US actress June Allyson dies at 88

LOS ANGELES, July 11 (Reuters) June Allyson, the stage, film and television actress best known for her girl-next-door charm and winsomely husky voice in such 1940s MGM classics as ''Good News'' and ''Little Women,'' has died at age 88, her husband said.

Allyson, who had been in declining health since undergoing hip-replacement surgery a few years ago, died on Saturday at her home in Ojai, California, northwest of Los Angeles, from respiratory failure and acute bronchitis, her spouse of 30 years, David Ashrow said yesterday.

She was born Ella Geisman in the Bronx, New York and brought up in near poverty. The bubbly blond actress began her career in live theater and made her feature film debut in the 1943 big-screen version of the Broadway musical ''Best Foot Forward,'' reprising the ingenue role she played two years earlier on stage.

Under contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, she went on to play wholesome, perky roles in a string of light comedies, musicals and romances, including ''Music for Millions,'' ''Two Girls and a Sailor'' (the first of five pairings opposite Van Johnson) ''Little Women'' and ''Good News.'' In the latter two films, she starred opposite Peter Lawford.

She won a Golden Globe Award for her 1951 role in ''Too Young to Kiss,'' where she played a talented pianist who poses as a child prodigy to gain an audition for a music impresario who is holding tryouts for a kids' concert tour.

As the 1950s wore on, Allyson grew into roles as the supportive wife in such films as ''The Glenn Miller Story'' and ''Strategic Air Command.'' Although ranked as one of the ten leading box office stars in the mid-1950s, her Hollywood career waned at the end of that decade and she moved into television, starring in her own drama anthology series, ''The June Allyson Show,'' which ran from 1959 to 1961.

She returned to Broadway in 1970 to succeed Julie Harris as star of ''40 Carats,'' her first stage role in two decades, and continued to make occasional TV and film appearances through the 1990s.

She was married to actor Dick Powell, with whom she co-starred in the 1950 films ''Right Cross'' and ''The Reformer and the Redhead,'' from 1945 until his death in 1963.

Later, Allyson twice married and twice divorced Powell's barber, Glenn Maxwell. In 1976 she wed her third husband, Ashrow, a retired dentist, with whom she appeared in the stage play that year, ''My Daughter, Your Son.'' REUTERS SB RK0940