Dick Powell and June Allyson: An imperfect "perfect" marriage (Photoplay interview)

It all started on a Saturday afternoon in the early 1940s when my friend Betty and I went to a Baltimore theater to see The Singing Marine, starring Dick Powell. His good looks and romantic songs were more than I could resist! Before the end of the movie, I was head over heels in love. I even saw the movie again at the theatre. Soon I found myself buying movie magazines and cutting out photos of Dick Powell, filling page after page in my scrapbook. In the midst of this craze, Betty and I were invited to the home of a friend, Doris, for a picnic and swim. Her Uncle Leo from California was there for a visit, and I was surprised to learn that he was the producer of the Hopalong Cassidy serials. “Do you know Dick Powell?” I blurted out. “Sure,” Leo said. “Can you get me an autographed photo?” “Of course,” Leo assured. “And if you’re ever in Hollywood, Jane, give me a call and I’ll arrange a lunch date with Dick.” I nearly swooned at the thought. A couple of years later, while attending the University of Maryland, I was lucky enough to be chosen as our sorority’s delegate to a convention in Pasadena. Taking advantage of the situation, I decided to stay the summer. I got a job at a department store at Hollywood and Vine and eventually moved in with the mother of one of my friends, a wonderful woman named Harriet. I told Harriet about Leo, and she encouraged me to call him. When I did, Leo asked if I still wanted that lunch date with Dick Powell! “Wow!” I exclaimed. “Terrific!” Harriet was thrilled, but I was scared to death! And of all places, we were going to the Brown Derby, where the movie stars hung out. On the big day, Leo drove up in a snazzy Cadillac. As he opened the rear door for me, I could see the other man in the front seat, Dick Powell. It was a wonderful evening!

I had two wedding anniversaries to my credit when I met June Allyson Powell, and she was still a starry-eyed bride. But we clicked from the moment of that first meeting, for we had one extremely important thing in common. June wanted a baby more than anything in the world, and so did I. Now, of course, we have even a stronger bond in common—our daughters. There is nothing more beautiful to see in our town these days than the glow which surrounds Junie and Dick whenever they are in the presence of their little Pamela. Years ago, when I read that June and Dick were married, I couldn’t wait to meet her. George and I had known Dick for some time, and we were very fond of him. And I had seen June in “Best Foot Forward” and thought that she was charming. Dick was a guest on a radio show one night, a few weeks after their marriage. I was delighted when he asked George and me to have dinner afterward, to meet his new wife. June drove down to the broadcast studio to join us, and she was standing in the wings when Dick and I came offstage. There was an awkward moment when June and I came face to face. We were both done up to the teeth for our big dinner date, each of us in her best dress. There was just one little hitch. It was the same dress! I stared at June and June stared at me while Dick gently proceeded to introduce us. I guess men just don’t notice things like that. June started to giggle and I did, too. Dick looked at us as though he thought we were tetched. And then he caught on. “We’d better get out of here fast,” he said. And we tore for the parking lot, laughing like crazy. The whole evening was like that. Later, June and I marched into the Players Restaurant with our two handsome husbands, but we couldn’t stop laughing.

We drove up the steepest of the Hollywood Hills, we said to look at the view, but really to show what our fine new car could do, and midway, it stalled dead. Dick and George were out in the street, muttering over the motor, sweating and swearing while June and I sat in the back seat trying to look sympathetic. It was a wonderful beginning for what was to become one of my fondest friendships. We’d all had such fun that we invited the Powells to our house the next Sunday night for supper. Both of us were certain, absolutely certain, that we would make absolutely faultless mothers. We had it all worked out. George telephoned Dick Powell to confirm W.W.’s scoop. June came out the next day with a present for the baby. I couldn’t talk about anything else but my big news. Until I saw that June’s crinkly blue eyes were filled with tears. Then I tried to change the subject. I think June started begging Dick that very day to agree to adopting a baby. I think Dick may have demurred at first. June was still young. But June was not to be put off. 

Very soon, the Dick Powells were on the waiting list of a famous adoption agency in the South. Junie came to all of my showers, in wonderful spirits. She was going to have a baby, too. Richard had promised. And then our Missy was born and I didn’t see June or Richard for awhile. The first time was at a party at their house, when Missy was a few weeks old. June was a perfect hostess, as usual, but I felt there was a certain sadness under her gaiety that night. She sat for a while curled up in a big tufted armchair, Patrick, her poodle, in her lap. And she seemed far away, lost in her secret thoughts. She explained it to me afterwards, when we were alone for a moment. The gossip columnists had been wagging their tongues about her marriage; she and Richard had been quarrelling, they had said. It wasn’t true. “We have our spats, of course,” Junie told me. “All married people do. But we never quarrel, why Richard is the sweetest, the most thoughtful man.” But that wasn’t what was worrying her. She and Dick were secure in their marriage; they needn’t care what the gossips said. Except, and this was what really hurt, June was afraid the rumors would hurt her chances of getting a baby. I know the helpless feeling you have when anyone writes something about you which may jeopardize a relationship or a situation. If only they really understood what damage just a few idle words can do. All I could say to June was that I was sure the agency wouldn’t pay any attention to malicious gossip. Her chances, I said, were as good as ever. Five more long months went by, though, before June’s wish came true. 

