager who kept the Beatles working incessantly. The group' stints in Hamburg between 1960 and 1962 exposed them to the rough quarters of the city’s Reeperbahn as the band tightened their sound. Success on the level the Beatles achieved was unprecedented in British pop, causing inevitable mistakes as Epstein learned the ropes of a cutthroat music industry. Tensions on the personal front also loomed. During a holiday to Spain, Epstein, a gay man who made no secret of his attraction to John Lennon, faced a potentially devastating scandal after the two vacationed separately from the other band members. Although McNab discredits rumours the relationship turned physical, rampant homophobia in England (where homosexuality was still illegal in 1963) made the insinuations dangerous. Lennon fueled the fire by violently assaulting a comedian who joked about the alleged “relationship” with Epstein. The author’s compulsion for detail makes Shake It Up, Baby! feel scholarly without sacrificing readability. Source: popmatters.com 

Albert Goldman was a celebrity ghoul who took advantage of his subjects being dead to avoid libel laws. His mission of undeifying icons like Lenny Bruce, Elvis, and John Lennon gave him the money and notoriety he could have never otherwise gained as a writer. His main sources usually had axes to grind or self-serving legal agendas they were trying to service. Albert Goldman was a celebrity gravedigger and a ghoul who wrote salacious books about those dead celebrities who conveniently couldn't sue him. His primary sources were usually disgruntled people in serious legal troubles. Goldman assaulted cultural icons he seemed to loathe and he could list his questionable and tainted sources so he could defend his tripe as "well researched."

Peter Doggett, in You Never Give Me Your Money, wrote about  Goldman's book: "The Lives of John Lennon was lousy with errors of fact and interpretation, speculative in the extreme, ill-willed and awash with snobbery. Yet Goldman pinpointed Lennon's almost clinical need for domination by a strong woman; the dark ambiguity of a man of peace being governed by violence, either vented or repressed; the unmistakable decline in his work after he left England in 1971, which led him from guru to guru, each obsession spilling into disillusionment and creative despair." People well versed in the Beatles lore think of The Lives of John Lennon as plain historical fiction. 

I remember Philip Norman's biography of John Lennon was the one that made him seem the most like a real person to the reader. The Lives of John Lennon portrayed Lennon as a volatile, perverted drug-user who had a gay affair with The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein and maybe even had killed Stuart Sutcliffe in Germany. It's not a question of whether his books were best sellers, it's a question of what kind of person devotes years of research to destroying a dead man's reputation, even for cash. One wonders whether Goldman himself, or anyone else, could have withstood the merciless scrutiny he devoted to his subjects. Goldman's first biography, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Lenny Bruce!!" helped him get an advance for the Elvis Presley book. Its success earned him a seven-figure advance for the Lennon rip-job. At the time of his death, Goldman was picking over Jim Morrison's bones for yet another book. Fortunately for the rock music fans, he died in a flight crash in March 28, 1994. Source: consequenceofsound.net

It’s impossible to tell how many books have been written about The Beatles, but definitely in the thousands. Mark Lewisohn alone has written 15 detailed books. Instead, about their main influence Buddy Holly, there are only about ten books published. Despite Paul McCartney admitting there would have not been The Beatles without Holly: “John and I started to write because of Buddy Holly.” In an interview with Skip Brooks and Bill Malcolm, Holly's former manager Norman Petty still found it difficult to address why he hadn’t been more supportive of Buddy Holly’s need to experiment as an artist; Petty admitted he had lacked vision. As John Beecher (author of Remembering Buddy: The Definitive Biography Of Buddy Holly) recalls: "Norman and Vi Petty sent us information, but mostly they obstructed us in our efforts to gain access to photographs, recordings, and footage of Buddy and The Crickets - something I found really hard to understand until later, when I worked out that Norman Petty was just waiting for an opportunity to make some money." 

"I suspect that by the time Buddy discovered what had been going on with their income that had been directed to Clovis, it was too late for Norman to regain trust and he knew this. Thus, he burned all his boats with Buddy and cold-shouldered his attempts to get his royalties. Soon, lawyers were involved in getting Buddy his money and the process would have taken years to resolve. When I visited Clovis, I saw the problem at first hand; it was not until MPL took over Nor Va Jak that writers received regular statements and payments." About Ellis Amburn's mean-spirited biography, of which Bill Griggs said "that book belongs to the trash can," John Beecher agrees: "I don't much dig what Albert Goldman had to say on Elvis. I knew that a lot of what he attributed to John Lennon wasn't true; he tried to destroy Lennon's soul for commercial gain and I think that's unforgivable. A bit like the tales Ellis Amburn told on Buddy Holly - so many of his facts that were able to be checked were so out of line that it made one doubt his assertions on anything he wrote. It looked like Goldman again." —"Rave On: The Biography of Buddy Holly" (2014) by Philip Norman

Saving Buddy Holly: Blue Days & Black Nights

 

"Starlight" written by Buddy Holly, backed by The Crickets and recorded at Norman Petty's studio in April 1957.

