Langbahn Team – Weltmeisterschaft

June Fairchild

June Fairchild
Fairchild in 1970
Born
June Edna Wilson

(1946-09-03)September 3, 1946
Manhattan Beach, California, U.S.
DiedFebruary 17, 2015(2015-02-17) (aged 68)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Alma materEl Camino College
OccupationActress
Years active1966–1978

June Edna Fairchild (born June Edna Wilson; September 3, 1946 – February 17, 2015) was an American dancer and actress. Fairchild starred or co-starred in more than a dozen film roles before her addictions to drugs and alcohol effectively ended her professional acting career.

Early Life

Fairchild was born June Edna Wilson on September 3, 1946,[1] in Manhattan Beach, California.[2] Her father was a musician who specialized in writing gospel songs and music.[1] Fairchild was raised in Manhattan Beach and graduated in 1964 from Aviation High School in Redondo Beach.[1] She attended El Camino College and acted the youthful role of Arthur in the college production of Shakespeare'sThe Life and Death of King John in April 1965.[3][4][5]

Career

Gazzarri Dancer on Hollywood A Go-Go

By mid-1965 Fairchild had been hired as a member of the Gazzarri Dancers on the syndicated variety show Hollywood A Go-Go after being recruited by the show's executive producer Al Burton. She remained on the show until its final episode, broadcast in February 1966.[1][5]

While on the show, June Fairchild and fellow dancer Mimi Machu created the Statue dance, a fad dance in which the dancers adopt stationary poses for a measure or two before shifting to new poses. The dance was performed on a number of episodes, including the one broadcast on November 6, 1965, in which Tommy Sands performed his record "The Statue", a song about the dance. Host Sam Riddle's introduction acknowledged Fairchild and Machu as the originators of the Statue dance, which had already spread to some public dance venues.[5]

Years of success

Cast of Pretty Maids All in a Row (L-R): (front row) June Fairchild, Joy Bang, Aimee Eccles; (middle row) Joanna Cameron, Gene Roddenberry, Rock Hudson, Roger Vadim; (back row) Brenda Sykes, Diane Sherry, Gretchen Burrell

During the 1960s, Fairchild lived with her then-boyfriend Danny Hutton, the lead singer of Three Dog Night, for several years.[1] Despite some disagreement about the veracity of the claim,[6] Fairchild was credited with conceiving the band's name, Three Dog Night.[1]

Fairchild co-starred in Head, a vehicle for The Monkees, in 1968; in Drive, He Said, directed by Jack Nicholson; and Pretty Maids All in a Row, directed by Roger Vadim, in 1971; in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, which starred Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges, in 1974; and in the 1978 Cheech & Chong film, Up in Smoke, in which she appeared as a drug addict who snorts Ajax soap powder.[1]

Decline

In her later life Fairchild lived on the streets of Skid Row, Los Angeles due to her addictions.[1]

In 2001, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times ran a story about Fairchild's past career in Hollywood and her present life on the streets of Los Angeles.[7] Fairchild was selling newspapers outside a Los Angeles courthouse at the time in an attempt to earn enough money for a single-room occupancy hotel room.[1] On February 21, 2001, the same day that her story was published in the Los Angeles Times, police stopped her in Van Nuys for carrying an open container. A police officer recognized her picture from the newspaper and arrested her for failure to complete her community service from a past drunk driving conviction. Fairchild was sentenced to 90 days.[1] In 2002, Fairchild told the Los Angeles Times that her sentence had triggered a pledge of sobriety.[1] Friends told reporters that Fairchild remained sober until her death in 2015.[1]

She spent the later years of her life living in single-room hotels in downtown Los Angeles using her Social Security disability payments.[1]

Death

She died from liver cancer at a convalescent home in Los Angeles on February 17, 2015, at the age of 68. She had been divorced twice.[1]

Partial filmography

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Chawkins, Steve (2015-02-18). "June Fairchild dies at 68; former actress lived on skid row". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2015-03-15.
  2. ^ Lentz III, Harris (April 2015). "Obituaries". Classic Images (478): 50–56.
  3. ^ "Actors to Stage Early Work of Shakespeare". Los Angeles Times. 28 March 1965. pp. CS16.
  4. ^ "Shakespeare's 'inner O' will rise again tonight during King John showing". El Camino College Warwhoop. 2 April 1965. p. 1.
  5. ^ a b c Fairchild, June. "Catch a Fallen Star". Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  6. ^ Van Dyke Parks [@thevandykeparks] (September 10, 2018). "I wuz nuts about Hutton's girlfriend. Quite a dancer. Yet, she didn't read Mankind magazine, nor have an inkling of anthtopology and the cold aboriginal nights that inspired my suggestion. Wiki duz need an edit" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  7. ^ Schwartz, Noaki (2001-02-21). "A Fallen Star: Addiction: Former actress, now 54 and living on the streets, dreams of a movie comeback". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2015-03-15.
  8. ^ "June's Easter Greeting (caption)". Independent. Independent Press-Telegram. April 14, 1968. p. 36. Retrieved April 21, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Fairchild