In 1949, she originated the role of the innocent Liat alongside Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza in the wildly anticipated South Pacific, performing “Happy Talk” with hand gestures as Bloody Mary (Juanita Hall) sang the memorable show tune. She then continued with the show’s touring company. On her 16th birthday, she took the stage in Carousel - it was only Rodgers & Hammerstein’s second musical, after Oklahoma! - as the daughter Louise. John - still a sophomore in high school - and her mom boarded a train and headed to New York. John passed on a minor part in The Wizard of Oz (1939) because her family was going on vacation, but she did make an Our Gang short in 1940, then showed up in Merle Oberon’s Lydia (1941) and Jane Eyre (1943), starring Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine.ĭiscovered by scouts for Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, St. She was hired to play Dietrich’s Frenchy as a child, but most of her lines were cut. She landed her first job in Destry Rides Again, where she sat in the back of a moving wagon and sang “Little Joe, the Wrangler,” which Dietrich had performed earlier in the classic Western. “But I’m glad I did it because, apparently, it’s a cult film and very good in its way.” “My last film, Horror Hotel, was sort of an embarrassment because I didn’t like horror movies,” she said in a 2008 interview. The actress, who was married to late English actor-singer Peter Grant, lived in London over the years and made several movies in the U.K., including the Christopher Lee-starring horror films Corridors of Blood (1958), also featuring Boris Karloff, and Horror Hotel (1960). John had what she called “her first grown-up movie part” when she portrayed Tarji, a Middle Eastern princess who becomes engaged to businessman Clemson Reade (Grant) after he foolishly splits with his fiancé (Kerr), in Dream Wife (1953), directed and co-written by Sidney Sheldon. Ulmer’s The Naked Dawn (1955).Īt age 10, she sang and made her onscreen debut in Destry Rides Again (1939), starring Marlene Dietrich and Jimmy Stewart. John also starred with Stewart Granger, Ann Blyth and Robert Taylor in All the Brothers Were Valiant (1953) with Victor Mature, Piper Laurie and Vincent Price in the 3-D adventure Dangerous Mission (1954) and with Arthur Kennedy in Edgar G. Milan Kundera, Writer of 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being,' Dies at 94

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