I was a male Doris Day

Yes, Van Johnson really did, in retrospect, call himself the male Doris Day. And in many ways he was, although not as virginal as Doris, he was the awkward heart-throb of the bobby soxers during the '40s and early '50s.

One of the many movie magazines to feature Van on the cover -- isn't he quite the outdoorsy type with his plaid shirt?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I recently read Van Johnson: MGM’s Golden Boy, which is a part of the Hollywood Legends Series published by the University Press of Mississippi. Ronald L. Davis, history professor at Southern Methodist University and general editor of the series, wrote the book which, according to the book flap, is “thoroughly researched biography [that] traces the career and influence of a favorite star and narrates a fascinating, sometimes troubled life story.”

I must say, I did not find the novel to appear thoroughly researched. Davis was unable to get an interview with Johnson, so he relies mostly on interviews with people from Johnson’s social circle -- his ex-wife Evie, his ex-stepsons, and a variety of other Hollywood types. What he isn’t able to get from these interviews, Davis uses a lot of movie magazines to extrapolate interesting conclusions. The book is also only 226 pages long, which isn’t quite long enough for an in-depth look but a little too short for something more shallow.

What did the book reveal? A basic outline of Johnson’s life, as well as some speculation about his sexual preferences and why he remained immature throughout most of his life, mostly from his mother deserting his father and him and being coddled by MGM (pop psychological analysis at its finest!). I learned that red socks are Johnson’s trademark, and that he wore them to spark casual banter. (Although what kind of casual banter this would bring up other than "Why red socks?" I don’t know.)

Johnson was born on August 25, 1916 in Newport, Rhode Island. His father was a Swede and his mother had a Pennsylvania Dutch background. She left the family -- apparently his father was too much of the stereotypical Swede -- and poor little Van was left motherless. He became fascinated by movies and performing, and worked to make money to pay for dance lessons.

Johnson eventually made it to New York after an unspectacular high school career. (Although his class prophecy said that: "Van Johnson will be a dancer. / For his snake hips he’ll be known. / You’ll soon see him performing / Before the English heir to the throne.") He stayed with his mother briefly, and worked a variety of jobs and got experience on the stage. Johnson finally got a part in Pal Joey (which was later made into a film with Frank Sinatra) and eventually became the understudy for Gene Kelly, who played Joey. He said after getting the understudy part, "I was sailing on eggs. I was in the chips-$150 a week." (Oh, to be able to talk like that and not sound stupid...well, I’m guessing it sounded stupid even back in the '30s, but I could be wrong.)

Eventually Johnson went West, like all good young men, as the siren song of Hollywood caught his ear. He got a six-month contract at Warner Brothers, and made one film there (Murder in the Big House) before they decided not to renew his contract. He eventually got another contract at MGM, a studio that was much more suited to his tastes -- especially since he considered Greta Garbo and Spencer Tracy to be his favorite actors, who were both under contact to MGM.

He got some smaller parts, but began working on learning acting skills, as well as acquiring the MGM polish through a variety of lessons in all kinds of activities -- horseback riding, tennis, fencing, singing, dancing, etc. He became friends with Keenan Wynn and his wife Evie and they formed a "convivial threesome." He took a variety of small roles before getting the part of Ted Randall, the juvenile lead in A Guy Named Joe. Spencer Tracy and Irene Dunne were also starring, and it became his big break.

It was during the filming of A Guy Named Joe that Johnson suffered a disfiguring car accident. While driving to a screening of Keeper of the Flame, the car Johnson was driving was hit by another car running a red light. Out of the five people in the car, he suffered the worst injuries -- a fractured skull and several facial injuries from broken glass, as well as his scalp being peeled off and his brain pierced by bone fragments. The injury took three months to recover from and Johnson would have a metal plate placed in his head as well as a rebuilt forehead.

The publicity from the accident helped Johnson’s career immensely. Tracy and Dunne held up the filming of A Guy Named Joe, and he was able to continue in the role of Ted after recovering for almost three months. According to some "observers," Johnson changed after the accident and became more serious and mature, but other "friends" felt that Johnson was back to his normal self. Only Johnson himself could answer this question as to how the accident affected him, and apparently, he never gave any interviews about it. The world will never know!

