Van Johnson\'s dazzling smile, shock of red hair, and suntanned freckled cheeks made him a movie-star icon.
Perennially a leading man opposite June Allyson, Esther Williams, Judy Garland, and Janet Leigh, he rose to fame radiating the sunshine.
He won the nation\'s heart, too, by appearing in a series of blockbuster war films--A Guy Named Joe, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Weekend at the Waldorf, and Battleground.
Among teenaged girls in the 1940s he was popularized as the bobbysoxer\'s heartthrob.
Van Johnson\'s dazzling smile, shock of red hair, and suntanned freckled cheeks made him a movie-star icon