Betty Hutton

Betty Hutton earned acclaim as one of the most adaptable and dynamic figures in show business, moving fluidly between band vocals, Broadway and off-Broadway productions, motion pictures, live stage work, and nightclub appearances while demonstrating equal strength in comedy, drama, and musical performance.

Born Betty June in Battle Creek, Michigan, to a railroad employee and a homemaker, she grew up alongside her sister Marion Hutton, who later gained recognition singing with the Modernaires and the Glenn Miller Orchestra. After her father abandoned the family in 1923, her mother relocated everyone to Detroit in search of improved circumstances. Hutton began performing at age nine in a school program; with her mother’s support she soon sang in beer gardens and with local and resort ensembles. A 1936 trip to Broadway proved unsuccessful, prompting her return to Detroit after she was informed she would never succeed.

Refusing to abandon her goals, she kept singing and dancing in Detroit clubs until Vincent Lopez discovered her at the Continental Club and hired her for his orchestra under the name Betty Darling. In 1939 she appeared in several short musical films: One for the Book with Hal Sherman, Three Kings and a Queen, and Public Jitterbug #1 featuring Chaz Chase, Hal LeRoy, and Emerson’s Sextette. Persistence finally brought her to Broadway in 1940, where she made her debut in Two for the Show alongside then-unknown performers Eve Arden, Alfred Drake, Richard Haydn, Tommy Wonder, and Keenan Wynn.

Her rising profile led to a meeting with producer B.G. DeSylva, who cast her in his musical Panama Hattie; there she performed the songs “Fresh as a Daisy,” “They Ain’t Doin’ Right by Our Nell,” and “All I Gotta Get Is My Man,” sharing the stage with chorus members Lucille Bremer, Janis Carter, and Vera Ellen. When DeSylva assumed control of Paramount in 1941, her screen career expanded rapidly; over the next eleven years she completed fourteen films, including Happy Go Lucky, Annie Get Your Gun with Howard Keel, Let’s Dance with Fred Astaire, and The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek. Following a disagreement with the studio in 1952 she left Hollywood, choosing instead to concentrate on Broadway, concerts, nightclubs, and recordings.

She opened a three-week engagement at London’s Palladium Theater without revisiting earlier disappointments. In 1953 she returned to New York for a run at the Palace Theater accompanied by the Skylarks and comedian Dick Shawn, offering audiences many of her motion-picture successes and earning strong critical praise. During the following twelve years she made numerous television appearances on programs such as Gunsmoke and Burke’s Law. In 1967 her mother’s death and her own bankruptcy brought a period of hardship.

Rebuilding her life, she enrolled at Salve Regina University in 1974, earned a bachelor’s degree, completed a master’s soon afterward, and received an honorary Ph.D. With renewed energy she began teaching acting and singing classes at the university. In 1985 the Musical Theater Society of Emerson College in Boston presented her with an Award of Achievement for her contributions to musical theater.

Despite repeated setbacks, Hutton remained celebrated for the breadth of her singing and dancing skills. She died in Palm Springs, California, on March 12, 2007, at the age of 86.