For Charlie, the pleasant endorphin-induced positive mental experiences by Buddy Holly’s music converged in his mind. And thus began Charlie’s love for his music and later the man. As Charlie became more passionate about Buddy Holly, he read rock ‘n’ roll books and more biographies about him. Charlie became interested in time travel and time machines when he first read H.G. Wells’ book “The Time Machine”. Charlie had shared his thoughts about time travel and his 'multiple time lines' theory with his wife Sue. “I like to call paths through time ‘time lines’.” Being a rock ‘n’ roll fan, he decided to watch “The Buddy Holly Story.” When he was watching the final scene of the movie, Buddy Holly’s last show (a triumphant concert with the music filling the screen with exuberant joy), Charlie felt tears welling up in his eyes. It didn’t make sense for Sue that Charlie was about to cry. And then the movie ended suddenly with the announcement of Buddy Holly’s death. Charlie found Sue and fell into her arms sobbing uncontrollably. Buddy Holly had died at the peak of his career.

He was looking forward to a career of writing, singing, playing and producing records. He was full of confidence. Buddy was a happy man and should have enjoyed a much longer life. As Charlie’s time travel ideas evolved, Artie became an important sounding board for Charlie’s time concepts. Charlie had started with basic physics equations that he had learned: E=mc2, E=hv, F=ma. He loved formulas, symbols and numbers. As Charlie’s time travel visions progressed, they incorporated quantum mechanics and theories beyond quantum theory. His formulas became more complex and sophisticated as he refined and expanded his theories. Artie said, “I remember talking to you about going back in time and warning Buddy Holly not to get on that airplane.” “I have thought about it lots of times. Maybe I will go back in time and warn Buddy Holly of his impending fate. I think that if I could get close to him somehow,” Charlie continued: “Some of my memories and knowledge might pass into Buddy’s mind and warn him about what happened after he played at the Surf Ballroom in February 1959.” 

Like in Isaac Asimov’s story ‘The End of Eternity.’ Charlie thought how Buddy seemed to have an innate goodness within the double helix of his DNA. Carlie and Artie kept talking about the details of the fatidic night on February 2, 1959. “The plane the three musicians had taken was the N3794N. What color was the plane?” “In the Ritchie Valens movie La Bamba, the plane is blue and white. That’s wrong. It was a red and white V-tailed Beechcraft Bonanza.” “Was the Buddy Holly movie pretty accurate?” “The two Crickets in the movie had the wrong names.” “Why would they do that?” “There were two versions of the movie being filmed at the same time and copyright issues screwed things up before the movie was finally released. The screenwriter commited suicide just days before its screening." Charlie had started his crusade to meet and try to save Buddy Holly a long time ago. 

At a time when the general public was convinced that every rock and roll singer was a millionaire, The Crickets only ever stood to collect $40,000 between them in mechanical royalties should the single go on to sell a million copies. Not too many musicians in those days did the math, although there seemed to be a theory at large that if you sold a million records, then you ended up with a million dollars. In fact records sold in shops for just sixty-nine cents each, and the royalty was often as low as one cent per side. Buddy of course would have been aware of this. His first royalty statement from Decca Nashville in June 1956 showed that having sold just under 10,000 copies of Blue Days Black Nights, he had earned a grand total of $113.77! Not that he even got this pittance from Decca who had added a charge of $500 for the recording session, meaning that he would not get his first cent in royalties until he had earned another $385.97 for the label.

Buddy Holly would marry Maria Elena Santiago at Buddy’s parents’ home in Lubbock, Texas on Friday, August 15, 1958. Charlie set his time machine to Lubbock, August 14, 1958. Buddy and Maria Elena were living on Fifth Avenue in New York City. The Crickets Jerry Allison and Joe B. Mauldin had split with Buddy in November 1958. Buddy had been talking about going on a tour to make some money, but Maria Elena did not like the idea of Buddy going on the Winter Dance Party tour. “I’d take you along but you’re still getting nauseous from the pregnancy,” Buddy sighed. “This will be like the Summer Dance Party that I did last summer. Norman owes us a lot of money, but I can’t wait for that anymore. The idea that lawyers and accountants are holding things up drives me nuts. In Lubbock I was taught that a handshake was a deal,” lamented Buddy. “I always trusted Norman. I just can’t believe he’s cheating me. Norman said he is being screwed around by the record companies and businessmen in New York. I know that Jerry said he thought we were being ripped off by Norman when he added his name as a writer to our songs. Norman explained that it was only fair. He let us use his studio for a lot of time that he didn’t charge us for. Getting writer royalties for songs was how he got paid back for that session time. He told us that if the records never sold, he would never get paid for his work. Maybe we made a mistake in trusting Norman, but it made sense back then."

