Van Johnson, 1916-2008
When the Siren read that Van Johnson, freckle-faced star of so many pleasant but lesser MGM movies, died this week aged 92, she thought of her friend Beth, who was a neighbor of Johnson's on the East Side of Manhattan in the early 1990s. Beth is a woman after the Siren's own heart, the sort of person who can recognize a star of the old days even as he p…