June Havoc

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June Havoc

from the trailer for the film Gentleman's Agreement (1947)
Born November 8, 1916
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

June Havoc (born November 8, 1916) is an American actress, dancer, writer, and theater director. She was born Ellen Evangeline Hovick in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Some sources indicate that her birth name was Ellen June Hovick, and that she was actually born in 1913.[citation needed]

June was a child vaudeville performer under the tutelage of her mother. She later acted on Broadway and in Hollywood, and directed on- and off-Broadway. She appeared on television as recently as 1990, in the daytime drama General Hospital. She now lives in Wilton, Connecticut.[1]

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[edit] Early life and career

June Havoc's show business career began in her early childhood as "Baby June."[2] Her older sister, Rose Louise Hovick, is best known as Gypsy Rose Lee, but was known as Louise to her family. Their mother, Rose Thompson Hovick, had married John Hovick, a newspaper ad man, at the age of fifteen, and was the classic example of a smothering stage mother, though more horrid details were reportedly whitewashed in Gypsy's memoirs.[citation needed]

Following their parents' divorce, the two sisters earned the family's money by appearing in vaudeville, where June's talent shone while Louise stood in the background. June, at the age of 13 in 1929, planned to elope with Bobby Reed, a boy in the act. Rose had Bobby arrested and he was met at the police station by Rose, carrying a hidden gun. She pulled the trigger, but the safety was on and Bobby was freed. June left the act and married Bobby. Apparently, he fathered her only child, April Reed (born circa April 1930). Louise gravitated to burlesque, taking the name Gypsy Rose Lee.

June, adopting the name June Havoc, got her first acting break on Broadway in Rodgers and Hart's Pal Joey, and moved on to Hollywood roles in such movies as Gentleman's Agreement.

She married for a second time, in 1935 to Donald S. Gibbs, and a third time, in 1949, to William Spier.

June and Gypsy continued to get demands for money from their mother, who had opened a lesbian boardinghouse in a ten-room apartment on West End Avenue, in New York City, the property rented for her by Gypsy, and a farm in Highland Mills, New York. Rose shot and killed one of her guests (who, according to Erik Preminger, Gypsy's son, was Rose's lover who had made a pass at Gypsy). The incident was explained away as a suicide and Rose was not prosecuted.[citation needed]

Rose died in 1954 of colon cancer. The sisters felt free to write about her without risking a lawsuit. Gypsy's memoirs, titled Gypsy, were published in 1957, and were taken as inspirational material for the Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents musical Gypsy: A Musical Fable. June did not like the way she was portrayed in the piece, but was eventually persuaded not to oppose it, for her sister's sake. The play and the subsequent movie deal assured Gypsy a steady income. Gypsy died of cancer at the age of 59 in 1970.

To set the record straight, June wrote two memoirs, Early Havoc and More Havoc. She also wrote a play, Marathon '33 based on her memoirs, Early Havoc.

[edit] Honors

June Havoc was nominated for a Tony Award for best director in 1964, for Marathon '33, which she also wrote. The June Havoc Theatre, housed at the Abingdon Theatre in New York, was named for her in 2003.[3][4]

[edit] Filmography

  • Hey There! - 1918
  • Four Jacks and a Jill - 1942
  • Powder Town - 1942
  • My Sister Eileen - 1942
  • Hedda Hopper's Hollywood No. 6 - 1942
  • Sing Your Worries Away - 1942
  • Hello, Frisco, Hello - 1943
  • No Time for Love - 1943
  • Hi Diddle Diddle - 1943
  • Timber Queen - 1944
  • Casanova in Burlesque - 1944
  • Brewster's Millions - 1945
  • Gentleman's Agreement - 1947
  • Intrigue - 1947
  • The Iron Curtain - 1948
  • When My Baby Smiles at Me - 1948
  • Chicago Deadline - 1949
  • The Story of Molly X - 1949
  • Red, Hot and Blue - 1949
  • Mother Didn't Tell Me - 1950
  • Once a Thief - 1950
  • Follow the Sun - 1951
  • Lady Possessed - 1952
  • Three for Jamie Dawn - 1956
  • The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover - 1977
  • Can't Stop the Music - 1980
  • A Return to Salem's Lot - 1987

[edit] Television

  • Willy - 1954
  • Mr. Broadway - 1957
  • The June Havoc Show - 1964
  • The Boy Who Stole the Elephant - 1970
  • Vaudeville: An 'American Masters' Special - 1997
  • Marlene: Inventing Dietrich - 2000

[edit] References

  1. ^ [1] "Wilton Collects...Skip Heydt Delights in His Microcosmic World," by Nancy Maar, article in Wilton Magazine, Winter/Spring 2004; accessed on July 3, 2006
  2. ^ Klein, Alvin. "June Havoc, Off Stage", New York Times, 1995-03-05. Retrieved on 2006-05-09.
  3. ^ Abingdon Theatre Company, June Havoc Theatre. NYC Music Spaces. Retrieved on 2006-05-09.
  4. ^ Entertainment editors. "Actress-Director-Playwright June Havoc Honored by Abingdon Theatre Company with Naming of Theatre Tonight", Business Wire, 2003-11-03. Retrieved on 2006-05-09.

[edit] External links

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