SONG OF THE DAY

“Mur­der, He Says” by Betty Hut­ton (1943).

WHERE I HEARD IT

There’s a chain of events that took me to this song, and it goes like this: (1) In 2003, I bought a DVD of Spike Jonz’s music video work, which included his video work for Bjork’s song “Oh So Quiet”. (2) I did research on the song back then and found out it was actu­ally a cover of a pretty vin­tage song by a woman named Betty Hut­ton. Didn’t know her but the name was saved by one teeny lit­tle brain cell. Fast for­ward to (2) 2007 when I’m at a con­cert at the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera House in New York City. It’s Kristin Chenoweth: Live At The MET for one night only and only three other per­form­ers have ever done this, says the pro­gram. Betty Hut­ton being one of them. Name rings a bell, and if she’s spe­cial enough to do a rare solo show at the MET, then she’s wor­thy of at least two brain cells, right? (3) My good friend Mikey brings the Bjork song back into the front of my mind and I share with him that it sounds so vin­tage because it actu­ally is! I start youtube-ing Betty Hut­ton to find her ver­sion, actu­ally titled “Blow A Fuse” orig­i­nally, and it’s much more vis­ceral and the­atri­cal than Bjork’s ver­sion. I’m intrigued and start look­ing at other videos on youtube of her. I find this song. A long jour­ney but I found it and it’s great to know it!

INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)

First, let me say that this web­site is an incred­i­ble com­pendium of every­thing Betty; the pic­tures espe­cially tell the incred­i­ble story of her life’s jour­ney as a per­former. Here’s what I found that intrigued me from wikipedia:

- Hut­ton was born as Eliz­a­beth June Thorn­burg, a daugh­ter of rail­road fore­man, in Bat­tle Creek, MI. Her father aban­doned the fam­ily for another woman and they did not hear from or see him again until they received a telegram, in 1939, inform­ing them of his death from 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. Related trou­bles with the police kept the fam­ily on the move, and even­tu­ally they moved to Detroit. Hutton sang in sev­eral local bands as a teenager, and at one point vis­it­ed New York City hop­ing 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 enter­tain­ment. In 1939, she appeared in sev­eral musi­cal shorts for Warner Bros., and appeared in a sup­port­ing role on Broad­way in Panama Hat­tie (star­ring Ethel Mer­man) and Two for the Show, both pro­duced by Buddy DeSylva.

- When DeSylva became a pro­ducer at Para­mount Pic­tures, Hut­ton was signed to a fea­tured role in The Fleet’s In (1942), second lead in a Mary Mar­tin film musi­cal, Star Span­gled Rhythm (1943), and co-star of Bob Hope in Let’s Face It (1943), and star of The Mir­a­cle of Morgan’s Creek (1944), Incen­di­ary Blonde (1945), The Per­ils of Pauline (1947) and over a dozen other films.

- She was billed over 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. Hut­ton, how­ever, like Gar­land, was earn­ing a rep­u­ta­tion for being extremely difficult.

- In 1944, she signed with Capi­tol Records, one of the ear­li­est artists to do so, but became unhappy with its man­age­ment and later signed with RCA Victor.

- Among her many films was an unbilled cameo in Sailor Beware (1952) with Dean Mar­tin and Jerry Lewis, in which she por­trayed Dean’s girl­friend, Hetty Button.

- Her time as a Hol­ly­wood star came to an end due to con­tract dis­agree­ments with Para­mount fol­low­ing the Oscar-winning The Great­est Show on Earth (1952) and Some­body Loves Me (1952), a biopic of singer Blos­som See­ley. The New York Times indi­cated that her film career ended because of 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, 1957’s Spring Reunion. She gave an under­stated, sen­si­tive per­for­mance in the drama, but box office receipts seemed to show that the pub­lic didn’t accept a sub­dued Hutton.

- An orig­i­nal musi­cal TV spec­tac­u­lar writ­ten espe­cially for Hut­ton, Satin and Spurs (1954), was an enor­mous flop with the pub­lic and crit­ics, despite being one of the first tele­vi­sion pro­grams tele­vised nation­ally by NBC in com­pat­i­ble color.

- 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 to Roman 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.

- A ninth grade drop-out, Hut­ton went back to school and earned a Master’s Degree in psy­chol­ogy from Salve Regina University.

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

VIDEO OF THE DAY

And here’s a bonus! Her beau­ti­ful ren­di­tion of Irv­ing Berlin’s “Blue Skies” (audio only):