Betty Hutton interview

Posted on 30. Jan, 2010 by quynhgiao in Celebrities, Singers

Betty Hutton is interviewed by Robert Osborne for ‘Private Screenings’.

About Betty Hutton

Betty Hutton (February 26, 1921 – March 11, 2007) was an American stage, film, and television actress and singer.

Career

When DeSylva became a producer at Paramount Pictures, Hutton was signed to a featured role in The Fleet’s In (1942) which starred Paramount’s number one female star Dorothy Lamour. Hutton made an instant impact with the moviegoing public, but Paramount did not immediately promote her to major stardom. It gave her second leads in a Mary Martin film musical, Star Spangled Rhythm (1943), and another Lamour film before casting Hutton as the co-star of Bob Hope in Let’s Face It (1943). Following the release of The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944), Hutton was indisputably a major star, and with the release of Incendiary Blonde (1945), she had supplanted Lamour as Paramount’s number one female box office attraction.

Hutton made 19 films 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 came in Annie Get Your Gun (1950) for MGM, which hired her 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 Hutton. (Her obituary in The New York Times described her as “a brassy, energetic performer with a voice that could sound like a fire alarm.”) Hutton, however, like Garland, was earning a reputation for being extremely difficult.

In 1944, she signed with Capitol Records, one of the earliest artists to do so, but became unhappy with its management and later signed with RCA Victor. Among her many films was an unbilled cameo in Sailor Beware (1952) with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, in which she portrayed Dean’s girlfriend, Hetty Button.

Her time as a Hollywood star came to an end due to contract disagreements with Paramount following the Oscar-winning 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’s last completed film was a small one, 1957′s Spring Reunion. She gave an understated, sensitive performance in the drama, but box office receipts seemed to show that the public didn’t accept a subdued Hutton.

Hutton in the trailer for

Annie Get Your Gun (1950)

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 and 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. Hutton returned to Broadway briefly when she temporarily replaced a hospitalized Carol Burnett in the show Fade Out – Fade In in 1964. 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 (sleeping pills), 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. Renewed interest was generated in a well-publicized “Love-In for Betty Hutton” held at New York City’s Riverboat Restaurant, emceed by comedian Joey Adams, with several old Hollywood pals on hand. The 1974 event raised $10,000 (USD) for Hutton and gave her spirits a big boost. Steady work, unfortunately, still eluded her. She appeared in an interview with Mike Douglas and a brief guest appearance in 1975 on Baretta.

After regaining control of her life through rehab, and the mentorship of a Roman Catholic priest, Father Peter Maguire, Hutton converted to Roman Catholicism and took a job as a cook at a rectory in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. A 9th grade drop-out, Hutton went back to school and later received her Master’s Degree in psychology from Salve Regina University. During her time at college, Hutton became friends with Kristin Hersh and attended several early Throwing Muses concerts. Hersh would later write Elizabeth June as a tribute to her friend. Hutton went on to work as a casino hostess, charity counselor and acting teacher into the late 1980s.

Hutton followed Dorothy Loudon as the evil Miss Hannigan in Annie on Broadway in 1980. Her last known performance in any medium was on Jukebox Saturday Night, which aired on PBS in 1983. After the death of her ally Father Maguire, Hutton returned to California, moving to Palm Springs in 1999 after decades in New England. Hutton hoped to become closer to her daughters and grandchildren, as she told Robert Osborne on TCM’s Private Screenings in April 2000, though her children remained distant. She told Osborne that she understood their hesitancy to accept a now elderly mother. The TCM interview first aired on July 18, 2000. The program was rerun as a memorial on the evening of her death in 2007, and again on July 11, 2008, April 14, 2009 and as recently as January 26, 2010.