After filming _The Secret Heart (1946) together, June and her co-star, Claudette Colbert, became great friends. Claudette became godmother to June's daughter, Pamela Powell.
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.
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.
Along with her husband Dick Powell, she persuaded future President of the United States Ronald Reagan to switch from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in 1962.
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.
Daughter Pamela Powell born June 18, 1948. She was adopted in August 1948.
Filed for divorce once during her marriage to Dick Powell, but the turbulent marriage lasted until his death from cancer in 1963. She struggled with alcoholism following his death which may have triggered a custody battle against her mother.
From 1963 to 1975, she had a long term, ill-fated romance with writer/director Dirk Wayne Summers, often announcing to the press that the couple would be married soon. She and Summers were the lead item in Walter Winchell's then influential column more than a few times. They often traveled together through Europe. Although Summers apparently loved her and their life together, he refused her many proposals of marriage, much to her chagrin. Members of the nascent jet-set, they were frequently seen in Cap d'Antibes, Madrid, Rome and London, where they called Hugh M. Hefner's borrowed Mayfair penthouse home.
Good friend of James Stewart and played his wife in three different films.
Has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1537 Vine Street.
Her father, an alcoholic, abandoned the family when she was six months old.
Her father, Robert Geisman, was born in Roanoke, VA on September 29, 1892 and died in Ventura County, California on April 19, 1983 at the age of 90. Her mother, Clara Josephine Provost, was born in New York, NY on October 21, 1897 and died on April 23, 1994 in Ventura County, California at the age of 97.
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.
In 1945, Harvard Lampoon voted her worst actress of the year. That year's worst actor was regular co-star Van Johnson.
In December 1993, June Allyson dedicated the Holland-America Line cruise ship the MS Maasdam.
In Italy, her films were dubbed mainly by Miranda Bonansea. As she matured, she was dubbed by Rosetta Calavetta and Rina Morelli. She was once dubbed by Andreina Pagnani in Two Girls and a Sailor (1944), released in Italy after the war.
June married Dr. David Ashrow, a retired dentist-turned actor in October of 1976. June and David toured the country together in the late seventies/early eighties in the stage play "My Daughter, Your Son" to fine reviews. A few years earlier, June starred in the same show with 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.