Two Great Talents: June Allyson, Betty Hutton

Miriam Nelson (1919—2018), was a prestigious choreographer who debuted on Broadway in Sing Out the News (1938). Miriam went to Hollywood and choreographed many musical numbers for his husband Gene Nelson, once he had a contract with Warner Bros. Miriam Nelson was a contract performer with Paramount. She worked in films such as Double Indemnity, Tea for Two and Breakfast at Tiffany's. She worked with people such as June Allyson, Judy Garland and Doris Day. Miriam taught Ingrid Bergman her dance scene in Cactus Flower (1969), the film that earned Goldie Hawn her only Oscar. Miriam Nelson's autobiography My Life Dancing with the Stars, with a forward written by Julie Andrews and Blake Edwards, was published in 2009. Source: imdb.com

"In Panama Hattie, a Cole Porter musical, Jane Ball and I were in a musical number with Betty Hutton. One night Jane got an eye infection and couldn't go on, so I had to quickly teach June Allyson the whole number. The only place to rehearse was in the basement where we were unable to hear the show. We were hard at it when we one of the dancers walked by and said: "What are you two doing? The show is over, You missed it." We both raced up to the stage anyway, just to be sure. You can bet we stayed out of Betty Hutton's way the rest of the night. For years after that, I had nightmares I missed my cue. Shortly after we opened in New York, Buddy DeSylva, the show's producer, held understudy auditions for Betty. I didn't audition because I didn't see myself as the Betty Hutton type. I told June she should audition. I knew Buddy liked June, Jane Ball and me because he called us "Vassar, Smith & Brown" or his "college girls." Even so, June didn't think she sang well. I knew she could do it, so I pushed her down the aisle to the audition. Buddy asked her to sing and she got the part of Betty Hutton's understudy. Betty came down with chicken pox and and June went on in her place. Someone from George Abbott's office saw June in Panama Hattie and recommended her for Best Foot Forward. The rest is June Allyson history! Ethel Merman let June share the star dressing room since otherwise she would have been running up and down three flights of spiral stairs to the chorus dressing rooms. Merman also had a bouquet of spring flowers delivered to June's dressing room."

"I finally got a terrific opportunity to dance in a movie called Duffy’s Tavern. It seemed as though every star on the lot was in this movie, including Betty Hutton, Bing Crosby, Alan Ladd, Dorothy Lamour, Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake and Joan Caulfield; however, most of them were not dancers per se, so the featured number I was going to do would supply the dancing. Billy Daniel, my friend who helped get me into Paramount, was also the choreographer. It was widely rumored that Joan and Bing had grown close after their meeting on Duffy’s Tavern. She later told the press she had an affair with a movie star. Although she didn’t name him, it was easy to put two and two together. By now, I had a little bit of money saved up, so June Allyson and I pooled our money and rented a nice apartment on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Living with June was so much fun because she had a lot of friends, like Lucille Ball and Judy Garland, and was always going to this party or that one. This was before she married Dick Powell, so she was still a popular “bachelorette.” My mother came out to Los Angeles for a visit. June and I asked my mother to move in with us." 

"We all lived together until June’s career skyrocketed. We all sat down and talked it over. June decided to hire a housekeeper and keep the place on her own. My mother and I decided to get our own apartment within walking distance of Paramount. It was a cute building where all the apartments faced into a central courtyard. June Allyson was my maid of honor in 1941 when I became Mrs Gene Berg Nelson. It was not much of a honeymoon, because we didn't have enough money or time. Once Busby Berkeley wrote me: "You're a darling girl, Miriam, and I love you for all that you did. God bless you always, your dear friend." —My Life Dancing With The Stars (2009) by Miriam Nelson. 

As Gene Arceri recounts in Rocking Horse: A Personal Biography of Betty Hutton (2017), a different, somehow paranoid version of June Allyson's promotion in Panama Hattie was given by Betty Hutton. One of the chorus girls in Panama Hattie was June Allyson, who also became Betty’s understudy when she proved she could do a good Hutton imitation. When DeSylva took Betty to Hollywood a year later for a picture he was to produce, Allyson got her chance to go from understudy to featured performer. Eventually, she scored in Hollywood, as did a few others in the chorus: Vera-Ellen, Lucille Bremer and Betsy Blair. Americans, shattered by the news out of Europe, reacted to the RAF struggling with the Luftwaffe over England. Over 32,000 British children had been evacuated to the United States. Tin Pan Alley was turning out “The White Cliffs of Dover” and Cole Porter composed “Make It Another Old Fashioned, Please,” “Let’s Be Buddies” and a host of other songs for Panama Hattie. Among the principals were Arthur Treacher, Rags Ragland and Betty Hutton, who had three numbers in the show: “Fresh As a Daisy,” “They Ain’t Doin’ Right by Our Nell,” and “All I Gotta Get Is My Man.” 

Betty Hutton and the show’s star, Ethel Merman, got along well enough except for one incident with conflicting versions. Betty said, regretfully, “When I got in the show, Ethel took out my best number, ‘Plant Your Own Tree.’” Yet, according to Merman, “Betty Hutton had three numbers when we opened in New Haven and the same three numbers when she withdrew from the cast to go into films. So why, years later, she tells everyone that I insisted upon her best number being cut, I’ll never know.” In Panama Hattie, Allyson took over for Hutton, who developed the measles. There was a famous director in the audience, George Abbott, who later signed Allyson for his next play Best Foot Forward. With some bitterness, Betty said, “When I left the show, June got her chance and I taught her everything she knew. She got this part in Best Foot Forward and I flew back from the coast to see her. I had a front row seat and I thought she would be thrilled. I brought her flowers. She didn’t want to see me and she would never speak to me.

I was hurt because I loved her. I thought she was so lovely. I don’t know why she was ashamed to say I taught her. When [June Allyson] came to Hollywood, she didn’t want to remember all that. I can’t understand it to this day.” MGM was about to launch 23-year-old June Allyson, who arrived in Hollywood for the movie version of Best Foot Forward (1943). Lucille Ball would be its star instead of Rosemary Lane. In her second picture at MGM, June Allyson gave Mickey Rooney the “Betty Hutton treatment” in Girl Crazy (1943), rapidly on her way to enormous popularity. According to Betty Hutton, “Johnny Mercer was the greatest songwriter of all time, wrote the score of The Fleet's In. And my role in that film was funny.” —Rocking Horse: A Personal Biography of Betty Hutton (2017) by Gene Arceri

"June Allyson was thought to be the embodiment of niceness—pretty, unassuming and uncomplicated. But the truth is that she was not average, apparent in the way Allyson was posed as a rival to Judy Garland in the 1940s. Garland was four years younger and had come to MGM seven years prior but Allyson’s rise was in counterpoint to Garland’s fall. Allyson had enough talent for the studio bosses to think this new girl could step right into Garland’s shoes if Garland didn’t behave. She began her career in a series of film shorts in Hollywood in late 1930s, alternating with chorus work in Broadway. It was one of those fateful theatrical opportunities that brought attention to Allyson: Betty Hutton contracted measles and Allyson was promoted from understudy to star in Panama Hattie in 1940. This led to a featured part in Best Foot Forward, and the Hollywood version made in 1943. Allyson had a rocky start in Tinsel Town and, after playing supporting roles, was nearly dropped by MGM. But wise counsel from her future husband Dick Powell led to her taking the “plain Jane” sister lead in Two Girls and a Sailor (1944), which was a big hit and made her a star." —June Allyson: Her Life and Career (2022) by Peter Shelley