Betty Hutton: Professional Victim

Neither could anyone else in her life, including her three daughters who all refused to attend her funeral.

She never spoke highly of you either, OP.

[quote] Did this broad EVER stop whining? I can't stand her.

Then why the fuck are you watching old youtube clips of television shows featuring her from more than 40 years ago?

OP wipes back to front.

Oh, Betty, your ego took away your career....... And certainly what worked for audiences in the 1940's was not what they wanted in the 1950's.

You just kept doing the same thing and wondered why people didn't love you anymore.

Oh....and somebody asked a producer at Paramount if Betty was a nymphomaniac.....and the producer replied: "She would be, if we could slow her down."

This thread already has the hallmarks of a DL classic!

I could never STAND her.

Is it true that her mummified body graces a vault at the Palm Springs Art Museum?

The character of Neely O’Hara was an amalgam of Betty and Judy Garland.

She stopped whining in 2007.

Dead. Forgotten by all but the ancient.

She sounds quite disturbed in this interview.

Everybody knows Valley of the Dolls is a roman à clef and most people think Neely O'Hara is based on Judy Garland. In fact, Neely is a composite of Judy and Betty Hutton. The scene where Helen Lawson gets Neely fired for being too good is based on something that happened to Betty. Before she went to Hollywood, Betty had supporting role in a show starring Ethel Merman. Betty was stopping the nightly with her big song. Ethel didn't get Betty fired but she told the producers she'd walk if they didn't cut Betty's song. They did.

I'm 63 and I don't know who this woman is. How old does a person have to be to have heard of her?

Couldn’t stand her. I had to turn the volume off when I watched THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH because of her annoying voice.

I'm one of the few people who really enjoy her in Annie Get Your Gun. That and Preston Sturges' The Miracle of Morgan's Creek. Beyond that though I guess I do find her mainly annoying.

People think the gap between my teeth is sexy. Who the Hell is Betty?

Damn. That still...

R14 Obviously virtually nobody in DL went to see Betty Hutton movies when they were first released, since her heyday was the '40s and very early '50s. Many of us are old movie buffs, though, which is why we know about many movie people who predate us.

I could never stand her. Way too much- may have been more tolerable on stage, but even that I'm not sure of. The mugging, the quick movements, the eyes rolling around her head- and then every interview she did was "poor me! my children hate me!" Shaddup!

Is she the one that originally did "It's Oh So Quiet"?

She's very wonderful. Love her. But I'm sure as a person she went from narcissistic charmer to bat out of hell with a fair amount of frequency. When all 3 of your children hate you something is very wrong. At least Judy's children despite the unending torment she put them through didn't hate her.

I have to say the There’s no Business Like Show Business song in the above concert clip is very moving. If she had been a little less nuts, she might have had a hit evening at Carnegie Hall or something that would have given her a comeback a la Elaine Stritch

Reading the responses to this thread about Hutton; they’re all frauen, obviously.

"Is it true that her mummified body graces a vault at the Palm Springs Art Museum?"

No, that's Goldie Hawn. And she's not technically "mummified" yet.

Betty Hutton was a bi-polar nightmare. I don't blame her for complaining about her shitty life, I blame those who had her on to complain about her shitty life.

Fuck you OP. She struggled with mental illness. What's your excuse?

Things are not always what they seem, kid: "Hutton was cast in a Broadway show, Two for the Show (1940), which ran for 124 performances. The show was produced by Buddy DeSylva, who then cast Hutton in Panama Hattie (1940–42). This was a major hit, running for 501 performances.[4] It starred Ethel Merman; despite rumors through the years that Merman demanded from envy that Hutton's musical numbers be reduced from the show, more careful reports demonstrate that producer Buddy DeSylva chose to cut just one song of three, "They Ain't Done Right by Our Nell", due to Hutton's "always in overdrive" performance style."

Yes, Hutton was left with another solo number and a duet. But neither were showstoppers the way her cut song was.

R73 She was annoying as hell. "Waaah my daughters dont speak to me waaah!" Shaddup and go see a shrink.

I hope Our Miss Heard doesn’t end up like this - drunken, live in cook at a monastery.

[...]

Her interview with Bob Osborne was nice. I can't find a link - but it may be out there or onDemand somewhere.

