Background
Johnson, Van was born on August 25, 1916 in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. Son of Charles and Loretta Johnson.
Johnson, Van was born on August 25, 1916 in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. Son of Charles and Loretta Johnson.
Graduated from high school.
MGM spotted Johnson in the chorus of Pal Joey on Broadway. He was one of Mr. Mayer’s projects—red-haired, freckled, naive, and enthusiastic—a nice safe guy. So he joined the studio, and lie had done a few small things—Somewhere I'll Find You (42, Wesley Ruggles), The War Against Mrs. Hadley (42, Harold S. Bucquet)—when he was assigned to attend the premiere of Keeper of the Flame. But his car crashed, and Johnson had to have a small metal plate put in his head. He was 4-F for keeps, but ready, willing, and able. And so his career bloomed as so many possible rivals went off to war.
Whatever he owed to luck, the young public was crazy for Johnson, and his following showed in the work he got: Madame Curie (43, Mervyn LeRoy); A Guy Named Joe (43, Victor Fleming); Pilot #5 (43, George Sidney); The Human Comedy (43, Clarence Brown); The White Cliffs oj Dover (44, Brown); with June Allyson and Gloria DeHaven in Two Girls and a Sailor (44, Richard Thorpe); Thirty Seconds over Tokyo (44, LeRoy); with Esther Williams in Thrill of a Romance (45, Thorpe); Weekend at the Waldorf (45, Robert Z. Leonard); Till the Clouds Roll By (46, Richard Whorf).
After the war, the studio tried to build him up with more adult pictures: State of the Union (48, Frank Capra); Command Decision (48, Sam Wood); and Battleground (49, William Wellman), where he was fine as one of the soldiers. But he seemed more relaxed in lighter stuff: The Romance of Rosy Ridge (47, Roy Rowland), with fanet Leigh; The Bride Goes Wild (48, Norman Taurog), with Allvsom Mother Is a Freshman (49, Lloyd Bacon), with Loretta Young; In the Good Old Summertime (49, Leonard), with Judy Garland. He also did The Big Hangover (50, Norman Krasna), where he played a guy with a drinking problem.
Gradually he began to fade in the fifties, though not before opportunities in big dramatic roles: Plymouth Adventure (52, Brown); Lieutenant Marvk in The Caine Mutiny (54, Edward Dmytryk); The Last Time I Saw Paris (54, Richard Brooks), with Elizabeth Taylor; and ev en Bendrix in The End of the Affair (55, Dmytryk). His best work was as a drunk in The Bottom of the Bottle (56, Henry Hathaway), taken from a Simenon novel.
He was forty, and he looked it, despite the baby face. He also started working out of England more: Miracle in the Rain (56, Rudolph Maté), with Jane Wyman; Action of the Tiger (57, Terence Young), with Martine Carol; Beyond This Place (59, Jack Cardiff); Subway in the Sky (59, Muriel Box). Then there were fewer films: Wives and Lovers (63, John Rich); Divorce American Style (67, Bud Yorldn); Where Angels Go. Trouble Follows (68, James Neilson).
Since then it’s been mostly TV or foreign productions, with the occasional gem like The Purple Rose of Cairo (85. Woody Allen), where his high-voiced charm still worked.
Married Eve Abbott Wynn, January 25, 1947 (divorced). 1 daughter, Schuyler Van.