The bus rides on the Winter Dance Party Tour were far from glamorous. Buddy was daydreaming about the good times he'd enjoyed in England. On their way to Green Bay for the February 1 show, their bus had broken down. A passing truck driver saw them and alerted the sheriff’s office. Deputies had come out and saved them. The driver and his passengers had been fortunate that none of them had lost a limb or died of exposure to the freezing temperatures. Wisconsin’s winter was so record bad in 1959 that some people had died. There was little time between shows and travelling for them to get enough rest or get their clothes cleaned. Buddy had hoped to get to Moorhead, Minnesota early after the Clear Lake show so he would have time to do laundry and get some sleep. Now Buddy knew what the expression 'bone-chilling' meant. Everyone on the bus was paying attention and considering what Buddy was saying. Buddy had asked the manager of the Surf Ballroom Carroll Anderson to get a plane to the next show in Moorhead. 

There was a struggle going on in Buddy’s mind. Something in his brain seemed to know that he must not get on that plane. The eerie conflict continued in his mind. 'Am I going insane?' Buddy thought. Tiny snowflakes were drifting down and landing on his glasses. Buddy started to move toward the plane when the front page of a Clear Lake newspaper flashed into his mind. He was seeing the front page of the Clear Lake Mirror-Reporter. “Death of Singers Shocks Nation” was the headline. Buddy felt like he had seen this headline before. He had never been to Clear Lake except for this Winter Dance Party tour, yet he felt certain that the front page was one that he had read before. Although it was very cold, he was perspiring now. He opened his eyes and closed them again. Yet Buddy thought the sooner they got to Fargo, the sooner he would get some rest. But the image was clear and pervasive: “Death of Singers.” Buddy had already decided that he was not getting on the plane. Buddy Holly, once he had made up his mind, was like a huge ocean liner, hard to turn. So Buddy knew he had to try and convince Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper not to fly that night. –"Saving Buddy Holly: Blue Days Black Nights" (2024) by Gerard Goldlist

June Allyson: Myth or Reality?

“Lou,” they said, “it’s like this.” And then they told me what it was like. “There’s this June Allyson,” they said. “Nice kid. Very upsetting. Her sex appeal isn’t wrapped like Lana Turner’s,” they said. “She can’t strip your nerves like Davis. Bergman’s face is more beautiful. But for four years, we’ve been polling our readers, and our readers have been yelling ‘Allyson’! Howcome?” They said that that was what I was supposed to find out. They said they had it figured it must be personality. The only thing was, whose? Did the personality that emerged from the pages of Modern Screen month after month actually belong to June Allyson? Was she truly a creature composed of two-thirds whimsy, and the other third dedicated to the idea that wrinkling one’s nose was irresistible? Or was this personality a hoax, a creation destined to wrinkle its nose down the years, while the real Allyson marched off in six other directions, ignoring her fictional alter ego?

A lot of caustic readers had questioned the Allyson of the stories, already. “Nah,” they sneered. “There ain’t no Santy Claus. There ain’t no fairies. And there ain’t any such a person as Junie-bug.” MODERN SCREEN had thereupon taken the problem to Dick Powell. “Look,” it had said. “Write how she isn’t always cute, your wife.” But he couldn’t. When Powell finished talking, she was still cute and radiant. Cuter, even. So they—the editors—finally settled on me. “He’s her husband,” they said deprecatingly. “But you—you’re unprejudiced. Go see the girl. Take a stop-watch. Stay away from ice-cream sodas. Go there coldly, fishy-eyed. And let us have it straight. Is she there, or did we make her up?” I went. But first I checked everybody else in town who'd ever heard of Allyson to find out all there was to know. I read her official biography at M-G-M. It said she loved sailing, among other things. Yet everyone in Hollywood claims Dick Powell sold his boat because June couldn’t stand the water. Significant? If you’re me, yes.

