BUT DO YOU RECALL WHICH BATMAN VILLAIN HE PLAYED?:

Forties heart-throb Johnson dies (BBC, 12/12/08)

US actor Van Johnson, a Hollywood heart-throb of the 1940s and 1950s, has died of natural causes at the age of 92 in a nursing home in New York State.

Johnson's boy-next-door wholesomeness came over in such films as 30 Seconds over Tokyo, A Guy Named Joe and The Caine Mutiny. [...]

Nicknamed "the non-singing Sinatra", he married only once, in 1947, to Eve Wynn. [...]

In a 1988 interview, he recalled an art lesson he received from British statesman Winston Churchill aboard the Onassis yacht.

"He got his canvas out and so did I," Johnson said.

"He was working away, and he growled at me, 'Don't just sit there and stare! Get some paint and splash it on!'"

I always liked 23 Paces to Baker Street, which doesn't even seem to be on DVD.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 12, 2008 6:04 PM