The agency called. They had the perfect baby for the Powells. A little girl, just a month old, she had reddish-blonde hair, and crinkly blue eyes, like June’s. She would arrive by plane, with a nurse, in eight days. June was in the middle of the production of “Little Women.” But she and Dick worked frantically nights and on her Sunday off to get the nursery and equipment ready for their new daughter. June was working when the baby’s plane arrived, and it broke her heart that Dick drove out to the airport alone. “We’re so lucky, she’s so perfect, so darling, so utterly dear.” She was too excited to notice that it was Dick who phoned out for extra bottles and supplies, that it was Dick who helped make up the formula and instructed the new nurse. June was almost afraid to touch her little girl, afraid she might break her. After Pamela’s arrival, June’s and I's friendship turned into an endless competition. Missy had three teeth. Pamela’ first one, you could feel it, sharp as any thing, under her gums, was coming through. Pamela had a six months birthday and June pasted a bow in her soft fuzz of hair with Scotch tape. Pamela said Ma-ma and Da-da when she was only ten months old. At eleven months Pamela started to walk! June started planning Pam’s christening party while her daughter was still in her bassinette. She had never had anything half so grand for herself. Her own childhood, I know, was hard, there wasn’t much money in her family, and for two long years she was set in an uncomfortable brace as the result of a back injury. The big moments in her own life had been impressive only in the sense of her own inner happiness. Her marriage ceremony, for instance, was simple and unostentatious. 

June and Richard invited their closest friends to the church christening and to a reception afterward at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Dick, as a surprise, had engaged Don Loper to make Junie’s dress for the christening, an enchanting full-skirted brown taffeta with a yoke and round collar of white lace. A few of us went out to dinner afterward. I watched Dick’s face as he looked at his wife. He was so proud. Everything is perfect, now that there is Pamela. Regis Toomey was godfather and Claudette Colbert godmother. Colbert bought a lace christening gown from Paris but Pammy vomited all over it on the way to the christening. Allyson wanted to go home so the gown could be washed. Powell said that Colbert would understand, but the actress insisted that Colbert never know so they went home. The gown was washed and they hurried to the church, where Pammy pulled Colbert’s string of pearls, which broke all over the place. June told me that buying Dick clothes was difficult. At first he beamed at what she bought him but Allyson never saw him wear any of the fanciful ties or unusual shirts. One day she discovered that he gave them away as gifts and rewards to prop men and butchers and bakers and even the lawn man. 

I asked June: When did you first start going out with Dick? "It was a chance meeting in New York after Dick was separated from his wife," replied June. "I came into Toots Shor's restaurant and Dick was having lunch alone. He invited me to sit down and we had our first long talk. It ended with him saying that he would telephone me when I returned home. Our first official date was at Romanoff's. He seemed so sensible and intelligent after some of the men I had gone around with." MGM was confident that Two Girls and a Sailor would be a hit and sent Allyson and Nancy Walker to New York on a personal appearance tour. Dick Powell said he had seen the film and that June was going to be a star. After the premiere night of Two girls and a Sailor, Allyson said that Powell had phoned her hotel room at midnight asking to meet him in the hotel lobby, suggesting they go out to dinner. When Powell asked her going out with him, she said she refused because she thought he was still married. Powell fetched a newspaper from the hotel’s newsstand and showed her the headline “Joan Blondell and Dick Powell Separate.” Then, Powell took her to Sardi’s to dance.

On the morning of Friday, February 22, 1956, June said they had argued at night and June had threatened Dick with a separation. June had packed her luggage for a trip to Palm Springs, with her secretary and daughter Pamela. Dick stood in her dressing room watching her, and arguing the point of separation. “You can’t go without me,” Dick said. “You can’t live without me and you know it.” June folded a pair of slacks neatly into a suitcase. “I’m tired of being told what I can and cannot do,” she said coolly. “You don’t even know how to get to Palm Springs,” Dick added. She flared up at him. “I’ve been there a million times with you! I’m not an idiot! I don’t want you telling me how to get there—I can find it myself!” He told her regardless, and when June reached South Pasadena, a point not vaguely en route to Palm Springs, she also reached her Waterloo. She stopped the car, went to a public phone and dialed her home telephone number. “All right!” she said. “Where is Palm Springs?” To Dick’s credit, he didn’t say 'I told you so.' He is not that kind of a man. Instead he laughed, and so did June. It is this humor they have in common, the happy faculty for laughing at themselves, that makes their marriage more than worth saving. In the midst of the most serious argument one will say something that strikes the other funny, and the ice is broken as well as the argument itself. When June eventually reached Palm Springs, admittedly via Dick’s explicit directions, she flew to a telephone to advise Dick she had arrived safely. She called him a second time, to say goodnight. 

