Betty Hutton dies

13-03-2007 20:00

'Annie Get Your Gun' star Betty Hutton has died aged 86.The actress-and-singer's death in Palm Springs, California, was confirmed yesterday (12.03.07) by an anonymous friend of the star who refused to provide any further details, including the time and cause of death.Carl Bruno, the executor of her estate, said: "I can neither confirm or deny the report. I'll be happy to talk about it tomorrow afternoon (13.03.07)." Betty was renowned in Hollywood for her vivacious personality and sense of humour.Many of her films were biopics, including 'Incendiary Blonde' about actress and nightclub queen Texas Guinan, 'Perils of Pauline' about silent-screen serial heroine Pearl White, and 'Somebody Loves Me' about singer Blossom Seeley.'Annie Get Your Gun' was the Irving Berlin musical biography of Annie Oakley, with Betty playing the part Ethel Merman had made famous on Broadway. Betty got the role when Judy Garland dropped out.In 1950, Time magazine wrote: "Betty Hutton, who is not remarkably pretty, by movie standards, nor a remarkably good singer or dancer, has a vividly unique personality in a town that tends to reduce beauty and talent to mass-produced patterns. Watching her in action has some of the fascination of waiting for a wildly sputtering fuse to touch off an alarmingly large firecracker."