American leading woman whose sweet smile and sunny disposition made her the prototypical girl-next-door of American movies of the 1940s. Raised in semi-poverty in Bronx neighborhoods by her divorced mother, Allyson (nee Ella Geisman) was injured in a fall at age eight and spent four years confined within a steel brace. Swimming therapy slowly gave her mobility again, and she began to study dance as well. She began to enter dance contests after high school and was given roles in several musical short films. In 1938 she made her Broadway debut in the musical "Sing Out the News." After several roles in the choruses of various musicals, she was hired to understudy Betty Hutton in "Panama Hattie." Hutton's measles gave Allyson a shot at a performance and she impressed director George Abbott so much that he gave her a role in his next musical, "Best Foot Forward."

She subsequently was hired by MGM to recreate her role in the screen version. The studio saw what it had in her and offered her a contract. Her smoky voice and winning personality made her very popular and she made more than a score of films for MGM, most often in musicals and comedies. She became quite a box-office attraction, paired with many of the major stars of the day. In 1945 she married actor-director Dick Powell, with whom she occasionally co-starred. Following Powell's death from cancer in 1963, she retreated somewhat from film work, appearing only infrequently on screen and slightly more often in television films. Occasional nightclub appearances and commercials were her only other public performances since, and she died of pulmonary respiratory failure and acute bronchitis on July 8, 2006, after a long illness.



On contract to MGM for 12 years. She was just 5' 1" and weighed 99 lbs. in 1945. After the death of first husband Dick Powell, she went through a bitter court battle with her mother over custody of her son Dick Powell Jr., and adopted daughter Pamela Powell. Reports at the time revealed that Dirk Wayne Summers was named legal guardian for Dick and Pamela, as a result of a court petition. After her film career was over, she continued to do occasional Broadway & off-Broadway plays, television appearances and commercials, including her famous Depends commercials, from the 1960s through the 1990s. Mother of Dick Powell Jr., and Pamela Powell from her marriage to Dick Powell. Very seldom was able to break out of her spry "goody two shoes" types. The couple of times she did, however, were extreme. She played a harsh, cold-hearted wife to José Ferrer in The Shrike (1955) who nags him to the point of a nervous breakdown. Audiences would not accept her in the role and the movie failed at the box office. Another time she played a lesbian murderess in They Only Kill Their Masters (1972), one of her final films. Her second husband, Glenn Maxwell, was Dick Powell's former barber. Her last husband, David Ashrow, who survived her, was a retired dentist turned actor. When she was eight years old, she was crushed by a falling tree limb while riding a bicycle. She wore a back brace for four years and taught herself to dance by watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies. She was told that the accident would prevent her from having children. Her first child, Pamela Powell, was adopted in 1948. In 1950, however, she gave normal birth to her son, Dick Powell Jr.. Longtime friend of Esther Williams. Married to husband David Ashrow at the Ingleside Inn in Palm Springs, California, in October 1976. There is a photograph of the wedding party hanging at the historic hotel garden to this day. Good friend of James Stewart and played his wife in three different films. Son Dick Powell Jr. born December 24, 1950. Could cry on cue, a talent she shared with Margaret O'Brien. Allyson's method for triggering tears was to "try very, very hard not to cry . . . So the more I thought about not crying the more I cried." According to Allyson, during O'Brien's death scene in Little Women (1949), they "could not stop" crying. She was a staunch supporter of the Republican Party. She initially turned down the opportunity to be a celebrity spokesperson for Depends undergarments because "it was not a very pleasant subject". Reportedly, her mother changed her mind because she convinced Allyson that she could actually help people with a very real and widespread problem that they were too embarrassed to talk about with friends or family. In December 1993, June Allyson dedicated the Holland-America Line cruise ship the MS Maasdam.