Of such stuff is marriage made. The next day, Saturday, despite the company of Pamela and her secretary Barbara Salisbury, June was lonely (the unspoken assumption is that she missed Dick), and at noon the threesome left for Los Angeles. In the interim, the Edgar Bergens had unknowingly put themselves in the middle. Edgar had flown to Palm Springs to make certain June was all right, and after he flew back to Los Angeles on Saturday he had phoned Dick and asked him to come for dinner that night. Unaware of this, Frances Bergen, also worrying about June, had telephoned her in Palm Springs and invited her for dinner on Saturday. The upshot was that the ‘separated’ Powells had dinner together that evening with the Bergens. “She ate,” said Dick. “I wasn’t hungry.” “You know the first thing he said?” June asked me. “He walked in and said, ‘Darling, you don't look so good. You look as though you’ve lost five pounds.’ I said ‘I look fine, thank you.’ And then I looked in the mirror and he was right. I looked absolutely awful.” During their two weeks of separation the Bergens as well as other friends spoke to them frankly, pointing out the difficulties each already knew existed. Without exception their friends hoped for a reconciliation, not only for the sake of the children, but for June and Dick themselves. Says June, “But you can’t learn anything from your friends. We must work it out for ourselves.” Almost every night of that following week, Dick had dinner with June, mostly at home. Separately, they made dinner engagements with other people, then broke them at the last minute, irresistibly drawn together. “I suppose we spent some time talking about a new school for Rick. And of course I kept telling June that our separation was ridiculous, that it was serving no purpose,” said Dick. Neither does June recall clearly the conversations of that week. “All I remember is that suddenly we found ourselves behaving as we should have before we separated.” 

If there was occasional laughter, there were also many tears. It was a bad week, so bad that June reacted as she always does to unhappiness, and she became ill. That night she went to her mother’s house for dinner. On Saturday she felt worse, and lonely to boot, because Dick had gone to Palm Springs for the weekend, unaware of her illness. On Sunday she wakened with a fever of 104° and telephoned her personal physician. Dr. Corday put his stethoscope to June’s chest, and shook his head. “You have pneumonia,” he said. “Have someone take you to the hospital right away.” When Dick returned to Hollywood that night he went straight to the house, heard the news from the servants, and dashed off to the hospital. “I had dinner with her at the hospital every night from then on,” lamented Dick. As Dick says, “When you separate from somebody after eleven and a half years, that’s really frightful.” Unexpectedly, they grin at each other. June was in the hospital six days, and the following Saturday Dick drove her home.

"He helped in other ways. “One night,” June remembers, “I came wailing down the stairs and threw myself on the divan to cry my heart out. I was waving a newspaper column that had given me an especially bad dose of publicity. ‘Why me?’ I sobbed.” “Why not you?” asked Richard quietly. “That stopped me cold,” June admits. “He was so right. I had reached the point in my career where an occasional nasty bit of publicity was considered par for the course by most stars. But me—I wanted to be different, to have everyone like me. Now I know that’s impossible.” “No, it isn’t. It’s perfectly natural,” countered her relaxed husband. “When I go through the Powells’ lower gate in the morning,” Barbara Salisbury says, “it’s like driving into another world. Suddenly I’m in the peace and quiet of the country, surrounded by beautiful trees and the greenness that no city care can contrive. Inside, it’s warm, friendly and full of the feeling of family. There was a time when Richard and George Hall, the decorator, got together to decide on any possible changes. Last month, however, it was June who conferred with George on the divans, curtains, drapes—and she very definitely wanted a brass headboard in the master bedroom. After long discussions she took four possible choices to Richard, then they decided together on colors, textures and whatnot. I should add that her sense of humor hasn’t changed a bit. “She is still an out-and-out sentimentalist,” Barbara continues, “and I don’t think that will ever change. 

