Van Johnson Net Worth

How much is Van Johnson worth?

About Van Johnson

Johnson was about to move back to New York when Lucille Ball took him to Chasen’s Restaurant, where she introduced him to MGM casting director Billy Grady who was sitting at the next table. This led to screen tests by Hollywood studios. His test at Columbia Pictures was unsuccessful, but Warner Brothers put him on contract at $300 a week.

Johnson was born in Newport, Rhode Island, the only child of Loretta (née Snyder) and Charles E. Johnson, a plumber and later a real-estate salesman. His father was born in Sweden and came to the United States as a child, and his mother had Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry.His mother was allegedly an alcoholic who left the family when he was a child, and he was not close to his father.

Johnson toured New England in a theater troupe as a substitute dancer, but his acting career began in earnest in the Broadway revue New Faces of 1936. He returned to the chorus after that and worked in summer resorts near New York City. In 1939, director and playwright George Abbott cast him in Rodgers and Hart’s Too Many Girls in the role of a college boy and as understudy for all three male leads.
Johnson was soon signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The studio provided him with classes in acting, speech, and diction. He then had an uncredited part as a soldier in Somewhere I’ll Find You (1942). He attracted attention in a small part in The War Against Mrs. Hadley (1942), and this encouraged MGM to cast him in their long-running series Dr. Kildare. Johnson played Dr. Randall Adams in Dr. Gillespie’s New Assistant (1942).

Midway through the movie’s production in 1943, Johnson was involved in a serious car accident that left him with a metal plate in his forehead and a number of scars on his face that the plastic surgery of the time could not completely correct or conceal; he used heavy makeup to hide them for years. MGM wanted to replace him in A Guy Named Joe, but Tracy insisted that he be allowed to finish the picture, despite his long absence. The film was a huge hit, earning a profit of over a million dollars and Johnson was launched as a star.

MGM built up Johnson’s image as the all-American boy in war dramas and musicals. His first top-billed role in an “A” picture was the musical Two Girls and a Sailor (1944) which was a big success; it was his first film with June Allyson. He had a smaller part in The White Cliffs of Dover (1944), then reprised his role as Dr. Adams in 3 Men in White (1944).

He was reunited with Williams in Easy to Wed (1946), a musical remake of Libeled Lady. Johnson married former stage actress Eve Abbott (1914–2004) on January 25, 1947, the day after her divorce was finalized from actor Keenan Wynn. He supported Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in State of the Union (1948), and he supported Clark Gable and Pidgeon in the war drama Command Decision (1948). Their daughter Schuyler was born in 1948.

In 1949, he starred with Judy Garland in In the Good Old Summertime, which also marked the first film appearance of Liza Minnelli as Garland’s and Johnson’s young daughter. He next worked in Battleground (1949), a movie about the Battle of the Bulge produced by MGM’s new studio head Dore Schary.

Johnson made the comedy The Big Hangover (1950), then was reunited with Williams in Duchess of Idaho (1951). He appeared in the romantic comedy Three Guys Named Mike (1951). Johnson next teamed with Gene Kelly as the sardonic second lead of Brigadoon (1954). He had the lead in The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954), his last film for MGM. He had a five-year contract with Columbia to make one film a year.

During the 1950s, Johnson continued to appear in films and also appeared frequently in television guest appearances. He appeared as the celebrity mystery guest on What’s My Line? airing on November 22, 1953, but was not questioned by the panel due to advance notice of his appearance.

He received favorable critical notices for the 1956 dramatic film Miracle in the Rain, co-starring Jane Wyman, in which he played a good-hearted young soldier preparing to go to war, and in the mystery 23 Paces to Baker Street, in which he played a blind playwright residing in London. He returned to MGM for Slander (1956) and Action of the Tiger (1957).

Johnson was never nominated for an Academy Award and, during the height of his career, was noted mainly for his cheerful screen presence. Reflecting on his career after his death, one critic observed that Johnson was “capable of an Oscar-worthy performance, and that’s more than most movie stars can claim”.

In 1959, Johnson turned down an opportunity to star as Eliot Ness in The Untouchables, which went on to become a successful television series with Robert Stack as Ness. On February 19, 1959, Johnson appeared in the episode “Deadfall” of CBS’s Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theater in the role of Frank Gilette, a former outlaw falsely charged with bank robbery.

In 1961 Johnson traveled to England to star in Harold Fielding’s production of The Music Man at the Adelphi Theatre in London. The show enjoyed a successful run of almost a year, with Johnson playing the arduous leading role of Harold Hill to great acclaim.

In the 1970s, he appeared on Here’s Lucy, Quincy, M.E., McMillan & Wife and Love, American Style. He played a lead character in the 1976 miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man, and was nominated for a prime time Emmy Award for that role. In the 1980s, he appeared on an episode of Angela Lansbury’s Murder, She Wrote along with June Allyson.

In 1985, returning to Broadway for the first time since Pal Joey, he was cast in the starring role of the musical La Cage aux Folles. In that same year he appeared in a supporting role in Woody Allen‘s The Purple Rose of Cairo. At the age of 75, now grey and rotund, he toured in Show Boat as Captain Andy. His last film appearance was in Three Days to a Kill (1992). In 2003, he appeared with Betsy Palmer for three performances of A. R. Gurney’s Love Letters at a theater in Wesley Hills, New York.

Johnson retired from acting in the early 1990s and lived in a penthouse at 405 East 54th Street on Manhattan’s East Side. He moved to Tappan Zee Manor in 2002, an assisted living facility in Nyack, New York.He died there on December 12, 2008, at age 92. His remains were cremated. At the time of his death in 2008, he was one of the last surviving matinee idols of Hollywood’s “golden age”. For his contribution to the film industry, Johnson has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6600 Hollywood Blvd.