Gloria DeHaven

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors

  1. June Allyson, Two Girls and a Sailor, 1943.   It was all Dick Powell’s fault!  Well, he was looking after the interests of his future bride when he told June she should swop roles with De Haven.  Gloria should be the glamourpuss sister, he said, making June the dowdy one –  in the first of her six movies with The Sailor. Van Johnson. It stiill rankled with Gloria in 1989 when she declared:  “I wish they’d reversed it – hers was the better role.”   Ava Gardner had  a better deal – playing two support roles.

  2. Lucille Bremer, Meet Me In St Louis, 1943.          All set for Judy Garland’s older sister until producer Arthur Freed discovered the ex- Radio City Music Hall Rockette. The redhead had short glory at MGM where it was Fred ’n’ Lucille for two musicals. Then, she wed the millionaie son of a former Mexican president.

  3. Patricia Marshall, Good News, 1947.   The DeHavenly Gloria was suspended  by MGM for refusing to play Pat  McClellan.  Because she  considered it a supporting role.  Or was it that she and  leading lady June Allyson had  been lamong the lovers of  co-star Peter Lawford? “As a singer or dancer,” he said, “I was ill-equipped to compete with Astaire or Kelly, but we did what we were told to do.” In his fifth feature, 1940’s Step Lively, DeHaven  gave  Frank Sinatra his first screen kiss.

  4. Judy Garland, In The Good Old Summertime, 1948.       June Allyson  and Frank Sinatra became Gloria and Sinatra… who gave up! Enter: Judy and Van Johnson – and Liza Minnelli was the kid between them in the finale.
  5. June Allyson, Right Cross, 1949.         Sure helps if you’re sleeping with sleeping with the star. Allyson was the wife of the movie’s star, Dick Powell. And De Haven wasn’t! First choice would have made more sense. Ava Gardner. Or even the girl just about seen as the model Dusky La Dieu in her tenth movie. Marilyn Monroe!
  6. Cyd Charisse, Silk Stockings, 1956.       Three years earlier, composer Cole Porter and the the Broadway show’s director Cy Feur wanted De Haven to head up the movie. Old thinking! Charisse was a thrilling part of the new generation and just perfect in the musical Ninotchka – opposite Fred Astaire’s finale as his debonair dancing self. A great way to go. “That Cyd! When you’ve danced with her you stay danced with.”

 Birth year: 1925Death year: 2016Other name: Casting Calls:  6