So sad…It was confirmed Monday:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/12/entertainment/main2561831.shtml
Ah, that is sad. I liked her.
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is unquestionably the best movie she ever appeared in, and her wonderful comic performance in that film (and her chemistry with Eddie Bracken, William Demarest, & Diana Lynn) is a big part of why it works as well as it does.
Her turn in Annie Get Your Gun may not compare to Ethel Merman’s creation of the role (I wouldn’t know), but she is loose and funny in the part and her “Anything You Can Do” with Howard Keel is a riot.
RIP.
Betty was the only one of the gorgeous blondes from the 40’s and 50’s who I thought that if I ever met, she might talk to me. She seemed so down to earth and “normal”.
TCM changed their schedule to do a tribute on the 15th.
12:00 PM MGM Parade Show #27
12:30 PM The Stork Club
2:15 PM The Perils of Pauline
4:00 PM The Greatest Show on Earth
7:00 PM Private Screenings: Betty Hutton
Yeah she did seem like a nice person. So sad:(
Funnily enough, I just watched this last week – took it out of the library on a whim. “Stupid but extremely entertaining” was how I described it to a pal on IM as I was watching.
Oh my, I didn’t even know she was still alive! What a fun person she was.
… so I was like, belly button dies? Whose belly button? How does a belly button die? Oh, I see, Betty Hutton.
mutter stupid font… lousy eyes… confused brain
RIP, Betty!
You know the 1944 Bugs Bunny cartoon, Little Red Riding Rabbit?
I guess I was about 10 years old - which would have made it 1961. My mother was watching that cartoon with me. (That was the great thing about those Warner Cartoons - they were entertaining to adults and children alike). Mom, who was born in 1926, and thus five years younger than Betty Hutton, told me the bobby-soxer Red in the cartoon reminded her of Betty Hutton. I guess it was because of the brassy way Red sang “Five o’Clock Whistle.” (Mom had been a bobby-soxer herself in '44 - I think that’s why she liked the cartoon so much.)
And that was the first time I ever heard the name Betty Hutton. Even though Betty had nothing to do with the cartoon (it was Bea Benaderet doing the voice and the singing), I’ve always associated her with it.
Mom’s dead, and now Betty Hutton is dead. I’ll feel rather wisful the next time I see “Little Red Riding rabbit.”
I saw Merman as Annie Oakley in the mid-sixties stage revival of AGYG, and I’ve seen Hutton in the movie. Hutton’s performance, though disconcertingly frenetic in places, is almost equal to Merman’s.
Hutton will be missed.
Wow. Betty Hutton was one of my “divas.” She was on a very short list of female artists I felt some kind of strong connection to, as is mysteriously common with many gay men. Knowing she was still alive, I’ve held onto a tiny hope that one day I might get a chance to meet her. She seemed so authentic, so human, in her conversations with Robert Osborne (see schedule posted above; do not miss it).
I’d been aware of her, peripherally, from late night movies, back to my childhood. But I really became interested in her after I bought a compilation CD, in an Indiana truckstop in the late eighties, called “Hollywood Songbirds” or something, with like 20 tracks sung by actresses ranging from Fanny Brice to Alice Faye, to Betty Hutton–who was a standout on this disc, even among the other greats–singing “It’s Oh So Quiet.” I was hooked; I played this track hundreds and hundreds of times, put it on every other mix tape I made–and I made a lot of mix tapes–and even sent copies to a couple of Jazz singers I knew, hoping to get someone to cover it and shine some spotlight back on Betty.
I’ll always wonder if one my mix tapes made it to Iceland, or if maybe Bjork shopped at Indiana truckstops . . .
AllMusic only lists one album with “It’s Oh So Quiet” on it, but it looks like a good set so thanks for the rec, lissener–I’ll see if I can dig it up somewhere.