LYCOS RETRIEVER 
June Allyson: Dick Powell
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After Dick Powell developed kidney problems and died of cancer, June Allyson committed herself to charitable work on his behalf. She championed the importance of research in urological and gynecological diseases in seniors, and represented the Kimberly-Clark Corporation in commercials for Depend adult diapers. Her name made the headlines again when actor-turned-agent Marty Ingels publicly charged Allyson with not paying his large commission on the Depend deal. Allyson counter-charged that Ingels was harassing her with dozens of phone calls daily and nightly.
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Allyson rose from teenage chorus girl on Broadway to contract player for MGM. She began in Hollywood as a dancer and singer in short films. She later co-starred with Jimmy Stewart, Humphrey Bogart, Van Johnson and Dick Powell in a series of wifely and other supportive roles. Powell became her real-life husband in 1945; he died in 1963.
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When Powell died, Allyson quickly remarried and almost as quickly divorced. In a scandal that threatened to end Allyson's career, her mother sued for custody of her children, alleging that she was an unfit mother. She dropped out of moviemaking, and mother and daughter settled their lawsuit when Allyson's new boyfriend was named as the children's co-guardian. The boyfriend was Dirk Summers, later a writer for Emergency, and director of the ecological documentary Survival of Spaceship Earth. They lived together for 14 years, until 1975, but never married.
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Allyson stopped making movies in the 1950s, but became a television star on The Dupont Show with June Allyson. After Powell's death she had many personal problems and briefly married Powell's former barber, Glenn Maxwell.
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Allyson described her early years with Powell in fairy-tale terms, but in their 18 years together, there were some hard times. They separated once when Allyson fell in love with actor Alan Ladd, who was ... married. Later, Allyson filed for divorce from Powell, who had been working nonstop running Four Star Productions, which produced many series for CBS. They reconciled about a year before he was diagnosed with cancer.
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Allyson gradually retreated from films, to the mellower, more congenial medium of TV, where she occasionally appeared on her husband's anthology series and starred, for the 1961 season, in her own show. She ... spent time caring for the ailing Powell — who, like his co-stars John Wayne and Susan Hayward, and reported scores of other crew members, had contracted cancer after shooting The Conqueror on location near a nuclear test site. He died in 1963.
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