Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star (1921-2007)

Subject: Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 10:10 AM

1950's musicals star Betty Hutton dies

Betty Hutton, the actress and singer who brought a brassy vitality to Hollywood musicals such as "Annie Get Your Gun," has died in Palm Springs, Calif., at age 86. The death was confirmed Monday by a friend of Hutton who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, citing Hutton's wishes that her death be announced at a specified time by the executor of her estate, Carl Bruno. The friend refused to provide further details including the time and cause of death.

"I can neither confirm or deny" the report, Bruno told The Associated Press from Palm Springs. "I'll be happy to talk about it tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon."

Hutton was at the top of the heap when she walked out of her Paramount contract in 1952, reportedly in a dispute over her demand that her then-husband direct her films. She made only one movie after that but had a TV series for a year and worked occasionally on the stage and in nightclubs.

Unlike other actresses who have been called "blonde bombshells," Hutton had a screen personality that had more to do with energy and humor than sex. Time magazine wrote in 1950: "Betty Hutton, who is not remarkably pretty, by movie standards, nor a remarkably good singer or dancer, has a vividly unique personality in a town that tends to reduce beauty and talent to mass-produced patterns. Watching her in action has some of the fascination of waiting for a wildly sputtering fuse to touch off an alarmingly large firecracker." [great line!]

It said she had "a bellicose zeal and a tomboyish winsomeness that suggested a cross between one of the Furies and Little Orphan Annie."

Hutton could be brash behind the camera, too, telling The Associated Press in 1954: "When I'm working with jerks with no talent, I raise hell until I get what I want."

Several of her films were biopics: "Incendiary Blonde," about actress and nightclub queen Texas Guinan; "Perils of Pauline," about silent-screen serial heroine Pearl White; and "Somebody Loves Me," about singer Blossom Seeley.

"Annie Get Your Gun" (1950) was the Irving Berlin musical biography of Annie Oakley, with Hutton playing the part Ethel Merman had made famous on Broadway. Hutton got the movie role part when Judy Garland dropped out of the production.

Another notable film was "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek," the 1944 Preston Sturges satire that rattled the censors with the story of a young woman who gets pregnant after a spur-of-the-moment marriage and can't quite remember who the father is.

Sturges called Hutton "a full-fledged actress with every talent the noun implies. She plays in musicals because the public, which can do practically nothing well, is willing to concede its entertainers only one talent."

She returned the compliment, saying in a 1971 interview that "I am not a great singer and I am not a great dancer but I am a great actress, and nobody ever let me act except Preston Sturges. He believed in me."

She recalled years later how she got through one challenging scene - five minutes of rapid-fire dialogue - perfectly on the first try. "Preston was delighted, and he asked how I could do it. I said I memorized it like a song, learning the lines rhythmically."

In 1954, she announced to a Las Vegas nightclub audience: "This is my last show and I'm retiring from show business."

She backtracked the following year, saying, "I was wrong and I admit it." She said her mother told her, "God gave you a gift and it's not right to hide it from people." But her only movie after 1952 was "Spring Reunion" in 1957.

In 1959-60, she starred in the TV series "The Betty Hutton Show" (also called "Goldie"), about a brash manicurist who suddenly inherits the estate of a wealthy customer and becomes guardian to his three children.

But her personal life was rocky at times, including four failed marriages, financial problems and difficulties between her and her three daughters. In a 1980 AP interview, Hutton said she had kicked a 20-year addiction to pills. "Uppers, downers, inners, outers, I took everything I could get my hands on," she said.

She credited a Rhode Island priest, the Rev. Peter Maguire, with befriending her and turning her life around. She converted to Roman Catholicism. In 1986, she earned a liberal arts degree from Salve Regina College, in Newport, R.I., commenting that she liked college because "the kids studying there accepted me as one of them."

"Practically all the stars are in trouble," she recalled telling the priests she met in Rhode Island. "You happen to see me talking honestly to you. It's a nightmare out there! It hurts what we do in our private lives."

When Maguire died in 1996, she said, "It was just so painful to me, I couldn't handle it. My kids all live in California, so I decided to come back here."

Coming out of her shell somewhat in recent years, she gave occasional performances and interviews, including an appearance in 2000 on the Turner Classic Movies cable channel.

But she told The Associated Press in a 2000 interview that she didn't like to see herself in her old movies.

"It isn't the movie I'm looking at. Professionally, my career was great," she said. "But never was the scene offstage great for me."

She was born Betty June Thornburg in Battle Creek, Mich., on Feb. 26, 1921, but she never knew her father. She began her career at age 5 singing with her sister, Marion, in their mother's speakeasy.

