Life's A Changin'

If you remember from Friday, June Roper was preparing to rejoin the Cochran production after a vacation but her mother, Elizabeth Roper, fell ill during an Atlantic voyage. Elizabeth was so sick June doubted her mother would survive the voyage. June wired a brother living in Kentucky to meet the ship.

Elizabeth remained in a New York hospital in critical condition for three months. She was pronounced well enough to travel and was on her way to the train station to accompany her son to Kentucky when she had another attack. She was once again bedridden - this time for a month.

It was impossible for June to return to London and fulfil her duties in the second Cochran revue. The weeks of stress and anxiety had sapped the young woman's strength and she felt her control over her future was slipping away.

When her mother could finally travel, June went with her to Kentucky where she collapsed and had to be hospitalized. The symptoms she was suffering included pain, depression and anorexia - conditions for which psychological causes had yet  to be explored. The doctors in Kentucky were convinced removing June's appendix would cure her. However months later, her advanced depression left her speechless. So the doctors removed her tonsils. (In later years, June described her condition as a nervous breakdown.)

Elizabeth's health was improving though and she would go on to enjoy another eight years of life.

June returned to Los Angeles and tried to regain her energies and re-establish her dancing career. As her health permitted, she worked with Ernest Belcher and served as an instructor in his studios. Performing however was more difficult. The effects of the depression were now being felt in Europe, causing many of the lavish revues to close. Those were replaced by the motion pictures. In the U.S., the entertainment field suffered drastic cutbacks so many road companies stopped touring.

For a while, June worked with William and Royal Stewart, to brothers who had come from the Belcher Studios. Royal worked in the film industry - he was the dance instructor who taught Shirley Temple and Jane Withers dance routines used in their movies.

William and June married but the marriage lasted less than six months because William began to display tendencies for violent behaviour.

Once again, I would like to thank the book June Roper Ballet Starmaker and its author, Leland Windreich for the information above.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

The Butterfly

While walking along Commercial Drive, I met up with this person. He was very passionate and very emotional, he was collecting signatures so he could run for mayor of Vancouver. He needed one hundred and had two if you count mine. This was the last day to collect signatures. I wonder if he made it?


June Roper's and Jack Kinney's partnership wasn't without it's problems. While Kinney's costume was the same basic evening-wear for most of the productions, June required gowns, which cost hundreds of dollars and she needed several garments for each season. Jack refused to adjust their salaries to help June with that expense.

The duo danced at Les Ambassadeurs, a popular night club in Cannes and the German impresario Hermann Heller offered them a featured spot in his Berlin revue. Kinney decided to go out on his own but June signed with the Heller Revue of 1925 and started to search for a new partner.

June chose her twenty-five-year-old brother, John. He was tall, well built and handsome though he had never studied dance. John was also June's childhood idol because he had been able to challenge their father's rigid philosophy.

John was working in the California oil fields when he got his sister's invitation. He enrolled in Belcher's studios and in May of 1925, June and her mother returned to California to plan the debut in Berlin. June had three months to turn her brother into a dancing partner.

The two spent their days working in the studio under Belcher's guidance. The evenings were spent at performance outlets in the community. The duo's earliest performances at amateur nights were disastrous but by the fourth try, they were winning prizes.

While June and Jack had been appearing at the Gallagher Club, a film producer had approached June to act as a stand-in for the actress Dorothy Mackall in a sequence involving a dangerous dive. June and Jack worked for weeks to determine the height from which should could be caught without risking her safety.

June decided to utilize these skills for the Haller Revue in a romantic adagio called The College Boy and The Butterfly. When June and Jack went to Berlin in the fall, they began training for this act. It involved a leap from a ten-foot platform into her partner's arms. John had to catch her below the bust and at thigh level. The brother and sister worked on this for more than a month, moving from a chair to the top of an upright piano and having one near disastrous accident but they perfected the move.

The Butterfly became the showstopper of the revue, which ran a full year in Berlin and had shorter engagements in Vienna and Hamburg. The dancing duo also appeared as featured dancers in the Winter Garden.

I want to thank Leland Windreich and his book June Roper Ballet Starmaker for the information on this woman. You may be wondering how June Roper is connected with Vancouver. I'm getting there and I hope you are enjoying her story so far.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

James Doohan

After World War II, Jimmy Doohan moved to London, Ontario. His goal at the time was to continue his education in the technical field but after hearing a radio drama, he knew he could do better. So he recorded his voice at a local radio station and learned of a drama school in Toronto. While at that school, Jimmy won a two year scholarship to the Neighbourhood Playhouse in New York City. There he studied with people such as Leslie Nielson, Tony Randall and Richard Boone. 

Starting January 12, 1946, Doohan had many roles on CBC radio and would travel between Toronto and New York. He estimated he performed in over 4,000 radio programs and 450 television programs in that period of time. He earned a reputation for his versatility.

In the mid-1950s, Jimmy appeared as forest ranger Timber Tom - the Canadian counterpart to Buffalo Bob -in the Canadian version of Howdy Doody. Ironically, William Shatner - Doohan's Star Trek co-star - was appearing as Ranger Bill in the American version at the same time. Doohan and Shatner both appeared in the Canadian science fiction series, Space Command, in the 1950s. In 1957 and 1958, Jimmy appeared in several episodes of Hawkeye and the Last Mohicans. 

For GM Presents, James played the lead role in the 1956 CBC TV drama, Fly into Danger and in 1960, The Night They Killed Joe Howe. Arthur Hailey rewrote the former into the novel Runway Zero-Eight then adapted to Terror in the Sky.

Among Jimmy Doohan's credits are The Twilight Zone, GE True, Hazel, The Outer Limits, Bewitched, Fantasy Island, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964) and Bonanza. The 1962 episode of Bonanza he was in is entitled 'Gift of Water' and one of his co-stars was Majel Barrett who later portrayed Nurse Chapel on Star Trek.

As well, Doohan was an assistant to the president of the United States of America in two episodes of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and has an uncredited role in the 1965 Satan Bug. In 1971, he shared the screen with Richard Harris in the movie,  Man in the Wilderness, filmed in Spain.

Once again, I want to thank Wikipedia for the information on James Doohan. I will tell you more on Friday. I haven't even gotten to his Star Trek days or his personal life.

I hope you find the beauty around you.