Actor Van Johnson died 12 December 2008. Born Charles Van Johson on 25 August 1916 in Newport, Rhode Island, his Broadway debut was in 1936 in New Faces, four years before his first (uncredited) film role in Too Many Girls. He was one of the last surviving matinee idols from Hollywood’s golden age, and his most recent appearance was in Clowning Around (1992).
Johnson signed a 7-year contract with MGM in 1942, and was filming A Guy Named Joe when he was nearly killed in a car crash, which left him with a metal plate in his skull. That accident made him ineligible to serve in the military during World War II, so he went on, instead, to play America’s war film hero in several films.
His genre appearances include: Killer Crocodile (1989), Fuga dal paradiso (Flight from Paradise, 1989), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Tales of the Unexpected (1983), Fantasy Island (1983), Assassinio al cimitero etrusco (Murder in an Etruscan Cemetery, 1982), Batman (1966), The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1957), Brigadoon (1954), and A Guy Named Joe (1943).
Johnson was Gene Kelly’s understudy in Pal Joey on Broadway, and co-starred with Kelly in the film version of Brigadoon, when the two played the American tourists who find the enchanted Scottish village.
He was married once and had one daughter. The New York Times has an in-depth obituary at this link.