I remember at one point in that interview, she talked about how badly she was treated during the filming of "Annie Get Your Gun," saying it was because everyone wanted Judy Garland in the role and not her. She said that the experience was so terrible that she never made another movie. Bob Osborne gently reminded her that she went on to make "The Greatest Show on Earth." It was a nice interview, as R33 said, but I think by then Betty had blurred fact and fiction for so long, even she wasn't sure which was which.

R33 R34 I also saw that interview. He was VERY kind to her. I actually felt sorry for her, especially when she mentioned she was (once again) estranged from her daughters. I wonder what made her daughters pull away from her? They've never spoken publicly about their mother.

^^ That looks like Tan Mom

The first time I saw the interview I came across it in the middle of it, unaware that Robert Osborne had interviewed Betty Hutton. I immediately thought, "Who is this old lady?" I didn't recognize her at all. Then when he mentioned, I think, "Annie Get Your Gun," I realized who it was, and was shocked.

She seemed like a fun, kooky person, and was a boisterous and lively performer. Definitely a better fit for the stage than film. I have always assumed her daughters' estrangement from her had to do with her being a terrible alcoholic and prescription drug addict for many years.

Anyone encounter her in-person when she lived in the Palm Springs area?

In the TCM interview, she certainly seemed like handful and a bundle of nerves and pent-up energy.

Betty was a showstopper - bombastic!!

In the Osbore interview she is always wiping her mouth. I don't blame for her wanting to spit in his face.

Re The Greatest Show On Earth (see title sequence on youtube) she was top billed over everyone - Charlton Heston, Jimmy Stewart, Gloria Grahame, etc. That was shocking to see and I always wondered why. As for that movie it's being seen a lot now thanks to The Fabelmans.

Whatever one may think of her, she was naturally charismatic. This is a pure joy:

R33 r34 r35 r37 Someone has finally posted that Robert Osborne interview of her since those comments were made.

I know Hutton was more goofy and bombastic than she was glamorous and elegant, but I’m sort of surprised she doesn’t have more fanfare on DL. She was talented (phenomenal in The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, and gave a solid dramatic performance in The Greatest Show on Earth), and her life was riddled with tragedy; she didn’t die young and dramatically like Garland, but they had similar upbringings and struggles that paralleled each other. Hutton claims she and Garland became friends while performing in Las Vegas, and spent a lot of time together.

Hutton’s rise to fame was quite meteoric, and she went out in a ball of fire almost as quickly as she’d arrived. TCM once described her career downturn as “one of the grimmest declines in Hollywood history”, which is really saying something.

A random fun fact about Hutton: While she was studying for her Master's degree in psychology at Salva Regina University (in her 60s!), she became friends with 20-year-old classmate Kristin Hersh of Throwing Muses, and attended some of the band's concerts. Imagining Hutton in the crowd at an alternative rock show in the late '80s is beyond funny to me. They apparently remained friends and Hersh recalled her with a great deal of fondness. Seems like a cool lady.

R43. Thanks for that fantastic clip.

Betty was great. There really is no denying this. She had IT!

I love how Betty uses her entire hand to push back her glasses. Often. For this alone she should be a DL icon.

She was apparently a hurricane onstage early in her Broadway career. Per a Variety article from 1950:

[quote]During the show's run, hardworking, hard-cussing acress Hutton spared her fellow performers no more than she spared herself. She thrashed about so violently that once she catapulted off the stage and onto a drummer in the orchestra pit. In a number that required her to maul Keenan Wynn, she once toed him into a dead faint, forced him to take to protective padding. Among her later victims: Bob Hope, whose teeth caps she sent scattering over a soundstage floor during a bit of jujitsu; Cinemactor Frank Faylen, whom she knocked out with a right to the jaw when the director demanded realism; Eddie Bracken, who, in a saloon scene, caught a Hutton slap on the back that looped him over the bar and into a heap on the other side. "When they work with me," crows Betty, "they gotta get insurance policies."

Here she is in Annie. Not as bad as I expected, but no Dorothy Loudon.

Lots of energy - really too, too much though - but with a good heart. People like Betty are impossible to live with - a human tornado whipping up lots of chaos and destruction. I'm glad she found solace in her faith, however, it seems she never was completely free of a plaguing anxiety. I think of my own mom in watching her interview - beautiful, talented, troubled. Rest in Peace.