A Guy Named Joe was a success, and Johnson became a star. Because of his auto accident, he would not be pressed into service during WWII, and was able to use the absence of other stars -- Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Robert Taylor, etc. -- to build his career. Of course, because of the war, he became the perennial boy sent away to war who comes back a man to the audiences. Davis makes an interesting point when he says, "His acceptance as a war hero is ironic yet points out public confusion over reality and fantasy not unlike what John Wayne experienced at the time and Ronald Regan did later" (68).

During the '40s, Johnson became the "voiceless Sinatra," the idol of the bobby-soxers. The girls screamed for him at his movies, and they tore after him if they caught him out and about. The other movie studios tried to create their own version of Van -- my favorite example is Donald O’Connor at Universal.

The bobby-soxers' idol, Van Johnson.

Johnson remains popular with the young ladies until he gets married to Evie Wynn, who had recently divorced Keenan Wynn, who was considered to be Johnson’s best friend. Being the point creating a love triangle didn’t help Johnson, and many of his fans turned against him. Evie later claimed that Louis B. Mayer had made Johnson marry in order to quell rumors that he was gay, and she "was 'It' -- the only women he would marry." Eventually Johnson’s marriage produced a daughter -- Schuyler Van Johnson -- born January 6, 1948. She is Johnson’s only child, and was spoiled thoroughly.

He continued to make films throughout the 1950s, although his advancing age made it more difficult for him to play teenagers and his youthful looks caused problems with more serious roles. His assignments at MGM began to alternate supporting roles in serious pictures with the lighter fare his fans expected from him. These light comedies co-starred Johnson with actresses like Esther Williams, June Allyson, and Janet Leigh. Johnson did manage, however, some successful dramatic roles during the '50s as well.

Van Johnson, complete with visible forehead scars, in The Caine Mutiny.

He was offered a role in The Caine Mutiny -- and not the ensign whom he expected to play. Rather Johnson was to be Steve Maryk, the executive officer who takes command of the minesweeper and is later charged with mutiny. The Caine Mutiny established Johnson as a "real" actor, and MGM became more interested in the former bobby-sox idol.

Another fairly successful MGM film Johnson made was Brigadoon with Gene Kelly and directed by Vincente Minnelli. Johnson gave a good performance, although Minnelli later said that "Van was cursed with a mugger’s face, and every director had to watch him to make sure he wasn’t too expressive"(163). The film didn’t fare too well with the critics, and the box office wasn’t very good either.

Van and Gene dancing in Brigadoon.

By 1954, MGM was in decline and could not afford to keep many of its famous stars, and Johnson left to become a freelance actor.

Van viewed the termination of his contract with the Lion Farm [MGM] mixed blessing. Although he would be free to develop as an actor, Metro had made him a star and been his professional home. For twelve years MGM had promoted Van, protected him, and awarded him preferential treatment. ... Almost thirty-eight years old, Van Johnson, the eternal boy next door, at least faced the terrifying prospect of growing up. (158)

Johnson also said that he was going to make fewer pictures from now on, but that the quality would be higher. However, during the late 1950s, his films did not do as well as he had hoped.

Eventually Johnson moved to Switzerland for tax purposes, and began taking roles in films for travel purposes. He remained in Europe until 1960 when he got a role on Broadway in Damn Yankees. After three weeks on Broadway, he auditioned for the role of Harold Hill in The Music Man in London. During the run of The Music Man, Johnson left his wife and filed for divorce. Evie told her son Ned that Johnson had left her for the lead boy dancer in the film. Davis reports,

How long Van’s relationship with the boy dancer lasted is not recorded. Although Johnson’s orientation was probably more homosexual than heterosexual, Van most likely was one of those people that Eros did not aroused deeply. He most certainly came from a generation that did not see sexual preference as the most essential part of its being (192).

[I might say here that this seems like rather unsubstantiated speculation here, and not very suitable for a book with an academic pedigree. Davis is reaching into his bag of pop psychology, and seems to be stretching to make a point.] While the divorce continued, Johnson came back the U.S. and toured with The Music Man.

