Here is the biography of June Havoc:
June Havoc was born in 1912 in Vancouver, Canada, as the younger daughter of Rose Thompson Hovick and her husband, John Olaf Hovick, a cub reporter for a Seattle newspaper. She was primed for stardom by her mother at the age of 2 and soon began dancing with the great ballerina Anna Pavlova and appearing in Hal Roach film shorts with Harold Lloyd.
As a child star, June earned around $1,500 a week at her peak, delighting audiences with her high-kicking vaudeville act. She shared the stage with famous performers such as Sophie Tucker and Fanny Brice. However, the unrelenting pressures and suffocating dominance of her mother led to a capricious elopement at the age of 13 with a young boy from the act.
June's marriage collapsed during the Great Depression, and she found herself struggling to make ends meet. She modeled, posed, and worked in dance marathons, and later found work in stock musicals and on the Borscht Belt circuit. She made her Broadway debut in the musical "Forbidden Melody" in 1936 and earned her big break as Gladys in Rodgers and Hart's classic musical "Pal Joey" opposite Van Johnson and Gene Kelly in 1940.
June's film career was marked by a mix of high and low points. She appeared in a string of "B" level films, including "Four Jacks and a Jill" (1942),"Powder Town" (1942),and "Sing Your Worries Away" (1942),before landing more substantial roles in films such as "My Sister Eileen" (1942) and "Gentleman's Agreement" (1947).
June continued to work in film, television, and theater throughout her career, earning some of her best reviews in later years for her stage performances in productions such as "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Beaux Stratagem," and "Sweeney Todd." She also wrote and directed several plays, including "I Said the Fly" and "Marathon '33," and became the artistic director of the New Orleans Repertory Theatre in 1970.
June's personal life was marked by a complex and often tumultuous relationship with her sister, Gypsy Rose Lee. The two sisters were estranged for many years due to Gypsy's portrayal of June in her memoir, "Gypsy," which June felt was inaccurate and hurtful. However, the sisters eventually patched things up and remained close until Gypsy's death from lung cancer in 1970.
June Havoc died peacefully on March 28, 2010, at the age of 97, at her home in Stamford, Connecticut, due to natural causes.
