Saturday, December 31, 2022

Movie Actress June Vincent: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Characters”

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)

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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