Throughout the ‘60s, Johnson continued to tour in regional theater and kept busy performing in a variety of different shows. He did a few films -- Divorce American Style and Yours, Mine, and Ours. By the 1970s he was the "self-proclaimed king of the dinner theater circuit" (210). He moved to New York City, and became a friend of Greta Garbo. He picked up a variety of different hobbies, including painting, reading, cooking, and (best of all) needlepoint. Johnson took over the role of Georges in the musical version of La Cage aux Folles on Broadway in 1985. He managed to continue working sporadically throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and put on a lot of nostalgic shows with his contemporaries from MGM.

Davis’s final words on Johnson try to sum up what Johnson has as his lasting memory in film history. He says that Johnson’s impact on film history is slight, and that despite his popularity, Johnson didn’t make the American Film Institute’s list of 100 all-time great movie stars.

Personally, Johnson remains an enigma. Basically a timid soul, he spent a lifetime hiding his loneliness and sexual ambivalence behind a mask of superficial charm. Van Johnson endures in films of the 1940s and 1950s as Mr. Nice Guy. For many of his contemporaries he is a symbol of eternal youth, but for most members of the younger generations he is a pleasant face on classic movie channels. Yet somehow the personality does not ring true” (226).

[On a side note, to this I must say, What the hell? Davis writes a biography which purports to be a "solid [and] thoroughly researched" but yet he cannot answer these questions. These are the same questions I have often asked myself -- why am I so interested in a film star that (really) has no legacy, no solid fan base nowadays. But there is something about Johnson that intrigues me. While I am interested in learning about the personal lives of golden era Hollywood stars, I feel as though Johnson is entitled to his privacy. I am only interested in learning more about how he became a star and stories behind his films, not whether or not he is gay. It seems as though sexuality is such a focus these days, and eventually in the future, people will look back and say, what was all the fuss about? End sidenote!]

Davis covers Johnson’s life fairly thoroughly, but not very in-depth. There are observations by observers, friends, and acquaintances, but who are they? Why wouldn’t they go on the record? Davis says in his introduction that

potential sources [were] unwilling to talk to me or reluctant to reveal information that Johnson himself had not approved. Those willing to discuss Johnson’s life and career were generally cooperative until the question of his sexuality was raised. At that point, most told me politely that that area was taboo. (ix)

His sexuality seems to be a focus of the book -- was Van Johnson gay, bisexual, or just curious? There is no straight answer -- although interviews with his ex-wife clearly indicate that he was interested in men at one time. His stepson, Ned Wynn, is also very prominently featured as a source in this novel -- mostly from the autobiography that he wrote himself, We Will Always Live in Beverly Hills. Davis relies primarily upon those two for information regarding Johnson’s sexuality, and I have to wonder why he couldn’t find a more unbiased source. I mean, Johnson and Evie did not divorce on good terms, so she’s not exactly a cheerleader for him.

Towards the end of the biography, when Johnson’s career is evidently in decline, Davis focuses mostly on movie reviews and box office grosses, supplemented by "gossip" reported in movie magazines of the time. I’ve read many a Hollywood biography, and I have found that autobiographies are generally the most interesting because they are from the point of view of the person telling the story and you get to see inside their head. I have also enjoyed biographies, but generally they are more detailed than this one. Either Johnson’s life was not very well documented, or his friends really didn’t want to talk about him!

Sadly, this might be the best information about Johnson that the world will get. Davis quotes Johnson as saying that he had no intention of ever writing his memoirs. "I don’t want to hurt anybody, and I don’t need the money. I don’t want to go over the marriage and the ex-wife and all that. It’s very traumatic to go over your life" (218). If only he could write about making films and not necessarily his personal life -- that would be interesting to me! But it looks like Ronald Davis’s take on Johnson’s life might be the final word on this star.

[As a sidenote on this entire post, while I was searching for a link to add for Schuyler Johnson, I found out that her mother, Evie Wynn, died on August 12, 2004. There's more info (and additional speculation about Van and his sexuality) on an obituary message board. It's sad to hear that -- but perhaps Johnson will be more inclined to write an autobiography. Or perhaps not... Who knows?]

FILE UNDER: Biography ; Books on Film ; Van Johnson