You check with Dick at RKO, where he is making Station West, and show him the biography. He says it’s wrong. June hates sailing. You check back with M-G-M, and they say biographies are based on stars’ own statements, and therefore there can’t be a mistake. Then you find out from people who know June well that she used to be wild about sailing, but changed after her marriage. You dig further, and finally a confidante of June’s snitches. Both Dick and June love to sail. But June soon noticed that Dick always got bad sinus attacks after a cruise. Knowing he’d never admit that his favorite sport got him down, she didn’t point it out. Instead she began to complain of not feeling well after a sail. That was different. Dick decided he wasn’t going to make June suffer, and he got rid of the boat. And June’s eyes narrowed into that adoring little squint of hers, as she thanked him for being so thoughtful! (When Dick reads this, it’s going to be a surprise. He still thinks she can’t stand the water.)

The idea for a bit of feminine strategy like that just doesn’t come out of the blue. You have to sit down and think it out. Her not too happy childhood may have had something to do with it. She remembers her first dance, at the age of fourteen, because she was wearing a brace under her dress at the time. She also remembers it because of the look on the boy’s face when he put his arm around her and felt the metal. His mouth fell open, and with the clumsiness of youth, he started to ask her what she had on. June fled, tears spouting, and never went to another party until she’d won her first job on the stage, freed at last from the cage she’d had to wear so long.  June had a natural interest in people, and learning how others felt and thought helped her to manage her own life and affairs. She was dancing in a Broadway show when her first movie bid came in the form of a telegram from Louis B. Mayer of M-G-M. She didn’t call her agent. She didn’t have one then because she didn’t think she was important enough to interest one. 

The wires went back and forth between Hollywood and New York for two months. At the studio Mr. Mayer was surrounded by a battery of legal experts on contracts. In New York, June was surrounded by the none-too-cheerful decor of a furnished room. The studio wanted her for just one picture, Best Foot Forward, which she had done on the stage. June insisted on a term contract. She got it. As they will tell you now at M-G-M, June not only knew what she wanted, she knew what M-G-M wanted! It is one of Mr. Mayer’s pet jokes. It was a nice piece of business, but June isn’t particularly proud of it. She is more proud of being fair in life, of something, for instance, that happened only recently in connection with her latest picture, Good News. Good News is a top production, boasting some of the studio’s most important stars, yet its director, Chuck Walters, never directed a picture before in his life! He had only handled dance sequences.

Take another incident. It is pretty well known that Edwin Knopf, who has produced some of June’s best pictures, is crazy about her. You ask why, and someone says it’s because Knopf considers her one of the most considerate and cooperative of stars. Maybe you would have a good slant on June if you happened to be a bit player in one of her pictures. Even if you have only two lines to say to her, June will rehearse with you as conscientiously as she will with a principal or the star playing opposite her. More than that, she’ll help you on your lines, and then ask you fo coach her on her own. “She partners up quick,” comments one extra. June is human. She has done some mean things in her life. She still does. But when realization hits her, she marches right up to the party she has hurt and makes a full confession—and a staunch friend. Soon after she started at M-G-M, June became jealous of Gloria De Haven. Gloria was gorgeous. The makeup experts fussed with her for hours. Soon after that Gloria began to get in wrong with the director; she was always coming in late on the set, while June was always on time. Gloria said nothing but looked at June in a puzzled way. 

It was too much for June. She ran the director and told him the truth. She had made it her business to watch for Gloria’s arrival at the studio every morning, and then duck into the makeup chair just ahead of her. There she would stall and insist on elaborate attention until she knew Gloria could never be made up in time for the set call. After she told this to the director, June ran right to Gloria and repeated the whole story. She didn’t spare herself; admitted her jealousy of Gloria’s beauty. June and Gloria are the best of friends. If any two girls understand each other, they do. June makes it her business to be on the same footing with everyone else she meets or works with. Talking about her work, one producer will say, “She has magical presence on the screen. Some of the most talented actors and actresses know that the second they get in front of the camera they’d better start acting or there will be a lull. Their presence counts for little. It’s the opposite for June. Just seeing her is almost enough.”

At the opposite end of the studio personnel is the young, third-assistant director who has to summon June to the set when a scene is ready to go. “She doesn’t play hide-and-seek with you, like so many others,” he says. “She knows I’m responsible for having her ready. Just when I'm told to get her, I turn around and there she is coming up and giving me a reassuring wink. Boy, is a girl like that a comfort!” I considered the testimony gathered so far: “considerate and cooperative . . . fair . . . gave me my chance . . . honest with herself . . . magical presence . . . boy, is she a comfort . . .” I didn’t know, so I went to visit June, myself. And I’m still gasping; I’m bowled over. What charm! What gaiety! What a personality! And they wanted me to tear that cute little girl apart! I’m insulted. -Article by Louis Pollock for Modern Screen magazine (January 1948)

Dion: Buddy Holly or Lou Reed?

