Minister’s Daughter Becomes Movie Actress
Dorothy June Smith, AKA June Vincent: 1920-2008 (Maternal First Cousin 1X Removed)
How is this for a 1950s movie plot? Pretty daughter of a
Midwestern minister becomes a star on the silver screen and a pin-up girl,
marries a handsome US Navy officer during World War II, and combines motherhood
and acting before eventually retiring to devote her life to her family. It
sounds wholesome enough to be a musical! However, this was no Hollywood script.
It is an accurate synopsis of the life of Dorothy June Smith, known to movie
fans in the 1940s and 1950s as June Vincent.
Dorothy June Smith was born July 17, 1920 to Rev. Willis
Eugene Smith (one of Lorene Smith Jandy’s brothers) and his wife Sybil Aradella
Erwin Smith. She was their only child, born in Harrod, Ohio where Rev. Smith
was serving as a minister.
Dorothy was already an accomplished performer at age
fourteen when she provided the piano accompaniment at her aunt Ruby Erwin’s
wedding in July 1934. Her father had moved from Ohio, first to Massachusetts,
and by the 1930s to early 1940s, he was serving as minister of a church in
Keene, New Hampshire. Dorothy attended high school in Keene, graduating at 16.
A bio by an Ohio newspaper after her death stated that she attended Oberlin
College for a year before dropping out to pursue acting.
According to a July 7, 1944 article in Havre, Montana’s Havre Daily News, Dorothy started her
acting career with a summer theater group in Keene, NH, and was spotted by
talent scouts who sent her to Hollywood. (2) In a later bio in a book about 1950s
actresses, Dorothy/June told a slightly different story. “I was a model—someone
saw my picture—and I landed a stock contract at Universal. Because of my
experience, I received a higher salary than the other girls starting out. And
during my first week in Hollywood, I got to meet and have dinner with Greta
Garbo!” (1) Presumably the “experience” she refers to was with the Keene summer
stock troupe, as well as a brief role in a Broadway musical in 1943.
Modeling and acting—quite the daring career choice for a
minister’s daughter! I wonder what Willis and Sybil thought about their
daughter’s move to Hollywood.
Her first movie was 1943’s Honeymoon Lodge, where she played the lead female role of Carol
Sterling. The movie’s cast also included future TV stars Ozzie and Harriet
Nelson.
June went on to appear in nearly thirty movies, including
several Westerns. Her most famous role was the heroine in Black Angel, where she played opposite Dan Duryea and Peter Lorre.
She starred with other famous actors in the following films:
Here Come the Co-Eds—1945--
with Abbott and Costello
Ladies Courageous—1944--
with Loretta Young and Diana Barrymore
The Climax—1944--
with Boris Karloff
Zamba—1949--with a
very young Beau Bridges
In a Lonely Place—1950—with
Humphrey Bogart
I wish I could add the movie posters to this post—they are
such a delight! So colorful and crazy, but alas still under copyright
protection. Google a few and enjoy!
World War II saw thousands of Navy crewmen and officers
flood into California, including a young ensign and pilot by the name of
William Mueller Sterling. In Ladies of
the Western, June recounted their first meeting.
“ Lois [Collier] and I worked together in Ladies Courageous…We were roommates on
our location shooting. I had a blind date and when Lois and I were going up the
elevator with some servicemen, she pointed to a very handsome guy and said,
‘I’ll bet that’s him.’ And it was!” (1)
June and William fell in love and quickly became engaged. Although
June was still a new face in the movie business, her engagement and wedding
notices refer to her as “Hollywood actress June Vincent”. The couple married
March 10, 1944 in New York City. June’s father, Rev. Willis Smith, performed
the ceremony.
June appeared in four movies in 1944. Following the war’s
end, the couple settled in Los Angeles and started a family. Their first child,
William Thayer Sterling, was born August 3, 1945, shortly after June’s latest
movies, Here Come the Co-Eds and That’s the Spirit, opened in theaters. She
recalled in Ladies of the Western
that, “Universal was like a family. When I was having a terrible time during my
pregnancy, they came to my home and built sets right in my bedroom so I could
finish the few scenes I had left in “That’s
the Spirit”.” (1)
The 1950 census shows William working as an advertising
salesman in the television industry, while June was listed as a housewife and
movie actress. June continued to act as the family grew with the birth of
daughter Tina on April 4, 1949, and daughter Mindy on March 24, 1954. She had changed studios, leaving Universal to
work at Columbia Pictures, doing a series of crime movies and Westerns. She
recalled that she played “a meanie, a witch” in most of her Westerns. (1)
The Lima Ohio biography described June’s changing career:
“By “In a Lonely Place,” (1950) Vincent’s film career was in
decline. She made only two movies after 1953. But she became part of a
pioneering generation in the burgeoning medium of television. Making her TV
debut in the late 1940s, she would remain in demand for guest-star parts for 25
years.”(3)
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June headed several charity functions in Hollywood later in her career/married life |
She appeared in many popular, classic television shows,
including Father Knows Best, Ozzie and Harriet, The Andy Griffith Show, Dr.
