page_title: Van Johnson
section_title: MGM under Dore Schary
hierarchical_section_title: Van Johnson / Career / MGM under Dore Schary
caption_attribution_description: English: Screenshot from trailer for The Caine Muttiny (1954); no copyright
context_page_description: Charles Van Dell Johnson was an American film, television, theatre and radio actor, singer, and dancer. He was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during and after World War II.
  Johnson was the embodiment of the "boy-next-door wholesomeness" which made him a popular Hollywood star in the 1940s and 1950s, playing "the red-haired, freckle-faced soldier, sailor, or bomber pilot who used to live down the street" in MGM films during the war years, with such films as Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, A Guy Named Joe, and The Human Comedy. He made occasional World War II films through the end of the 1960s, and he played a military officer in one of his final feature films in 1992. At the time of his death in December 2008, he was one of the last surviving matinee idols of Hollywood's "golden age".
context_section_description: 20th Century Fox lent out Johnson to make the comedy Mother Is a Freshman (1948) with Loretta Young. Back at MGM, he was given a role in the film noir Scene of the Crime (1949). 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 musical Three Guys Named Mike (1951). He played an officer leading Japanese-American troops of the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team in Europe in the Schary-produced film Go for Broke! (1951). He had a small part in It's a Big Country (1951) and was reunited with Allyson for Too Young to Kiss (1951). MGM lent him to Columbia for The Caine Mutiny (1954) in the role of Stephen Maryk. He refused to allow concealment of his facial scars when being made up as Maryk, believing that they enhanced the character's authenticity. Herman Wouk describes Maryk as having "ugly but not unpleasant features" in the novel. One commentator noted years later that "Humphrey Bogart and Jose Ferrer chomp up all the scenery in this maritime courtroom drama, but it's Johnson's character, the painfully ambivalent, not-too-bright Lieutenant Steve Maryk, who binds the whole movie together." Time Magazine commented that Johnson "was a better actor than Hollywood usually allowed him to be."
  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.
  Unlike some other stars of that era, Johnson did not resent the restrictions of the studio system. In 1985, he said that his years at MGM were "one big happy family and a little kingdom". "Everything was provided for us, from singing lessons to barbells. All we had to do was inhale, exhale and be charming. I used to dread leaving the studio to go out into the real world, because to me the studio was the real world."
caption: Johnson's critically praised performance in The Caine Mutiny (1954) was his most notable post-MGM role.
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