Dion DiMucci: I’m a grateful guy. I don’t need anything artificial, any synthetic stuff, to make me feel anything. I tried it, been there, done that. I was a heroin addict for 14 years. It was the most unnecessary thing I’ve ever done. It was insanity. I don’t need that anymore. I haven’t had a drug or a drink in 54 years.

Crispin Kott: Buddy Holly or Lou Reed? 

Dion DiMucci: Oh, my God, I love both those guys. Lou Reed loved me and the feeling was mutual. But Buddy Holly, for the short time I knew him, he was something special, unique. So I really miss him. I could never pick between those two.

CK: What did Buddy Holly turn you onto?

Dion DiMucci: Buddy Holly turned me onto being courageous. He said, “Dion, I don’t know how to succeed, but I know how to fail: If you try to please everybody.” I think if he didn’t tell me that, I probably wouldn’t have done “Runaround Sue” or “The Wanderer”.

CK: What did Lou Reed turn you onto?

Dion DiMucci: Lou Reed. [Laughs] He liked to push people’s buttons, but it wasn’t just to stir them up. He was actually looking for what was real and what would stand up. He was a street poet, the best at that. He was so gifted. Once he said, “Man, I’m not the best-looking guy. I can’t play the guitar the best. I can’t do this the best.” I was thinking, “Man, it’s enough. That’s enough.” -The Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to New York City (Interview with Dion DiMucci, November 2021)

Van Peebles tapped to direct Buddy Holly biopic

Mario Van Peebles has been tapped to direct “That’ll Be the Day,” the story of how Buddy Holly and other musicians of the late 1950s helped give birth to rock ‘n’ roll and influence the wider societal and cultural landscape, including the civil rights movement. Music has been central to much of Van Peebles’ work, who is currently writing a musical stage tribute to his father Melvin Van Peebles, to be performed at New York City’s Lincoln Center later this year. “America’s tumultuous cultural melting pot has produced transcendent musical talent, including Buddy Holly, who was our first bad ass rock ’n’ roll nerd,” Van Peebles said in a statement. The producers of “That’ll Be the Day” are Rick French of Prix Productions and Stuart Benjamin (“Ray,” “La Bamba”) of Stuart Benjamin Productions, working in collaboration with STX.

The screenplay was written by Patrick Shanahan and Matthew Benjamin, with additional material written by Van Peebles. The script is based on a story by French and Stephen Easley, general counsel to the Buddy Holly Educational Foundation. BMG – which manages the Buddy Holly estate and controls the rights to the Holly music publishing catalog in the U.S. – provided development funding for the project. Easley, David Hirshland and Peter Bradley, Jr. of the Buddy Holly Educational Foundation are executive producers. 

Maria Elena Holly, widow of Buddy Holly, is an associate producer. Shanahan and Matthew Benjamin are co-producers. Annie Herndon is overseeing the project for STX. Benjamin has a long history with musical biopics. In 1987, he produced the music drama “La Bamba,” starring Lou Diamond Phillips, which chronicled the rise of a young Ritchie Valens, who died along with Holly and J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa on Feb. 3, 1959. Benjamin later produced “Ray,” a biopic that explored the life and career of Ray Charles, Source: variety.com

Dick Powell & June Allyson: Many Little Things

When June Allyson told some of her friends that she was going to St. George, Utah, “to be on location with Richard while he directed The Conqueror, they told her she was making a mistake. “St. George is a nice little town, but in the summer the mercury shoots up to about 130 degrees. It’s no place to go for a rest, Junie.” Mrs. Richard Powell cocked her cute little head to one side. “I’m not going to St. George,” she announced in that perennially husky voice, “to rest. I’m going there to be with Richard." So June climbed into her Ford station wagon and with the Edgar Bergens beside her, headed for the miserable Utah desert. When she got to St. George she was assigned a room with her husband Dick in the Twin Oaks Motel. All Dick and June had was a single motel room. Here, June washed Dick’s socks and hung them in the window to dry. Here, too, she gabbed with Dick’s two children by a previous marriage, Norman and Ellen.

June knew that Ellen’s sixteenth birthday was coming up and she arranged a surprise party for her stepdaughter. No comments were uttered by Ellen's mother Joan Blondell, a bit of a relief. And June hates flying, but one weekend she flew back to Los Angeles to bring her daughter Pamela to St. George. She even rode with Dick on his new motorcycle. She was wonderfully kind to the citizens of St. George. They would knock on her motel door and ask for autographs or ask her to step outside for pictures. June was always gracious and compliant. One time when Dick was out in the middle of the parched desert, June insisted upon driving eight miles over really rough terrain to lunch with him. The production crew had warned her that a cloudburst was in the offing and the roads would be impassable. But June went ahead, anyway. When news of her many family activities waited back to Hollywood, some local observers, jaded and skeptical, found the news difficult to believe. For months they had been whispering that “there’s trouble in the Powell-Allyson household.”