Kildare, Route 66, The Untouchables, Alfred Hitchcock, That Girl,
Bewitched, and The Fugitive. She had multiple appearances on some of the old
“playhouse” television dramas, including Screen
Directors Playhouse, Ford Television
Theatre, and Zane Grey Theatre. She
also appeared on five episodes of Have
Gun, Will Travel, one of my dad’s favorite shows that I referred to as “Gun
Travel” as a toddler.
June also acted in five episodes of Perry Mason, including the charmingly named episodes “The Case of
the Wintry Wife”, “The Case of the Hesitant Hostess”, and best of all, “The
Case of the Bartered Bikini.”
She worked with many of the most famous television actors of the 1950s through the 1970s. The Lima Ohio article noted:
“She played spies, jewel thieves and conniving women of all kinds. She also played a reporter, a prosecuting attorney, a couple of military officers and at least one countess. Her enduring image was that of a socialite or sophisticate, often of the “ice queen” variety.
"TV Guide described her as the quintessential “other woman”
and said she had made a career of playing home-wreckers.” (3)
June might have had a bigger career if she hadn’t been such an involved mother. She took career breaks after the birth of each child, and there were rumors she turned down the role of Robert Young’s wife in Father Knows Best to stay home with a baby. She seems to have enjoyed her work but wasn’t as ambitious as many of her peers. She admitted to one interviewer that she had turned down a regular role in a series.
“I tried to explain to the producers. I have children,” she said. “But they think I’m throwing away a golden opportunity to become a big name — which is exactly what I don’t want.” (3)
June’s final role was a guest part on the sitcom Maude. She
retired in 1976, telling author Michael Fitzgerald, “I didn’t like what I was seeing,
so I decided that was it. I never thought I was a good actress in pictures—but
later I became an actress on TV. I kept every W2 for every show or film I did.
I had them in a huge box which I took to SAG (Screen Actors Guild), dropped on
their desk and asked for my pension. Thank God for SAG and their insurance.” (1)
When she was interviewed for the Ladies of the Western book in the early 2000s, she was in her
eighties and had health issues, including Parkinson’s. However, she noted that
she had a good life and had been married over fifty years. “I have three
children, grandchildren and a wonderful husband. I like our quiet lifestyle
down here in Lake San Marcos, and I do enjoy being remembered by the fans.” (1)
Late in life, June and William moved from San Marcos,
California to the Aurora, Colorado area. Her husband William Sterling died July
20, 2002, and June died in Aurora on November 20, 2008 at age 88.
June’s movie and television characters live on. Her Perry
Mason episodes are available on Amazon Prime, and a few of her movies,
including Black Angel, can be rented on various streaming platforms. I look
forward to seeing one of her performances. Although June moved far from her
parents and changed her name, trading Dorothy Smith for the more glamorous June
Vincent, she seems to have remained a loving, family-oriented woman despite working and
living in the decadence and depravity of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Sources:
1, Fitzgerald, Michael G.; Magers, Boyd (2006). Ladies
of the Western: Interviews with Fifty-One More Actresses from the Silent Era to
the Television Westerns of the 1950s and 1960s. McFarland.
p. 295.
2. "Actress
Never Lacks for Job". The Havre Daily News. Montana, Havre. July 7, 1944. p. 3.
Retrieved September 5, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.
3. “From Harrod to Hollywood” https://www.limaohio.com/archive/2015/06/30/from-harrod-to-hollywood/
Bio of June Vincent following her death.
4. https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0898687/fullcredits June Vincent’s IMDB movie and television
credits.
5. “June Vincent Weds Her Ensign Today” Daily News, New
York, New York, 10 Mar 1944, Fri • Page 20 https://www.newspapers.com/clip/72598727/marriage-of-vincent-sterling
6. Newspaper photos and accompanying
articles from Newspapers.com.
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