June Carr Ormand.

A slice of rowdy movie history has passed away with the incomparable June Carr Ormond, who died [on Friday] after a long illness. A vivacious ex-vaudevillian... June was the matriarch of Nashville's First Family of Exploitation, the Ormonds - the folks responsible for such drive-in marvels as 1968's The Exotic Ones and 1971's If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?

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Her loss - and her link to the racy, rambunctious secret history of American movies - makes the city a duller place. But in heaven right about now, the joint is jumpin'.

Jim Ridley at the Nashville Scene's Pith in the Wind.

Over the decades, she shared the bill with such stars of Broadway, film, radio, television and vaudeville as Ginger Rogers, Ethel Merman, Milton Berle, Bob Hope, Lash LaRue, Charlie McCarthy and The Three Stooges. Among Mrs Ormond's acquaintances were Howard Hughes, Florenz Ziegfeld, Elizabeth Taylor, Bela Lugosi, Debbie Reynolds and Roy Rogers.

Ken Beck in the Tennessean.

Posted by dwhudson at July 17, 2006 9:43 AM