This rumor began several months ago when June and Dick were out to dinner with friends. The Powells began to quarrel. June (who is so emotional she cries at card tricks) jumped up from her seat, ran out, and hailed a cab. Next day Hollywood was whispering that the Powell-Allyson marriage had turned sour. Said one know-it-all: “It figures. Let’s face it. They’ve been married nine years. That’s par for the course. It's not like they are too compatible.” Said others: “She’s just tired of playing Trilby . . . Two careers in one family just don’t mix . . . I never expected it to last!” June and Dick were disturbed by these rumors for a while. “Richard and I quarreled,” she admitted. “So what? All married couples have disagreements. It was nothing important. It’s over and done with.” Didn’t they understand that she and Richard had been through so much together, they had become inseparable parts of each other’s lives? Didn’t they realize that only a few months before she had come close to losing her husband on the operating table?

“I’ll never forget it,” she says, “so long as I live. It happened last winter just before I started the Glenn Miller job. Richard got up in the middle of the night. He thought he was suffering from indigestion. He took some bicarbonate of soda and went back to bed. Then he took a little brandy. But that didn’t help either. “When morning came I called a doctor. By then the pain had spread all over his stomach and his skin was red and I was really frightened. “The doctor said it was just a virus and told me not to worry. He gave Richard some sedatives and told me everything would be fine. Only Richard’s pain got worse and worse and he was in agony for the next three days. “I stayed with him all the time but on the third night I just couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. I fell asleep right on top of the bedspread and when I awoke, Richard was sitting on my bed and water was running down his face and I remember saying to myself in a daze, ‘That’s funny. Why is he taking a shower at this time of the night?’ And as I tried to shake the sleep out of my eyes, Richard mumbled, ‘Help me, June. Please help me.’ And then he collapsed in a heap at the foot of the bed.

“I don’t know how I managed but I dragged him to the bed, and it was then that his appendix burst. We rushed him to the hospital for an emergency operation. Richard is allergic to penicillin, so they couldn’t use that to kill the infection and it began to spread through his system. “Then the terrible mental torture began. Suppose he dies, I asked myself. What will I do? How will I ever be able to tell Ricky or Pam? “And Richard was dying. There was no doubt about it. Another operation was necessary. They were giving him blood transfusions and feeding him intravenously and it looked like the end for sure. “A priest went into Richard’s room and then walked out to me and said, ‘You’d better go in, Mrs. Powell.’ “And I can’t tell you how I felt when I walked in and saw Richard on that bed, almost lifeless. I began to talk to him, telling him that he must live, must live. I don’t know what I said. But after a while his eyes opened ever so slowly and he mumbled, ‘This is a helluva way to quit smoking. Isn’t it, June?’ 

And once he said that I knew he’d pull through.” Such experiences bind a man and wife together and to June it’s incredible that anyone might think a picayune quarrel could nullify such love as theirs. To others it is not incredible at all. A prominent director, for example, who has known the Powells for years, says, “The reason many Hollywood people expected June’s marriage to fail is relatively simple. At the time of their marriage, Junie had nothing in common with Dick except a show business background. She was twenty years younger than he—naive, insecure and incapable of helping him socially, domestically or professionally. “She couldn’t play tennis or golf, didn’t know how to run a house, was wracked by an inferiority complex, stammered when speaking to the servants. In short she was a New York City kid who had been raised in poverty."

“Her acting career, however, was going great guns, and Dick’s was not. The wise guys thought that sooner or later jealousy would ruin the marriage. They didn’t understand that June and Dick are intelligent and have great strength of character.  Despite the heat, June spent much of her time on the desert location with Dick, was furious at rumors that their nine-year-old marriage was in trouble. “In the years he’s been married to Junie, Dick has taught her a great deal. He still chooses scripts for her, and she still abides by his decisions, because they are wise decisions born of extensive experience. “Some actresses resent their husbands’ counsel. Not June. She respects Dick and loves him for all he’s done. And in the dark days several years ago she always maintained great faith in his ability."

