Biography
Born as Ella Geisman on 7 October 1917 in the Bronx section of New York City, Allyson died on 8 July 2006 in Ojai, California. An appealing performer who combined acting with singing in a recognizably husky timbre, she was frequently typecast as the quintessential charming girl-next-door and is chiefly recalled for her depiction of the bandleader’s spouse opposite James Stewart in The Glenn Miller Story (1954). Raised solely by her mother, who waited tables to support the household, she spent several months at age nine in a wheelchair following an accident with a falling tree and began studying dance as therapy for her spine. During the late 1930s and early 1940s she filled minor parts in the Broadway productions Sing Out The News, Very Warm For May, Higher And Higher and Panama Hattie before securing a featured role in Best Foot Forward (1941). She repeated that stage character on screen in the 1943 film adaptation and that same year also appeared in Girl Crazy and the all-star revue Thousands Cheer. Thereafter she headlined a succession of largely MGM musicals such as Meet The People, Two Girls And A Sailor, Music For Millions, Two Sisters From Boston, Till The Clouds Roll By, Good News, Words And Music, The Glenn Miller Story, You Can’t Run Away From It and The Opposite Sex. She balanced those credits with an equivalent number of non-musical features, among them the 1949 version of Little Women and the intense 1955 drama The Shrike alongside Jose Ferrer. Throughout the 1950s and into the early 1960s she and her husband, actor Dick Powell, maintained a steady presence on American television, yet after his death in 1963 she stepped away from the spotlight temporarily. In subsequent years she resumed performing in motion pictures, nightclubs, legitimate theater and broadcast appearances.
Singles
