BETTY HUTTON

Betty Hutton (February 26, 1921 – March 11, 2007)^[1] was an American stage, film, and television actress, comedienne and singer.

[edit]Early life

Hutton was born Elizabeth June Thornburg, daughter of a railroad foreman, Percy E. Thornburg (1896–1939) and his wife, Mabel Lum (1901–1967).^[2] While she was very young, her father abandoned the family for another woman. They did not hear of him again until they received a telegram in 1939, informing them of his suicide. Along with her older sister Marion, Betty was raised by her mother, who took the surname Hutton and was later billed as the actress Sissy Jones.

The three started singing in the family's speakeasy when Betty was 3 years old. Troubles with the police kept the family on the move. They eventually landed in Detroit, Michigan. (On one occasion, when Betty, preceded by a police escort, arrived at the premiere of Let's Dance (1950), her mother, arriving with her, quipped, "At least this time the police are in front of us!") Hutton sang in several local bands as a teenager, and at one point visited New York Cityhoping 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 the entertainment business. In 1939 she appeared in several musical shorts for Warner Bros., and appeared in a supporting role on Broadway in Panama Hattie^[3] (starring Ethel Merman) and Two for the Show,^[4] both produced byBuddy DeSylva.

[edit]Career

When DeSylva became a producer at Paramount Pictures, Hutton was signed to a featured role in The Fleet's In (1942), starring Paramount's number one female star Dorothy Lamour. Hutton was an instant hit with the movie-going public. Paramount did not immediately promote her to major stardom, however, but did give her second leads in a Mary Martin film musical, Star Spangled Rhythm (1943), and another Lamour film. In 1943 she was given co-star billing with Bob Hope inLet's Face It and with the release of The Miracle of Morgan's Creek the following year, Hutton attained major stardom. By the time Incendiary Blonde was released in 1945, she had supplanted Lamour as Paramount's number one female box office attraction.

Hutton made 19 films from 1942 to 1952 including the hugely popular The Perils of Pauline in 1947. She was billed above 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, with the leading role retooled for Hutton, was a smash hit, with the biggest critical praise going to Hutton. (Her obituary in The New York Timesdescribed her as "a brassy, energetic performer with a voice that could sound like a fire alarm.")^[5] Among her lesser known roles was an unbilled cameo in Sailor Beware (1952) with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, in which she portrayed Dean's girlfriend, Hetty Button.

In 1944, she signed a recording contract with Capitol Records (she was one of the earliest artists to do so). Later she became disillusioned with Capitol's management and moved to RCA Victor.

Her career as a Hollywood star ended due to a contract dispute with Paramount following the Oscar-winning The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) and Somebody Loves Me (1952), a biography of singer Blossom Seeley. The New York Times reported that the dispute resulted from 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, Spring Reunion, released in 1957, a drama in which she gave an understated, sensitive performance. Unfortunately, box office receipts indicated the public did not want to see a subdued Hutton.

Hutton in the trailer for
Annie Get Your Gun (1950)

Hutton got work in radio, appeared in Las Vegas and in nightclubs, then tried her luck in the new medium of television. In 1954, TV producer Max Liebman, of Your Show of Shows, fashioned his first "Color Spectacular" as an original musical written especially for Hutton, Satins and Spurs.^[6] It was an enormous flop with the public and the critics, despite being one of the first programs televised nationally by NBC in compatible color. In 1957, she appeared on aDinah Shore show on NBC that also featured Boris Karloff; the program has been preserved on a kinescope. Desilu Productions took a chance on Hutton in 1959, giving her a sitcom, The Betty Hutton Show, directed by Jerry Fielding.^[7]It quickly faded.

Hutton began headlining in Las Vegas and touring across the country. She returned to Broadway briefly in 1964 when she temporarily replaced a hospitalized Carol Burnett in the show Fade Out – Fade In.^[8] In 1967 she was signed to star in two low-budget westerns for Paramount, but was fired shortly after the projects began. In the 1970s she portrayed Miss Hannigan in the original Broadway production of Annie while Alice Ghostley was on vacation.

[edit]Marriages

Hutton's first marriage was to camera manufacturer Ted Briskin on September 3, 1945. The marriage ended in divorce in 1950. Two daughters were born to the couple, Lindsay Diane Briskin (born 1946) and Candice Elizabeth Briskin (born 1948).