Sensitive and highly emotional, June is always touched by little things, and often a warm note affects her more than an expensive gift. Tears aren’t necessarily indicative of sadness in June—they can mean anything. Take the day I was working at the desk in her bedroom. June was sitting cross-legged on the floor of her dressing room, listening to a little radio and happily deciding which sweaters to keep. Five minutes later, when I walked in, she was still sitting on the floor—but with great big tears rolling down her face. “Why? Because an old Dick Powell record was being played on the radio. The fact that her husband, the father of her children, had recorded that song before she ever met him filled her with a flood of emotion that was only released by tears. She wiped her eyes, and she said brusquely, ‘Isn’t that silly? Bawling over a crazy record!’ Nevertheless, she immediately went to the phone and called Richard at the studio, just to say hello.” 

And Richard is a kind-hearted man, I really haven't known men with his special degree of discretion in showbusiness. June talks of his husband's skills as director: “Being his wife, I couldn’t help being proud of the way people felt about Richard. He’s wonderful to work with, and the crew idolized him. I don’t think I ever met a nicer, happier group of people. Richard has a mad habit which relieves tension and puts everyone in stitches. We were doing a scene one day when it started to rain. Everyone was ready to bite nails. Suddenly over the director’s mike came the dulcet voice of Richard Powell, singing ‘When Irish Eyes Are Smiling’—with the flattest high notes I ever heard. It broke us all up. If the director could joke, so could we. Richard has a wonderful way with people, and the picture we made together was more fun than any I’ve done. And I honestly don’t think I’m prejudiced. Anyone who works with him will tell you the same thing.” Sources: Dee Phillips for Photoplay magazine (November 1956) and Confessions of an ex-fan magazine writer (1981) by Jane Wilkie

Good News (1947) was the best musical from the Roaring Twenties from the premier songwriting team of DeSylva, Brown & Henderson. It ran on Broadway for 557 performances in the 1927-29 season and gave the team a number of song hits identified with them like the title song, Just Imagine, Lucky In Love, and The Best Things In Life Are Free. All of those songs made it as well as one of the great dance numbers of the Roaring Twenties, The Varsity Drag. The musicals of that era had the lightweight nonsensical plots which also were taken from the Broadway shows. Big man on campus, Peter Lawford, has to get a passing grade in French to stay eligible for the football squad. He gets mousy student librarian June Allyson assigned as a tutor and the inevitable happens. After that Lawford has to choose romantically between mercenary coed Patricia Marshall and June Allyson. It's a struggle, but you guess who he winds up with. Good News presents an idealized version of the Roaring Twenties and is the quintessential college musical which flooded Hollywood mostly in the years before World War II. It holds up well as entertainment and the songs are still fabulous. Source: greatentertainerarchives.blogspot.com

June Allyson's name is included in The Rat Pack's list of conquests (Rat Pack Confidental by Shawn Levy), presumably by Peter Lawford, who had a huge crush on Allyson. Aside from affording his mother May a society in which she could act the grande dame, Hollywood gave Peter the opportunity to chase every famous skirt in the world: Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth, Anne Baxter, Judy Garland, June Allyson, Ava Gardner. Most insidiously, May Lawford responded to her son’s growing apart from her by walking into Louis B. Mayer’s office and telling the prudish studio chief that Peter was a homosexual, a charge that Peter was forced to refute by soliciting the explicit testimony of Lana Turner; the canard drove a permanent wedge between him and his mother. Frank Sinatra was carrying a grudge against Peter, too. In late ’53, after she and Frank had split, Ava Gardner had a drink with Peter at an L.A. nightspot.

When Louella Parsons reported the little tête-à-tête, Frank went bonkers, calling Peter at two in the morning and shouting at him, “Do you want your legs broken, you fucking asshole? Well, you’re going to get them broken if I ever hear you’re out with Ava again. I’ll kill you.” Sammy Davis Jr.: “There was switching partners and group sex. When living got too depressing, hanging out with a group like that got your mind off it, for that moment at least it fogged your brain and you didn’t feel so bad. Sex wasn’t the point, though. You didn’t want to be alone. Two or three people would get into bed with you and you’d fall asleep. You had physical companionship, that’s what you needed, a quiet, friendly body lying next to you, and you’d sleep.” Milton Ebbins: “Sammy had found this beautiful little model, a white girl. He fell in love with her, and they were living together while they were filming Salt and Pepper. Peter stole her away. Sammy came to me and said, ‘That fucker, I’ll never talk to him again.’ I asked Peter, ‘What did you do?’ And Peter replied nonchalantly, ‘I stole his girl.’” Joe Naar recalls one night that Peter drank heavily and boasted of having hooked up with June Allyson. Maybe Sinatra was jealous? Lawford wondered, which a skeptical Sinatra denied. Dean Martin had received some cordial telegram from Allyson and he also had hinted at a fling with her, surmising that Dick Powell was boring. Sinatra just said to Martin to shut up. It's very likely Sinatra admired Powell's singing prowess as a crooner, and was fed up with Lawford's snobbery and Martin's brashness. —Rat Pack Confidential (1998) by Shawn Levy