June Havoc

From Philosopedia

June Havoc (8 November 1912 - 28 March 2010)

Ellen Evangeline Hovick was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, although by some reports she was born in Seattle, Washington. She was the daughter of Rose Thompson Havoc (who died in 1954 of colon cancer) and newspaperman John Hovick, and the couple separated when June was young.Her sister, known as Gypsy Rose Lee, was a stripper, an entertainer, a dancer.

As an under-aged child vaudeville entertainer called "Baby Jane," Havoc carried different birth certificates that her mother had made for her in order to satisfy the child labor laws of various states � as a result she was not sure how old she really was.

In 1929, she married vaudeville actor Bobby Reed, and they had one daughter before divorcing. In 1935 she married Donald S. Gibbs, a marriage that ended in divorce. In 1948, she married producer and writer William "Bill" Spier, who died in 1973. A daughter who died in 1998, April Hyde, was conceived in 1935 with a promoter, Jamie Smythe.

Havoc and her sister, Gypsy Rose Lee, did not get along with their mother, who made demands for money to help finance a boardinghouse for lesbians in a 10-room apartment on West End Avenue in New York City, the property rented for her by Gypsy and a farm in Highland Mills, New York. Rose reportedly shot and killed one of her guests (who, according to Erik Lee Preminger, Gypsy's son, was Rose's lover who had made a pass at Gypsy). The incident was explained away as a suicide and Rose was not prosecuted.

In her 60s Ms. Havoc ventured outside show business. She created Cannon Crossing, a Connecticut real estate venture that included antiques, crafts and gift shops, and a restaurant in 19th-century buildings that she had restored. She sold her jewelry and other possessions to buy the eight-acre property, in Wilton, and declared it her greatest passion until she sold it in 1989.

In 2003, a 99-seat Off Off Broadway performance space in an office building on West 36th Street was dedicated as the June Havoc Theater.

Havoc wrote two memoirs, Early Havoc and More Havoc, as well as a play entitled Maraton '33 that featured Julie Harris and ran only briefly.

Unchurched, Havoc achieved fame in 1947 for her role in Gentleman's Agreement and in 1990 as Madeline Markham in General Hospital.

Selected Movies

A Return to Salem's Lot (1988)

Can't Stop the Music (1980)

"The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977)

Follow the Sun (1951)

Red, Hot and Blue (1949)

When My Baby Smiles at Me (1948)

The Iron Curtain (1948)

Intrigue (1947)

Gentleman's Agreement (1947)

Brewster's Millions (1945)

No Time for Love (1943)

Hello Frisco, Hello (1943)

My Sister Eileen (1942)

Havoc died at the age of 97 at her home in Stamford, Connecticut. According to her Times obituary,

• Her best-received film performance was in Gentleman�s Agreement (1947), in which she played Gregory Peck�s self-hating Jewish secretary, who passes for gentile.

(See her work on Broadway. See her work in movies)