Hutton's second marriage in 1952 was to choreographer Charles O'Curran. They divorced in 1955. He died in 1984.

She married for the third time in 1955. Husband Alan W. Livingston, an executive with Capitol Records, was the creator of Bozo the Clown. They divorced five years later, although some accounts refer to the union as a nine-month marriage.

Her fourth and final marriage in 1960 was to jazz trumpeter Pete Candoli, a brother of Conte Candoli. Hutton and Candoli had one child, Carolyn Candoli (born 1962) and then divorced in 1967 (some accounts place the year as 1964).

[edit]Life after Hollywood

With American sailors and Marines in theMarshall Islands in December 1944

After the 1967 death of her mother in a house fire and the collapse of her last marriage, Hutton's depression and pill addictions escalated. She divorced her fourth husband, jazz trumpeter Pete Candoli, and declared bankruptcy. Hutton had a nervous breakdown and later attempted suicide after losing her singing voice in 1970. After regaining control of her life through rehab, and the mentorship of a Roman Catholic priest, Father Peter Maguire, Hutton converted toRoman Catholicism and took a job as a cook at a rectory in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. She made national headlines when it was revealed she was working in a rectory.

In 1974, a well-publicized "Love-In for Betty Hutton" was held at New York City's Riverboat Restaurant, emceed by comedian Joey Adams, with several old Hollywood pals on hand. The event raised $10,000 (USD) for Hutton and gave her spirits a big boost. Steady work, unfortunately, still eluded her.

Hutton appeared in an interview with Mike Douglas and a brief guest appearance in 1975 on Baretta. In 1977, Hutton was featured on The Phil Donahue Show. Hutton was then happily employed as hostess at a Newport, Rhode Island jai alai arena.

She also appeared on Good Morning America, which led to a 1978 televised reunion with her two daughters. Hutton began living in a shared home with her divorced daughter and grandchildren in California, but returned to the East Coast for a three week return to the stage. She followed Dorothy Loudon as the evil Miss Hannigan in Annie on Broadway ^[9]in 1980. Hutton's rehearsal of the song "Little Girls" was featured on Good Morning America.

A ninth grade drop-out, Hutton went back to school and earned a 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.^[10] Hersh would later write the song "Elizabeth June" as a tribute to her friend, and wrote about their relationship in further detail in her memoir, Rat Girl.^[11]

Her last known performance, in any medium, was on Jukebox Saturday Night, which aired on PBS in 1983.^[12] Hutton stayed in New England and began teaching comedic acting at Boston's Emerson College. She became estranged again from her daughters.

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 grow closer with 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.^[13]

[edit]Death

Betty Hutton's headstone atDesert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California. Her epitaph reads "Loved by All".

Hutton lived in Palm Springs, California until her death, at 86, from colon cancer complications.^[5][14] Hutton is buried at Desert Memorial Park^[15] in Cathedral City, California.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Betty Hutton has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6253Hollywood Boulevard.

SOVIET STORM FULLY LOADED

TINSELTOWN DIGEST 24

In what may be the unlikeliest geriatric star turn since Betty White hosted "Saturday Night Live" at the age of 89, the hottest thing on the movie scene right now is a format that was pronounced dead more than 80 years ago: silent film.

Martin Scorsese sent a love letter to the silent era in "Hugo," his enchanting 3-D movie about a boy who befriends the French film pioneer Georges Melies. Scorsese filled the movie with actual film clips, references and re-creations of the works of, among others, the Lumiere brothers, D.W. Griffith, the Edison Co., Buster Keaton, Louise Brooks and -- of course -- Melies, whose most famous film was "A Trip to the Moon."

In his audacious "The Artist," which opened Friday at the Cedar Lee Theatre, French writer-director Michel Hazanavicius went even further: The movie is not merely a paean to silent films, it actually is a silent film, in black-and-white, no less.

Critics raved about the two movies, and, after racking up six nominations for Golden Globes, both are expected to show up in several categories when the Oscar nominations are announced later this month.

"The Artist," which takes place during the period in which Hollywood made the switch to talkies, recalls the plot of the 1952 musical "Singin' in the Rain," with elements of "A Star Is Born" thrown into the mix.

The title character is a swashbuckling matinee idol named George Valentin (Jean Dujardin). He's one of Hollywood's biggest stars when he meets Peppy Miller (B r nice Bejo), an adorable, young extra in one of his movies. They fall in love, and with his help she becomes a star, too -- but in the talkies, which he refuses to make. As her star rises, his falls, into a deep chasm of drinking and despair.

