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Betty Hutton

I knew nothing of “Annie Get Your Gun” and “The Greatest Show on Earth” actress/singer/dancer Betty Hutton (1921-2007) until I saw recently a 2000 interview with her on a classic movies channel. Beautiful and enormously talented, she rose quickly to fame in the 1940‘s and 50‘s, then disappeared for 40 years or so, suffering through four marriages, fighting long losing bouts with alcohol and drug addiction, attempting suicide, and ending up as a cook in a soup kitchen where she came to Christ for salvation. Her early public life was glamorous, while in her private life, she suffered horribly the absence of her father who had abandoned the family when she was a child, and then the neglect of her mother who was a bootlegger and alcoholic. It was said by those closest to her that her career was one long fearful, desperate cry for the love she felt she never got at home. The reports of her death in 2007 noted she was buried in a small cemetery in Florida and that her children (three daughters) were not present.

Don Loy Whisnant/Journey Notes 8F05
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