Brigadoomed

Or
Living in a Van Down by the River Styx
(Props to Monty, gone but not forgotten)
Van Johnson, Hollywood’s Hal Newhouser, has died at the age of 92. His boyish charm and good looks made him a star in the 1940s while the prime acting talent was overseas in uniform. He was so popular with the bobby-soxer set that he was called the Voiceless Sinatra. But he found himself on the back bench when the war ended. His first major role was a pilot with Spencer Tracy as his guardian angel in A Guy Named Joe. During filming, Johnson was nearly killed in a car crash, and the steel plate in his head kept him from serving during World War II. Johnson belied his boy next door image when he seduced the wife of his best friend, Keenan Wynn, in 1947; the former Mrs. Wynn later said she loved Van, but would have never married him if she knew he was gay, and they divorced in 1968. He turned down the role of Elliott Ness in The Untouchables, and had a less glamorous role in another TV cops and robbers creation as one of the worst Batman baddie this side of King Tut: lute-playing electronics wiz The Minstrel. Other roles included a pilot in Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, and played the lieutenant who enacted The Caine Mutiny and a tourist who stumbles upon the enchanted Scottish village of Brigadoon.



Steve’s 5 year wait pays off, as he is the first Pooligan to have the first two hits of the year on the same list and Steve@themovies takes an early lead, while my Digger Detmuller’s Traveling Caravan rolls into second.