Valentin's name suggests, of course, that the character was modeled on Rudolph Valentino. But Valentino died in 1926, before he had to face the challenge of talkies. The most likely inspiration is John Gilbert, who was not only one of the biggest stars at MGM in the '20s, but also, with Greta Garbo, formed the Brangelina of the silent era.

They fell in love while making "Flesh and the Devil," released in 1927. Gilbert was a bigger star than Garbo, who had arrived in Hollywood from Sweden in 1925 and had made just two movies in America, so he got top billing. The movie, which features one of the most famous kisses in screen history, was a sensation, in part because the public swooned over the stars' real romance.

They went on to co-star in "Love," an adaptation of "Anna Karenina" so loose it replaced Tolstoy's tragic ending with a happy one, in which Anna lives. Their affair was over by the time they made their third movie, "A Woman of Affairs," released in 1928.

Unlike the hero of "The Artist," Gilbert willingly made the transition into talkies. His first was "Hollywood Revue of 1929," in which he played the balcony scene from "Romeo and Juliet" with Norma Shearer.

One reviewer said the scene was "excellent," and Gilbert went on to make 10 full-length talkies over the next five years. Some of these got good reviews, but more of them were panned, and his star dropped quickly -- not because of his voice, writes Jeanine Basinger in her essential book "Silent Stars" but because his intense romantic acting style did not adapt well to the more natural talkies.

Meanwhile, Garbo's star rose. "Garbo Talks!" exclaimed the ads for her first talkie, the 1930 "Anna Christie." Her first line: "Give me a visky, chincher ale on the side, and don't be stingy, baby."

The movie was the highest-grossing of 1930, laying to rest any worries MGM had about her accent not going over well with audiences.

When Gilbert began to decline into solitude and alcoholism, Garbo loyally insisted that he be cast opposite her in 1933's "Queen Christina," but it did not help his career. It was his penultimate movie; he made his last, "The Captain Hates the Sea," in 1934.

He continued drinking heavily, and two years later he had a sudden heart attack and died. He was 38 years old.

Garbo went on to become one of Hollywood's greatest stars of all time, an international force. But she retired in 1941, when she was only 36, after the disappointing and critically panned "Two-Faced Woman," a picture she called "my grave." She had made 27 films.

Garbo triumphed in the talkies; Gilbert faltered. What about the other stars of the silent screen?

With a few notable exceptions, Basinger writes, by the end of 1927, it was essentially over for the silent film stars of the teens and early '20s. (The ones who came to stardom just before the advent of sound, such as Joan Crawford, fared better.)

The exceptions Basinger cites are Garbo, John Barrymore, Ronald Colman and William Powell. But what happened to the others?

Gloria Swanson

With her devastating performance in "Sunset Boulevard" in 1950, Swanson embodied the image of the silent star left behind by the talkies. She was 50 years old, her career a speck in the rearview mirror, when Billy Wilder cast her as the haughty, delusional Norma Desmond, a discarded silent star who still plots her comeback as the star of a Cecil B. DeMille picture.

Swanson reigned as a star and diva from 1919 -- when DeMille discovered her -- until 1930. She tended to play modern, independent women who shook up the status quo, and off-screen, she was just as outspoken and liberated. She lived lavishly, married six times and had a notorious affair with Joseph Kennedy Sr.

She successfully made the switch to talkies, even singing in her first, "The Trespasser," in 1929. But her career foundered anyway, and she stopped making movies after 1934. "I was a star at 21," she said, "and a has-been at 33."

"Sunset Boulevard" was her big comeback, and led to a few movies in the '50s and '60s. Her final movie was "Airport 1975."

Joan Crawford

Crawford was a chorus girl named Billie Cassin (her real name was Lucille LeSueur) before she headed to Hollywood in 1925. She landed her first film role that year, a bit part in "Pretty Ladies." Before her second, a Photoplay contest renamed her Joan Crawford. She became a star in "Our Dancing Daughters," in 1928. Her strong voice helped her make the leap to sound pictures, in 1929, with "Untamed," a big success.

In the early '30s, she was one of MGM's top stars, but by the '40s her career slumped. She had to jump ship to Warner Bros. to get her big role in the 1945 "Mildred Pierce," which won her an Oscar. She was nominated, but did not win, for her roles in "Possessed" in 1947 and "Sudden Fear" in 1952.