“That faith has paid off. Today Dick Powell is one of the biggest men in Hollywood. He owns a TV series, Four Star Playhouse, produced by Powell Enterprises and sponsored by Singer Sewing Machine. He alternates with three other top names, Charles Boyer, David Niven, Ida Lupino, and Ronald Colman. “Dick is one of Howard Hughes’ favorites at RKO. Hughes signed him as a director in 1952 and Dick did an excellent directorial job on Split Second. Last year Hughes made him a producer and this year Dick is not only directing and producing but he’s just finished starring with Debbie Reynolds in Susan Slept Here. Under the circumstances, it seems impossible that career problems could cause Dick and June to split up—and unlikely that anything else could. “But the rumors persist because people don’t realize how much Junie has changed in the last ten years. They think she is the same clinging, bewildered kid who married Powell in 1945. Or that she is currently resenting his guidance.” Powell says, “Who has time to deny silly rumors? I’m too busy making a picture.”

In St. George, June said. “Dick and I have never been happier. It just hurts me to see him working so hard. Every night after the day’s shooting he holds long conferences with his staff. He’s really a very fine director. I’m sure this picture will prove it. “The reason I’m out here with Richard is because I love him and want to be near him. I was away from him during the shooting of Strategic Air Command.And I don’t like being away from him.” That does not sound like two people on the verge of separation. Of course, conditions might change but this isn’t very likely. Ever since Dick married June, he’s had eyes for no one else. No matter how gauche she was, he never strayed, never grew angry, never got fed up. And as June says, “It began to penetrate my thick skull years ago that Richard loved me for myself. And when I became sure of that I began to grow up.”

At first Dick was chary of adopting children. (He had two by his previous marriage to Joan Blondell). But only because he wasn’t at all sure that June could handle children. In 1948, when Joan Crawford told the Powells about an adoption home in Memphis, Tennessee, they adopted their daughter Pamela from there. Two years later on her way back to Memphis to adopt a brother for Pam, June found that adoption wouldn’t be necessary. She gave birth to Richard Keith on Christmas Eve that year. When Dick married June she had relatively few friends in Hollywood. He introduced her to his own world, a conservative world of prominent, wealthy, influential people. During this adaptation, she dropped the chorus girls she had known and grown up with in New York (Betsy Kelly, Gene’s wife, and Jane Ball, Monte Prosser’s wife) largely because they rarely crossed her path, but partly because she did not feel capable of mixing the two worlds. However, June hired a secretary who once worked in the Copacabana chorus line.

There were suggestions, of course, that she was revolting from Powell’s domination, asserting her own personality at last. But actually June’s real personality never has been submerged. It has been merely in the process of development. It has taken June a long time to get over her fear of assuming responsibility. Now June is sure of her own values and does not hesitate to act on them. “In my book,” she said a few weeks ago, “Richard’s happiness and the happiness of our family come first. If there’s any time left, I’ll think about my career." So long as cute little Junie adheres to that program, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Powell are destined to go on with many years of domestic bliss. -Alice Hoffman for Modern Screen Magazine (October, 1954)

The MGM Golden Era: June Allyson

"She's skinny; she's a little bowlegged; she can't sing much. She's certainly no raving beauty, and she's got a speaking voice that seems to be crying for cough drops after every syllable." That's how one plain-speaking insider described June Allyson, who, for filmgoers since the 1940s, was always been the wistful girl next door, wearing Peter Pan collars and starched skirts. It was an image which fit neatly into the "family" of MGM stars. She fortuitously began in motion pictures in the middle of America's involvement in World War II, a time when the public held high in esteem the wholesome girlfriend or wife left behind by a soldier going to war. June projected this wholesomeness very convincingly and the public eagerly went to see her films. 

As a teenager, June entered Amateur Night dance contests in the Bronx, and even though she never won, she kept on dancing. Things were a little better at home, now an apartment at 1975 Bryant Avenue, since her mother had remarried. After high school June began to seek jobs as a dancer. There was a $50 a week play date at the Club Lido in Montreal and then appearances in several movie shorts for Vitaphone and Educational Films. When June was twenty, she got a part in the chorus line of a Broadway musical Sing Out The News. When that flopped, she joined the chorus line of the Copacabana nightclub until she was hired for the chorus of Jerome Kern–Oscar Hammerstein II's musical Very Warm For May. That show opened in 1939, and one of her colleagues in the chorus was Vera-Ellen. This role got June into Rodgers and Hart's Higher And Higher. She recalls: "I've been in more flops than you can imagine. It was Richard Rodgers who was always keeping them from firing me, as every dance director wanted to do." 

According to June, it was MGM producer Joe Pasternak who persuaded Louis B. Mayer to look at her screen test by pleading to the studio kingpin: "Please look at this test and do just two things. Look at her eyes and listen to her voice. Don't pay any attention to anything else about her. These are distractions we can iron out." Thus was born the celluloid June Allyson, the diminutive blonde/redhead with the surprisingly husky voice (caused by chronic bronchitis and enlarged vocal cords—in 1961 she underwent a throat operation).

