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June Kenney
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June Kenney
June Claire Sebastian (née Kenney; July 6, 1933 – June 25, 2021) was an American actress known for her work in B movies in the late 1950s.
June Claire Kenney was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the only child of Frederick Kenney, a builder and plumber of Irish descent, and Edna (née Deslauriers), a homemaker of French-Canadian descent. She lived in suburban Malden, Massachusetts during her childhood.
Kenney started singing and dancing when she was four. Her appearances on Boston area radio attracted the attention of talent scouts looking for the next Shirley Temple. She signed with Warner Bros. and appeared in several musical shorts. The studio wanted to send her to Hollywood, but her father did not let her go as he wanted to keep the family together and not abandon his construction business. Ultimately her parents decided to move west to escape the cold New England winters. The Kenneys relocated to Southern California around 1949, first to Gardena, California, before settling in West Hollywood.
As a teenager Kenney appeared in stage plays and studied at the Meglin School of Dance. She attended Hollywood Professional School in the morning and worked afternoons at Grauman's Chinese Theatre as an usherette. Walter Kohner spotted her during a performance and signed her to his brother Paul's talent agency.
Kenney was on the verge of receiving her break into television when she was cast opposite Robert Hutton and Adele Mara in the television soap opera My Sister and I in 1954, but the show's sponsor pulled out before it went to production. Instead she received her first television credits for supporting roles in episodes of The Loretta Young Show and Public Defender. That year, she received her first credited film role for the religious short City Story.
Through the rest of the 1950s, Kenney played bit parts and supporting roles on television in Fireside Theater, TV's Reader's Digest, Whirlybirds and The Millionaire. She was featured in commercials for Coppertone and Vaseline, and did voiceover work for Austin-Healey.
An interview with Roger Corman got Kenney her above-title billing when he gave her the lead role of Barbara Bonney, a good girl accused of murdering a jealous rival, in his 1957 film noir Teenage Doll. Impressed with her performance, Corman gave her work in two other pictures that year. Kenney played Tina in Sorority Girl, in which a manipulative sorority sister (Susan Cabot) pressures her into blackmailing a lover. Kenney was also given the role of Asmild, the good-hearted but naive sister of the leader of a band of Viking women in The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent. She originally had not been considered for the part, but was brought in after production began when Abby Dalton's sister suffered a concussion from falling off a horse and Corman needed a blonde to replace her.
In 1958, Kenney starred opposite Dick Bakalyan in the teen exploitation feature Hot Car Girl, produced by Roger's brother Gene Corman and directed by Bernard L. Kowalski. The film was distributed in Texas on a double bill with Cry Baby Killer through a series of four wall engagements. Promotion included Kenney touring the state with Texas-born James Fillmore, a supporting actor in Cry Baby Killer. Kenney sang and Fillmore played piano in live stage performances between showings of their respective films.
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June Kenney
June Claire Sebastian (née Kenney; July 6, 1933 – June 25, 2021) was an American actress known for her work in B movies in the late 1950s.
June Claire Kenney was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the only child of Frederick Kenney, a builder and plumber of Irish descent, and Edna (née Deslauriers), a homemaker of French-Canadian descent. She lived in suburban Malden, Massachusetts during her childhood.
Kenney started singing and dancing when she was four. Her appearances on Boston area radio attracted the attention of talent scouts looking for the next Shirley Temple. She signed with Warner Bros. and appeared in several musical shorts. The studio wanted to send her to Hollywood, but her father did not let her go as he wanted to keep the family together and not abandon his construction business. Ultimately her parents decided to move west to escape the cold New England winters. The Kenneys relocated to Southern California around 1949, first to Gardena, California, before settling in West Hollywood.
As a teenager Kenney appeared in stage plays and studied at the Meglin School of Dance. She attended Hollywood Professional School in the morning and worked afternoons at Grauman's Chinese Theatre as an usherette. Walter Kohner spotted her during a performance and signed her to his brother Paul's talent agency.
Kenney was on the verge of receiving her break into television when she was cast opposite Robert Hutton and Adele Mara in the television soap opera My Sister and I in 1954, but the show's sponsor pulled out before it went to production. Instead she received her first television credits for supporting roles in episodes of The Loretta Young Show and Public Defender. That year, she received her first credited film role for the religious short City Story.
Through the rest of the 1950s, Kenney played bit parts and supporting roles on television in Fireside Theater, TV's Reader's Digest, Whirlybirds and The Millionaire. She was featured in commercials for Coppertone and Vaseline, and did voiceover work for Austin-Healey.
An interview with Roger Corman got Kenney her above-title billing when he gave her the lead role of Barbara Bonney, a good girl accused of murdering a jealous rival, in his 1957 film noir Teenage Doll. Impressed with her performance, Corman gave her work in two other pictures that year. Kenney played Tina in Sorority Girl, in which a manipulative sorority sister (Susan Cabot) pressures her into blackmailing a lover. Kenney was also given the role of Asmild, the good-hearted but naive sister of the leader of a band of Viking women in The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent. She originally had not been considered for the part, but was brought in after production began when Abby Dalton's sister suffered a concussion from falling off a horse and Corman needed a blonde to replace her.
In 1958, Kenney starred opposite Dick Bakalyan in the teen exploitation feature Hot Car Girl, produced by Roger's brother Gene Corman and directed by Bernard L. Kowalski. The film was distributed in Texas on a double bill with Cry Baby Killer through a series of four wall engagements. Promotion included Kenney touring the state with Texas-born James Fillmore, a supporting actor in Cry Baby Killer. Kenney sang and Fillmore played piano in live stage performances between showings of their respective films.
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