Her career slowed after that, but she had a comeback in 1962's "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" The campy drama had the added gimmick of casting her opposite her longtime nemesis, Bette Davis. Her final movie was "Trog" in 1970.

Douglas Fairbanks Sr.

Fairbanks, born in 1883, was just 16 when he went on tour with a traveling Shakespeare company, and the next year he was on Broadway. His first movie was the 1915 comedy "The Lamb," whichalready showed the happy-go-lucky, daring, can-do comic persona that made him a star.

He made 29 films between 1915 and 1920. Then came "The Mark of Zorro" in 1920, which was an absolute sensation and broadened his identity into the swashbuckling hero, which he would play through the rest of the silent era in such hits as "The Thief of Baghdad" in 1924.

In 1920, his personal life changed, too, when he married Mary Pickford, who was an even bigger star (and was also his partner in United Artists, with Griffith and Charlie Chaplin).

"They were the richest, the most famous, the most talented and successful, and the most physically beautiful and beloved of their era," Basinger writes. They were the king and queen of Hollywood, living in splendor at their estate, Pickfair.

Fairbanks and Pickford made only one movie together, and it was his first talkie, "The Taming of the Shrew," in 1929. He had a good voice, but he was 46 -- quite old by Hollywood standards of the time -- and his style was not suited to talkies. The movie did not do well. He made only four more movies, his final one in 1934.

He and Pickford divorced in 1936, and he died in 1939, only 56 years old.

Mary Pickford

Pickford was America's Sweetheart and, with Fairbanks and Chaplin, one of the Big Three of the silent era.

Like Fairbanks, she started her career young, and in theater: She was 6 when she made her debut, 14 when she talked her way onto the Broadway stage, and 17 in 1909 when she made her first movie, "Her First Biscuits," at Griffith's Biograph Studios.

She worked hard and constantly; by the age of 20 she had appeared in 176 short films. "I decided that if I could get into as many pictures as possible, I'd become known," she later said, "and there would be a demand for my work."

She was right. She left Griffith, returned briefly to Broadway, and then joined Adolph Zukor's studio, which later became Paramount. The 1914 "Hearts Adrift" was a huge hit, followed just five weeks later by "Tess of the Storm Country," which made her the most popular actress in America.

She was also the most powerful: In 1919, she formed United Artists with Chaplin, Griffith and Fairbanks, and the following year she married Fairbanks and also made "Pollyanna," her biggest success yet, grossing over $1 million.

She didn't like the idea of talkies. "Adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the Venus de Milo," she famously said, but her first talkie, the 1929 "Coquette," was a success and earned her the Oscar for best actress.

She followed with the disappointing "The Taming of the Shrew," with Fairbanks and made only two more movies after that. She recognized that her time was over, and decided to end her career with "Secrets," in 1933. She was 41 years old.

After divorcing Fairbanks, in 1937 she married her co-star from "My Best Girl," Buddy Rogers. That marriage lasted 42 years, until her death in 1979

NYC - 1980's

New Photography /

Awesome gritty photos of 1980s New York

J

I first moved to New York in 2006, and it was exciting enough to live in that great Metropolis even then. But the long termers often referred to how different the city was from it’s gritty, dirty, crime-ridden, erm, glory days back in the 1980s. Steven Siegel knows it. His documentary photos from that era cast a New York that was overrun with graffiti, litter, and interesting people, a long way removed from the more sanitised version of the city most of us experience these days. 

THE RFEAL AMERICAN GANGSTERS

THE REAL BONNIE AND CLYDE

I HAD A DREAM 2

Danny Lyon

When a group of young women in rural Georgia were placed under lock and key after protesting segregation at the local library, photos like the one above, which was snapped through the bars by new journalism pioneer Danny Lyon, helped secure their release.

