Betty Hutton (born Elizabeth June Thornburg, February 26 1921 – March 11 2007[1]) was an American film actress and singer.
Biography
Early life
She began life as Elizabeth June Thornburg, a daughter of railroad foreman Percy E. Thornburg (1896-1939) and his wife,
the former Mabel Lum (1901-1967). Her father abandoned the family for another woman and they did not hear from or see him again
until they received a telegram, in 1939, informing them of his death from suicide. Betty was raised by her mother, who took the
surname Hutton, along with her sister, Marion, and was later billed as the actress Sissy
Jones. The three started singing in the family's speakeasy when Betty was 3 years old. Related
troubles with the police kept the family on the move, and eventually they moved to Detroit. When interviewed as an established star appearing at the premiere of Let's Dance (1950), her mother — arriving with her, and following a police escort — commented,
"This time the police were in front of us." Hutton sang in several local bands as a teenager, and at one point visited
New York City hoping to perform on Broadway,
where she was rejected.
A few years later, she was scouted by orchestra leader Vincent Lopez, who gave Hutton
her entry into entertainment. In 1939, she appeared in several musical shorts for Warner
Bros., and appeared on Broadway in Panama Hattie and Two for the
Show, both produced by Buddy DeSylva.
Career
When DeSylva became a producer at Paramount Pictures, Hutton was signed to a
featured role in The Fleet's In which starred Dorothy Lamour in 1942. Hutton made an instant impact with the moviegoing public but Paramount did not
immediately promote her to major stardom, giving her second leads in a Mary Martin musical
and another Lamour film before casting Betty as Bob Hope's leading lady in Let's Face it (1943). Following the release of The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944), Betty was
indisputably a major star and with the release of Incendiary Blonde
(1945), Hutton had supplanted Lamour as Paramount's number one female box office
attraction.
Hutton made 19 films in 11 years, from 1942 to 1952 including a
hugely popular The Perils of Pauline in 1947. She was billed over Fred Astaire in the 1950 musical
Let's Dance. Hutton's greatest screen triumph was Annie Get Your Gun for MGM, which hired
Hutton to replace an exhausted Judy Garland in the role of Annie Oakley. The film and the leading role, retooled for Hutton, was a smash hit, with the biggest
critical praise going to Betty (her obituary in The New York Times described
her as "a brassy, energetic performer with a voice that could sound like a fire alarm") but Hutton, like Garland, was earning a
reputation for being extremely difficult.
In 1944, she signed with Capitol Records, one of the first artists to do so, but was
unhappy with their management, and later signed with RCA Victor. Among her many films was a
unbilled cameo in Sailor Beware (1952) with Dean
Martin and Jerry Lewis, in which she portrayed Jerry's girlfriend, Hetty Button. Her
time as a Hollywood star came to an end due to contract disagreements with
Paramount following The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) and Somebody Loves Me (1952), a biopic of singer
Blossom Seeley. The New York Times indicated that her film career ended because of
her insistence that her husband at the time, Charles O'Curran, direct her next film; when the
studio declined, Hutton broke her contract.
Hutton worked in radio, appeared in Las Vegas and in nightclubs, then tried her
luck on the new medium of television. An original musical TV
"spectacular" written especially for Hutton, Satin 'n Spurs (1954), was an enormous flop with the public and critics,
despite being one of the first television programs televised nationally by NBC in compatible color.
Desilu Productions took a chance on Hutton and in 1959 gave her a sitcom The Betty
Hutton Show, which quickly faded. Her last TV outing was a brief guest appearance in 1975 on Baretta.
In 1967, she was signed to star in two low-budget Westerns for Paramount, but was fired shortly after the projects began. Afterwards, Hutton had trouble
with alcohol and substance abuse, eventually attempting suicide after losing her singing voice in 1970, and having a nervous breakdown. She divorced her fourth husband,
jazz trumpeter Pete Candoli, and declared herself bankrupt. However, after regaining control of her life through a church, she converted to Roman Catholicism and went on to teach acting and to cook at a rectory in Rhode Island.
On Broadway, she temporarily replaced a hospitalized Carol Burnett in
Fade Out - Fade In in 1964 and followed Dorothy Loudon as the evil Miss Hannigan in Annie in 1980. Her last
known performance in any medium was on Jukebox Saturday Night, which aired on PBS in 1983. Robert Osborne interviewed her for
TCM's Private Screenings in April 2000; the interview first aired on July
18, 2000. The program was rerun as a memorial on the evening of her death.
Marriages
The actress's first marriage was to camera manufacturer Ted Briskin on September 3 1945; they divorced in 1950. Two daughters were born to the couple, Lindsay Diane Briskin (born
1946) and Candice Elizabeth Briskin (born 1948). Ted Briskin had a brief 21-day marriage to Joan
Dixon after this divorce. He died in 1980 in Los Angeles.
Hutton's second marriage was in 1952 to choreographer Charles O'Curran, and they divorced in
1955; he died in 1984.
Her third marriage was in 1955 to Alan W. Livingston, an executive with Capitol
Records, who had created Bozo the Clown; they divorced five years later, although some
accounts refer to this as a nine-month marriage.
Her fourth and final marriage was in 1960 to jazz trumpeter Pete Candoli, who was born
in 1923, a brother of Conte Candoli. Hutton and Candoli had one child, Carolyn Candoli
(born 1962) and then divorced in 1967 (although some accounts place the year as 1964).
Hutton lived near Palm Springs, California until her death due to
complications from colon cancer at 86 years of age. Carl Bruno, executor of her estate
and a long-term friend, told the Associated Press that she died on the evening of Sunday, March
11, 2007 Hutton is buried at Desert Memorial Park in Palm Springs, California. None of her
three daughters attended the funeral.
Hit songs
Filmography
Features
Short subjects
- Paramount Headliner: Queens of the Air (1938)
- Vincent Lopez and His Orchestra (1939)
- One for the Book (1939)
- Three Kings and a Queen (1939)
- Public Jitterbug Number One (1939)
- A Letter from Bataan (1942)
- Strictly G.I. (1943)
- Skirmish on the Home Front (1944)
- Hollywood Victory Caravan (1945)
Footnotes
References
External links
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