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Betty Hutton
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Betty Hutton was born Elizabeth June Thornburg in Battle Creek, Mich., on Feb. 26, 1921, the daughter of Percy Thornburg, a railroad brakeman, and Mabel Lum Thornburg. In the early 1920s, Mr. Thornburg left town with another woman, and Mrs. Thornburg took her children to Lansing and finally to Detroit, where she got a job in the automobile industry for 22 cents an hour. To make ends meet, she sold homemade beer to Prohibition violators. Betty and her sister, Marion, sang for the customers.
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Betty Hutton was a truly talented woman. She could have done more great musicals, but the era was ending. Plus, Betty got a lot of unfair flack for replacing Judy Garland in Annie Get Your Gun. But Betty had a comic flair that Judy couldn't match. That's not to say Judy didn't have enormous talent. I'm just saying Betty Hutton has been missed.
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In 1940 Betty Hutton had one of her biggest successes with the film version of Annie Get Your Gun, in which she starred opposite Howard Keel. Convinced she was perfect for the part, she succeeded in persuading the director George Sidney, who had already signed Judy Garland. He arranged for Betty Hutton to be loaned to MGM to make the film. Although critics complained that her performance "left the audience deaf and dazed at the violence of her attack" and was "so overpowering you forgot to listen to the songs", the public disagreed and the film was a box office success.
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From All Movie Guide: As a child, American actress Betty Hutton, born Elizabeth Thornburg in 1921, sang on street corners to help support her family after her father died. She was singing with bands by the time she was 13, eventually becoming the vocalist for the Vincent Lopez orchestra. Because of her exuberance and energy, she became known as "The Blonde Bombshell." She debuted on Broadway in Two for the Show in 1940, then in 1941, signed a film contract with Paramount. Hutton debuted onscreen in The Fleet's In (1942), and for the next decade appeared in tailor-made comedic roles and occasional dramatic roles. She sabotaged her own career in 1952... when she demanded that her husband (choreographer Charles O'Curran) direct her films; the studio refused and she walked out on her contract, after which she appeared in only one more film.
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Despite her huge early success, Betty Hutton's film career was largely over by the mid-1950s. She tried to revive it in 1966 with a role in Red Tomahawk but walked out of rehearsals before filming began. For the next seven years she lived in relative obscurity in an attempt to overcome her addictions. She reappeared in 1974 (having converted to Catholicism) working as a cook and housekeeper at a Catholic refectory in Providence, Rhode Island. Rumours that she wanted to become a nun were quashed by her employer, Father Peter. "She's been married four times," he explained.
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Betty Hutton was best known in her 1940s heyday for her galvanic musical performances in movies like "Annie Get Your Gun'' (where she replaced an ailing Judy Garland). But contemporary buffs worship her for a non-musical, Preston Sturges' "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek'' (1944), arguably the funniest movie ever made. Subverting the Production Code, she plays the immortal Trudy Kockenlocker, a small-town girl who goes on a bender with some GI's, becomes pregnant, and can't remember who the father is! So she tricks the town schnook, played by Eddie Bracken, into marrying her, and ends up becoming an international celebrity. Lawyer for Viacom, who sued You Tube for $1 billion today have seemingly already purged all clips of "Morgan's Creek'', but here's a link to "Murder He Says,'' a number she performed for a USO short. Warning: turn the volume way down before attempting to play this at work.
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Betty Hutton