Van Johnson

Born in Newport, Rhode Island, on August 25, 1916, Charles Van Johnson was the son of a humble realtor. Since he was little, he had been fascinated by acting, and he asked his family to take him to see the theater companies that toured his hometown. In 1934, and just finished high school, he put all his belongings in a suitcase and went to try his luck on Broadway, where he arrived with only five dollars in his pocket. He was immediately offered roles as a walk-on and choir boy in musicals such as “Too Many Girls,” which was later made into a film by George Abbott ., the same one who had staged it in the theater, and who kept Johnson in the cast, which meant that the young man made his debut on the big screen. The boy was so good that MGM was quick to offer him a contract, and cast him in the lead role in Murder in the Big House , an unknown action-adventure byproduct.

Van Johnson’s big break came when he was cast as a supporting role in Dr. Gillespie’s New Assistant , part of a highly successful film series at the time, in which Lionel Barrymore played a doctor. After the abandonment of the actor Lew Ayeres, Johnson became the new assistant of the protagonist, Randall Adams, who would appear again in Dr. Gillespie’s Criminal Case and Between two women . He was also a supporting role in The Human Comedy , a hit film starring Mickey Rooney .

At that time, the interpreter suffered a serious car accident that almost cost him his life. He got by because a metal plate was put into his skull, scarring his forehead and preventing him from being drafted to fight in World War II, when the United States entered the conflict. He took advantage of the fact that he had stayed at home to make his way in the world of cinema, in war movies with a huge anti-Japanese propaganda charge, such as The number 5 pilot and especially 30 seconds over Tokyo , one of the great successes of the time, where he shared the screen with Robert Mitchum and Spencer Tracy . He also highlights the excellent romantic drama Two in Heaven, where there was also Spencer Tracy, who was a pilot killed during a bombing, who reincarnated as the guardian angel of another pilot (Johnson), whom he helps to win over his girlfriend in life. This film gave rise to Always (Forever) , a remake directed by Steven Spielberg . Johnson and Tracy also starred in Frank Capra ‘s iconic The State of the Union .

By the end of the war, Johnson was a megastar, winning titles like Mom’s My Rival , Three Men Named Mike , and Great Decision , opposite Clark Gable . In 1947 he married Eve Lynn Abbott, with whom he had a daughter, although he ended up divorcing in 1968.

Johnson maintained stardom in the 1950s, starring in Vincente Minnelli ‘s musical Brigadoon , an adaptation of a great Broadway hit, in which he and Gene Kelly end up in a small village set in the 18th century, which does not appear on the maps. In The Caine Mutiny he was one of the officers who make the difficult decision to relieve his neurotic captain ( Humphrey Bogart ) of command. He played an American writer who was having an affair with Deborah Kerr , the wife of a British civil servant, in Living with Great Love , an adaptation of a novel by Graham Greene .. She was very good at playing writers, as she was also a young literary promise doomed to failure, in The Last Time I Saw Paris , where she had an affair with Elizabeth Taylor , after World War II. In 23 Paces to Baker Street he was a famous blind playwright, who overhears a suspicious conversation in a pub, and ends up investigating a shady affair.

At the end of his career, he was offered uninteresting roles, so he decided to alternate the cinema with numerous plays, and appearances in television series, such as The Virginian , Murder has been written or Holidays at sea . Among his latest works stands out The Purple Rose of Cairo , by Woody Allen , where he was a character trapped on the screen.