Trivia

Initially wanted to be a doctor, and got into acting merely as a way to make money to pay for medical school. She ended up sticking with it, and instead paid for her brother to become a doctor. She took a lifelong interest in health and medical research.

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.

Was a good friend of Judy Garland. They were both under contract at MGM in the 1940s, and Judy used to give June rides in Judy's car to the studio whenever possible. In interviews after Garland's passing, Allyson said that she could hardly talk about Garland without getting tears in her eyes because she was such a special lady who didn't have appropriate help available to her in her lifetime.

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 birth to her son, Richard Powell.

She initially turned down the opportunity to be a celebrity spokesperson for Depend 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.

Good friend of James Stewart and played his wife in three different films.

Witnessed Joan Crawford's cruel treatment of her daughter Christina Crawford and claims the book and film adaptation Mommie Dearest (1981) are honest accounts of how Joan treated her children.

Was close friends with: Esther Williams, Van Johnson, Claudette Colbert, Kathryn Grayson, Judy Garland, Jane Wyman, Gloria DeHaven, Ann Rutherford, James Stewart, and Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Reagan.

Her father, an alcoholic, abandoned the family when she was six months old.

Was a fan of the mystery writer Agatha Christie, so much in fact that her personal library consisted of every novel that Christie ever wrote. She also cited the Christie character Jane Marple to be her favorite female detective.

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.

June Allyson confessed in her autobiography that she had a short-term relationship with a young John F. Kennedy.

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.

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.

Allyson claims in her autobiography that in the roman a clef "Center Door Fancy", written by husband Dick Powell's first wife Joan Blondell, the character of "Amy" is a thinly-disguised version of her. It has been theorized by film historian Michael Buckley that "Amy" is an anagram for May, the month just before June.

Received a special tribute as part of the Annual Memorial tribute at The 79th Annual Academy Awards (2007). The film footage showed Miss Allyson on stage at the Academy Awards smiling and laughing.

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 Richard 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 Richard Powell, 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.

Separated from Powell once when she fell in love with actor Alan Ladd during filming of The McConnell Story (1955). Ladd was also married at the time.

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.

She was just 5' 1" and weighed 99 lbs. in 1945.

She was a valued resource in preserving information about Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) and Hollywood's golden years. She was a spokesperson on the issue of incontinence, and was instrumental in establishing the June Allyson Foundation for Public Awareness and Medical Research. She and her husband, Dr. David Ashrow, actively supported fund-raising efforts for both the James Stewart and Judy Garland museums. Stewart and Garland were both close friends.

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.

Her favorite actors were Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford, and Meg Ryan.

Son Richard Powell born December 24, 1950.

Mother of Richard Powell, and Pamela Powell from her marriage to Dick Powell.

When she married Alfred Glenn Maxwell, her family allowance from the estate of Dick Powell was reduced from $5,000 per month to $2,500 per month.

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 Hefner's borrowed Mayfair penthouse home.

On contract to MGM for 12 years.

Has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1537 Vine Street.

Longtime friend of Esther Williams.

In December 1993, June Allyson dedicated the Holland-America Line cruise ship the MS Maasdam.

In May 2014, she was honored as Turner Classic Movie's Star of the Month.

On August 28, 2019, she was honored with a day of her film work during the Turner Classic Movies Summer Under the Stars.

The makers of The Love Boat (1977) series frequently cast actors and actresses who had worked together in past projects, in what fans of the show term "pop culture connections". In the segment "Her Own Two Feet" (The Minister and the Stripper/Her Own Two Feet/Tony's Family (1978)), June Allyson was reunited with frequent costar, Van Johnson, in a story about a husband who is struggling to face the truth that his wife is losing her sight.

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.

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.

In 1945, Harvard Lampoon voted her worst actress of the year. That year's worst actor was regular co-star Van Johnson.

She was fan of the TV shows Touched by an Angel (1994), Mad About You (1992), and Law & Order (1990).

Her father was of German descent. Her mother had Dutch, French/French-Canadian, English, and Guernsey Channel Islander roots.

She had one sibling, a brother named Henry Allyson Geisman, who was born November 22, 1915 in New York, NY and died Jan 6, 1995 in Riverside, CA.

In the 1980s, 1990's, and early 2000's, she was the spokeswomen for Depend undergarments.

Stepmother of Norman S. Powell and Ellen Powell.

Daughter Pamela Powell born June 18, 1948. She was adopted in August 1948.

She was a heavy smoker until 1984.

Is one of 23 actresses who did not receive an Oscar nomination for their Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical Golden Globe-winning performance; hers being for Too Young to Kiss (1951). The others, in chronological order, are: Ethel Merman for Call Me Madam (1953), Jean Simmons for Guys and Dolls (1955), Taina Elg and Kay Kendall for Les Girls (1957), Marilyn Monroe for Some Like It Hot (1959), Rosalind Russell for A Majority of One (1961) and Gypsy (1962), Patty Duke for Me, Natalie (1969), Twiggy for The Boy Friend (1971), Raquel Welch for The Three Musketeers (1973), Barbra Streisand for A Star Is Born (1976), Bernadette Peters for Pennies from Heaven (1981), Kathleen Turner for Romancing the Stone (1984) and Prizzi's Honor (1985), Miranda Richardson for Enchanted April (1991), Jamie Lee Curtis for True Lies (1994), Nicole Kidman for To Die For (1995), Madonna for Evita (1996), Renée Zellweger for Nurse Betty (2000), Sally Hawkins for Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Amy Adams for Big Eyes (2014), Awkwafina for The Farewell (2019), Rosamund Pike for I Care a Lot (2020) and Rachel Zegler for West Side Story (2021).

Although she stated in a 2001 interview that she is of Dutch descent and that her family's name was originally Van Geisman, her father was actually of German ancestry. It is unconfirmed whether her father was Jewish.

Denied being of Jewish descent in an interview with Larry King in 2001.

Allyson said she had been raised as a Catholic, but a discrepancy exists relating to her early life, and her studio biography was often the source of the confusion.