Van Johnson

Van Johnson

Charles Van Dell Johnson (August 25, 1916 – December 12, 2008) was an American film, television theatre and radio actor, singer, and dancer. He was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during and after World War II. Johnson was the embodiment of the "boy-next-door wholesomeness" which made him a popular Hollywood star in the 1940s and 1950s, playing "the red-haired, freckle-faced soldier, sailor, or bomber pilot who used to live down the street" in MGM films during the war years, with such films as Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, A Guy Named Joe, and The Human Comedy. He made occasional World War II films through the end of the 1960s, and he played a military officer in one of his final feature films in 1992. At the time of his death in December 2008, he was one of the last surviving matinee idols of Hollywood's "golden age".

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