The Stratton Story (1949) was a very good biopic starring James Stewart as the baseball player who loses his leg in a hunting accident. June's husband Dick Powell had persuaded her to accept the assignment as the typical wife-next-door, because he was perceptive enough to know she had far more competition in glamorous musical roles. The Stratton Story displays her beautifully in her screen synthesis as an unsophisticated Margaret Sullavan type of screen star. The final straw for June was when the promised role in The Long, Long Trailer (1954) was handed to ex-MGM player Lucille Ball. However, June went into the top-grossing The Glenn Miller Story (1954) at Universal at the special request of James Stewart. 

Dick Powell, who played Napoleon Bonaparte's younger brother who woos Dixie American Marion Davies in the costume musical Hearts Divided (1936), would recount his experiences on the set to Tony Thomas. Powell recalled that William R Hearst would not allow Marion to perform unless he was on the set. Usually the mogul would be accompanied by three bulky associates, who said nothing but looked about with great intentness. "Those love scenes," Powell remembered, "were sheer torture. If I didn't make them look real, the director [Frank Borzage] would never use me again. If I made them too real, I was sure I was going to get a bullet in the back. Marion was doing her part in the long kissing closeups, but I was damn near choking to death. That picture lasted ten weeks, and I thought I'd die before I got out. I was still shaking months afterwards." By 1937 Hearst's empire was beginning to crumble and Marion at age forty retired from the cinema. 

Her last performance was in a dramatization of The Brat on Lux Radio Theatre in July 1936. On September 22, 1961, Marion died at age sixty-four, leaving an estate of eight million dollars. Perhaps Mary Astor, who worked with Marion in Warner Brothers' Page Miss Glory (1935), summed up the off-screen Marion best: "She was not hard and inquisitive, nor was she a dumb blonde. She was bright and funny. Her warmth and kindness could have taught many of us a great deal about the art of loving." That definition of Marion definitely might cast doubt about her veiled depiction in Center Door Fancy (written by Dick Powell's ex-wife Joan Blondell) as a vengeful shady character. Yet, the worst character portrayed by Blondell is Amy O'Brien (inspired by June Allyson) that maybe reflects more on Blondell's troubled mind than Allyson's alleged "naughtiness."

If it were not bad enough that the June Allyson faction at MGM was burying Gloria's film career for good, she up and retired for two years when she wed actor John Payne. However, she looked back on the studio system with fondness: "You lived there, you worked there, you grew up there. You knew everyone around you. We were groomed, step by step, for stardom. Nobody was thrown into something before they were ready for it. And I miss the movies that were made for the sheer entertainment of the audience." Divorced in 1969 from her third husband Richard Fincher (who later became a Florida state senator), in 1971, at the persuasion of her good friend June Allyson, Gloria DeHaven moved back to California. She said of her old glamour MGM years: "I didn't begin to grow up until I was forty; and now I can face reality, but escaping from it via 'sheer entertainment' can be fun."

Bottle-blonde bombshell of 1940s and 1950s "B" films, Adele Jergens (who dated Ronald Reagan) typically played hardcore floozies and burlesque dancers. In the early 1940s, she worked as a Rockette, and was named the Number One Showgirl in New York City. She got her first break understudying Gypsy Rose Lee as a burlesque strip artist in the Broadway show "Star and Garter" in 1942. Lee fell ill for two weeks during the show's run. A talent scout for Columbia Pictures caught Jergens's performance and signed her to a contract. A year later, in 1943, Joan Blondell had displaced Gypsy Rose Lee as Mike Todd's girlfriend. It was hard on Lee, as Jergens (who played Marilyn Monroe's mother in Ladies of the Chorus) and others observed. Conveniently, Blondell ignored Lee largely in her confessional tome.

In 1954, June Allyson said: "We all seem to have an instinct to blame someone or something for personal tragedy." Was she possibly alluding to Blondell's stubborn accusations and exaggerations towards her? During Allyson and Powell marriage crisis in 1957, Beverly Ott reported that Powell sighed: "Sometimes it seems all the love in the world is not enough for June." Although Powell was thought of as a powerful mogul in Hollywood, at the time of his death, his estate was estimated to be worth 2 million. The divorce of June Allyson from Glenn Maxwell was prompted by the terms of Powell's will: She would receive $4,000 monthly if she stayed unmarried. Allyson was quoted as saying that Maxwell was "the nicest man I've ever known—besides Richard." 

Sources: The MGM Stock Company: The Golden Era (2015) by James Robert Parish and The Dick Powell Story (1992) by Tony Thomas