"When I mentioned that I wanted to be a star, my mother thought I was nuts," Hutton recalled. "I thought if I became a star and got us out of poverty, she would quit drinking. I didn't know (alcoholism) was a disease; nobody did. There was no A.A. then."

Her first real show business success was as a singer in Vincent Lopez's band. It was he who gave her the name Hutton. (Her sister eventually adopted the surname Hutton, too, and was a vocalist for Glenn Miller.)

Her mugging and wild gestures, tackling the microphone got her dubbed "America's No. 1 jitterbug." ("As a matter of fact, I couldn't jitterbug," she said.)

Then came a Broadway revue, "Two for the Show," and the stage version of "Panama Hattie" before getting her start in Hollywood. She became a protegee of Buddy De Sylva, famed songwriter then working for Paramount.

Her marriages to manufacturer Ted Briskin, dance director Charles O'Curran, recording company executive Alan Livingston and jazzman Pete Candoli ended in divorce.

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 10:13 AM

Google Image search on Betty Hutton.

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star
From: Stringsinger
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 11:40 AM

I had read that she dropped out of Hollywood, was almost if not completely forgotten and took a job as a nurse.

I remember her fondly as being zany, full of personality and an accomplished performer.
She represented the personality of the World War II performers and caught the spirit of that time in her work.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star
From: fat B****rd
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 02:47 PM

First film I ever saw. Annie Get Your Gun. My parents had all the songs on MGM yellow 78s. I had to be taken out because I thought the " Red Indians" would come out of the screen and get me.
RIP Betty.

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 05:21 PM

She made that role hers, though on Broadway it had been Ethel Merman's--really tough real estate to take over.

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star
From: rich-joy
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 05:40 PM

Betty singing : "He said : Murder! He said"
is one of my all-time fave film clips (from one of those Bob Hope wartime entertainment films)
"a vitamin pill on legs" is how Bob described her, after that performance!!

I wonder if it's on YouTube yet?!

Vale, Betty.


Cheers! R-J
Down Under

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star
From: Abby Sale
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 09:32 AM

"Murder! He (& She) said" is good song - one of those, I believe, that was sung in several musicals. A look at Allmusic.com shows it re-released 23 times just since 2000! "Heat Wave" for another like that.

My best memory was hanging out at that great, hidden cafe in Tangiers whose only address was "across from Betty Hutton's house."

Anyone remember what it was (is?) called.

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 11:20 AM

That sounds like an interesting story! Tell us more!

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star
From: fat B****rd
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 02:46 PM

Fill page obit in To-day's UK Guardian.

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star
From: Abby Sale
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 03:25 PM

Wall, it is an interesting story but we wouldn't want to be encouraging the sensible youngster 'Catters into doing certain things that seemed like wild enjoyment to our wreckless and wrecked minds of 40 or 50 years ago, now would we?

We know much better now.

Don't we?

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 03:41 PM

The New York Times obit gave a wonderful bit of her history---most touching was her recovering from her devils with the help of the priest mentioned above. She went on to college and was a licensed psychologist.   

Married 4 times, the obit continues, she said the problem was that all her husbands loved "Betty Hutton"---not her.

She did return to some limited performing---and I still have those fond memories of growing up an watching that "bombshell" in the musicals.


Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star
From: rich-joy
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 06:31 PM

here is a YouTube clip of "Murder! He Says" :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClGNm89GZBE


and they have others, too!



Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 06:43 PM

...the problem was that all her husbands loved "Betty Hutton" - yes, I can see how that might be a problem. But you couldn't really blame them for that, they were four among millions.

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 07:05 PM

"Yessir, a vitamin pill with legs! How about that?"

Lot's of energy and talent. The lady was a real snort!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 07:47 PM

But--Mcgrath---Betty Hutton was a figment of imagination. Sort of like hoping that Jon Stewart or Johnny Carson are "on" at home.   Having met Stewart in a restaurant recently I can tell you that he is not like he is on TV. It is a persona---an act. Charming in person but totally not what one would hope in conversation.   SO--Betty Hutton. I see the point.   She was not Betty Hutton---she was who she was and "Betty Hutton" was a character in her repertoire.

I guess now I will not propose marriage to Judi Dench---I don't even know who she really is she is such a good actor.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 07:49 PM

Judi Dench? Well, I think I'd be willing to take the chance.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star
From:
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 09:05 PM

Yes I remember Betty Hutton well from those old musicals!

R.I.P.

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 09:18 PM

That's what I meant by "I can see how that might be a problem", Bill. Actually it's a problem that affects a lot of non-show business people as well, a public image that appeals to other people, but isn't the real person.

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Hutton, 50s musical star
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 12:59 AM

Hutton wasn't alone. Rita Hayworth said ""Every man I have known has fallen in love with Gilda and wakened with me."