(3 of 3)
After MGM
Allyson gradually retreated from films, to the mellower, more congenial medium of TV, where she occasionally appeared on her husband's anthology series and starred, for the 1961 season, in her own show. She also spent time caring for the ailing Powell — who, like his co-stars John Wayne and Susan Hayward, and reported scores of other crew members, had contracted cancer after shooting The Conqueror on location near a nuclear test site. He died in 1963.
She returned to Broadway as an autumnal star, headlining the French comedy Forty Carats (in a role that had been played by Julie Harris and Joan Fontaine). She signed up for a couple of stints in those employment agencies for geriatric actors, The Love Boat and Murder, She Wrote. (What, no Fantasy Island ?) According to IMDb, her last role was a Lady in Hotel in the Carrie Fisher TV movie, These Old Broads, which is famous in Hollywood gossip history as the production that brought Elizabeth Taylor and Debbie Reynolds back within spitting distance of each other, nearly a half century after Liz stole Eddie Fisher from Debbie. IMDb says Allyson's appearance was "uncredited." Ouch!
If Allyson is known to the later Baby Boomers, it's as the spokeswoman for Depends, the undergarment for control of aging bladders. That could get a giggle, I suppose, but Allyson doesn't deserve one. With her last husband, Dr. David Ashrow, D.D.S., she established the June Allyson Foundation with the goal of "Supporting medical research of incontinence to better understand its causes and impact, improve education, and develop improved treatment options." She also, Wikipedia says, raised money for the Judy Garland and James Stewart museums.
So the actress who had been the soldiers' sweetheart, them wife to the stars, became the care-giving granny, attending to the memories of her famous friends, cooing cautious advice to the fans who grew up cherishing her. Dependable: that's not a bad word to chisel on June Allyson's tombstone. And next to it: Honey.