Charles "Van" Johnson (August 25, 1916 – December 12, 2008) was an American film and television actor and dancer who was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios during World War II.
Johnson was the embodiment of the "boy next door," playing "the red-haired, freckle-faced soldier, sailor or B-25 bomber pilot who used to live down the street" in MGM movies during the war years.[1]
Johnson married former stage actress Eve Abbott (1914—2004) on January 25, 1947, the day after her divorce from actor Keenan Wynn was finalized.[2] The newlyweds had a daughter, Schuyler, one year later, but the marriage ended bitterly. "She wiped me out in the ugliest divorce in Hollywood history," Johnson said.[2]
Books written in recent years have claimed that Johnson was bisexual. At the time of Eve Johnson's death, she was quoted as saying that her marriage had been engineered by MGM: "They needed their `big star' to be married to quell rumours about his sexual preferences, and unfortunately, I was `It' - the only woman he would marry".[3] The Johnsons separated in 1961, [4] and divorced in 1968.[3]
Johnson underwent treatment for skin cancer in 1963.
He died on December 12, 2008 of natural causes at the Tappan Zee Manor, an assisted living center in Nyack, New York.[4]
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