Van Johnson, Hollywood star of the movies' golden age, has died.

Johnson died on Friday at an assisted living centre in Nyack, New York. He was 92.

Johnson was known for his boy-next-door wholesomeness and was a major heart-throb in the 1940s. Many of his early films had Second World War themes, including 30 Seconds Over Tokyo.

Among his films were Brigadoon, A Guy Named Joe and The Caine Mutiny. His co-stars included Humphrey Bogart, Elizabeth Taylor and June Allyson.

With his tall, athletic build, handsome, freckled face and sunny personality, the red-haired Johnson starred opposite Esther Williams, June Allyson, Elizabeth Taylor and others during his two decades under contract to MGM.

He proved to be a versatile actor, equally at home with comedies (The Bride Goes Wild, Too Young to Kiss), war movies (Go for Broke, Command Decision), musicals (Thrill of a Romance, Brigadoon) and dramas (State of the Union, Madame Curie).

During the height of his popularity, Johnson was cast most often as the all-American boy. He played a real-life flier who lost a leg in a crash after the bombing of Japan in 30 Seconds Over Tokyo. He was a writer in love with a wealthy American girl (Taylor) in The Last Time I Saw Paris. He appeared as a post-Civil War farmer in The Romance of Rosy Ridge.

More recently, he had a small role in 1985 as a movie actor in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo.

A heart-throb with young girls in the '40s - he was called the non-singing Sinatra - Johnson married only once. In 1947 at the height of his career, he eloped to Juarez, Mexico, to marry Eve Wynn, who had divorced Johnson's good friend Keenan Wynn four hours before.

The marriage produced a daughter, Schuyler, and ended bitterly 13 years later.

May he rest in peace