The Tennessean

June Ormond dies; filmmaker was 94
Movies had country, religious themes

By KEN BECK
Staff Writer

Published: Sunday, 07/16/06

June Carr Ormond, who produced more than a half dozen country music and religious exploitation films in Nashville in the 1960s and '70s with her late husband, Ron, died here Friday from complications of a stroke.

She was 94.

The Ormonds' Nashville film productions include "Forty Acre Feud" (1965), "Girl From Tobacco Row" (1966), "The Monster and the Stripper" (1968), "The Burning Hell" (1974) and "39 Stripes" (1979).

"Forty Acre Feud," a country music cult film, features performances by Loretta Lynn, Minnie Pearl, George Jones, Ferlin Husky, Bill Anderson, Del Reeves and Skeeter Davis. Other Ormond films starred such Nashville personalities as Ralph Emery, Tex Ritter and Johnny Russell.

"She was bright, funny, energetic and spontaneous. She was about living life to the fullest," said Ormond's sole survivor, son Tim, who is widely known in the Nashville film community.

Mrs. Ormond was born in Reading, Pa., and grew up there and in New York City, where she began performing at the age 12 in her parents' coffee bar, Coffee Cliffs, which was downstairs from the Rialto theater. She became a vaudeville comedian and entertained with her family across the United States and in England.

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.

June and Ron Ormond married in 1935 and produced films for about 15 years in Los Angeles, including a string of serial westerns starring Lash LaRue and Fuzzy St. John, and the couple also toured with cowboy stars and comedians making appearances at movie theaters across the South.

An airplane crash in 1967 motivated the Ormonds to turn to the production of Christian films, where Mrs. Ormond wore many hats, such as script supervisor, make-up artist, marketing director, distributor and actress, including a role as the witch of Endor in "Grim Reaper" (1976).

After her husband's death in 1981, Mrs. Ormond and her son continued to produce Christian films for several years. Among them were "The Second Coming" and "The Sacred Symbol."

In recent years, Mrs. Ormond appeared in the Nashville production of "Blood, Friends and Money," starring Jim Varney, and "The Virtual Vaudevillian" (a retrospective of her life).

Among other Ormond films are "Mesa of Lost Women" (1953), "Please Don't Touch Me" (a k a "Teenage Bride") (1963) and "White Lightnin' Road" (1965).

A memorial service for Mrs. Ormond is being planned for late July at Religious Science of Nashville on Charlotte Avenue. •

Didn't want this to slip by with no comments. RIP, June.

THE MONSTER AND THE STRIPPER, PLEASE DON'T TOUCH ME and of course, MESA OF LOST WOMEN are big favorites around here.

We once had a triple bill of JAIL BAIT, PLEASE DON'T TOUCH ME and MESA OF LOST WOMEN just to savor the same demented musical background* that all three have in common, over and over.

* (For the unfamiliar, it's a relentless flamenco duet between an upright piano and an acoustic guitar that sounds like it was recorded in two different rooms on two different planets, then unceremoniously slapped together in the mixing room. And someone had their sheet music upside down.

This proceeds unabated for the entire running time of the film, with not the slightest regard for what's happening onscreen. After a while, it begins to take on the properties of white noise. A singular torture, repeated verbatim across the three films.)

best,
FBC

any word or info if their films are destined for dvd?

i have monster and the stripper on vhs and would love to have a dvd of it...maybe with a sleepy labeef commentary?!