Ernest Withers

Ernest C. Withers courtesy Smithsonian Institution

Ernest Withers, nicknamed the Original Civil Rights Photographer, captured some of the most important moments of the movement on film — from King riding on one of the first desegregated buses in Montgomery to the murder trial of Emmett Till. He was also, apparently, telling the FBI everything that they wanted to know about various civil rights leaders in the Memphis community the whole time

Gene Herrick

Gene Herrick, Mrs. King Kisses Rev. King after Boycott Guilty Verdict, March 22, 1956. Gelatin silver print, printed later. 9 x 13 inches. Courtesy of Stephen Kasher Gallery

This amazing candid 1956 shot of King and his wife was captured by Associated Press shutterbug Gene Herrick, who was also in Montgomery to document Rosa Parks’ arrest one month earlier. “I took pictures of both events, two of which have been highly publicized,” he has said. “The picture of Reverend King shows him being kissed on the cheek by his wife as they come down the courthouse steps after his release after his hearing, and the one of Rosa Parks being 

Jack Thornell

Jack Thornell. James Meredith, wounded by a shotgun blast, sprawled on a highway near Hernando, Mississippi, June 6, 1966.

26-year-old Associated Press photographer Jack Thornell famously captured this Pulitzer Prize-winning image of James Meredith, the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi, after he was wounded by a sniper while leading a march to encourage African Americans to vote. When the attack happened, Thornell was sitting in hid car waiting for a photographer from Life to bring him a Coke; he took two rolls of pictures of Meredith, but never put down his camera to offer his wounded subject help.

James Karales

James Karales, Selma-to-Montgomery March for Voting Rights in 1965, 1965. Photographic print. Located in the James Karales Collection, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University. Photograph © Estate of James Karales

James Karales, a staff photographer at Look magazine in the 1960s, documented the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965. In his 2002 obit, The New York Times called the iconic photo above, “a pictorial anthem of the civil rights movement,” praising “the power and poetry that he packed into a seemingly casual picture

I HAD A DREAM

The iconic imagery surrounding the civil rights movement, while problematic for some, is unquestionably powerful, especially for those of us who weren’t around to witness this important chapter in American history firsthand. These pictures not only made plain the gross inequality between races in our country; in many cases, they served as the much-needed public awareness catalyst needed to pass vita legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In honor of Martin Luther King Day, we’ve rounded up a handful of important photographers from the era, along with some of their most iconic shots. Feel free to keep our list going in the comments!

Bill Hudson

Associated Press photographer Bill Hudson is perhaps best known for capturing this galvanizing image of Parker High School student Walter Gadsden being attacked by police dogs in Birmingham, Alabama on May 3, 1963; a three column-spanning version of the shocking photo ran above the fold in The New York Times the following day.

Bob Adelman

Bob Adelman, Kelly Ingram Park, Birmingham, 1963. Gelatin silver print. © Bob Adelman

A close pal of both Andy Warhol and Samuel Becket, Bob Adelman studied his craft under famedHarper’s Bazaar art director Alexey Brodovitch. A position as a photographer for the Congress of Racial Equality gave him access to some of the biggest names and events of the civil rights era. He described the frightening scene at Birmingham’s Kelly Ingram Park, captured in the photo above, as so: “The police and firemen used a brute show of force to try to stop the ongoing demonstrations. It didn’t work on this day. Rather than fleeing, the protestors hung on to each other and were able to stand up to the full fury of the water, though not without casualties. I have never witnessed such cruelty. There was almost as much moisture behind the lens as in front

Bruce Davidson

Bruce Davidson, Time of Change, 1962. © Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos

Bruce Davidson chronicled the effects of the civil rights movement on the people of the north and south, creating an impressive body of work that earned him a Guggenheim Fellowship, an exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and the first ever photography grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Charles Moore

Charles Moore, Arrest of Dr. Martin Luther King, 1958. ©Charles Moore/Blackstar/Eyevine

Known for documenting King’s rise as a civil rights leader, Charles Moore got his start as a photographer for the the Montgomery Advertiser and the Montgomery Journal, and would later to go on to shoot for Life magazine. The image above depicts King’s arrest for loitering in Montgomery in 1958; Moore was the only person on scene with a camera to document it.

Dan Budnik

Dan Budnik, March on Washington, 1963. © Dan Budnik 1999. The Menil Collection, Houston, gift of Adelaide de Menil Carpenter and Edmund Carpenter Photo: © Hester + Hardaway Photographers Fayetteville Texas

Famed photographer Dan Budnik, who shot images of everyone from President Dwight D. Eisenhower to Henri Cartier-Bresson in his 25 years with Magnum, documented the Selma to Montgomery March in a photo essay for Life magazine, as well as the Youth March for Integrated Schools and the March on Washington. The image of King above was snapped just moments after he delivered the “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial