Mme. Hermine Posted February 13, 2011 Share Posted February 13, 2011 The death of Betty Garrett is reported by the Associated Press: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/02/13/arts/AP-US-Obit-Betty-Garrett.html?ref=arts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVZQyh-QZFg&feature=related Link to comment
richard53dog Posted February 13, 2011 Share Posted February 13, 2011 She was an amazing person with a lot of resilience. All the ups and downs of her career coupled with the horrors of the McCarthy era witch-hunting and she just kept going, full speed ahead. It must have taken a tremendous amount of energy and drive to keep reinventing herself the way she did. I saw her when Follies was revived on Broadway about ten years ago, she played Hattie, who's big number is I'm Just a Broadway Baby, and she stopped the show with it. Doing the math, she must have been about 82 at the time According to the press release, she was still teaching a musical comedy class. Somehow, I wasn't surprised. She evidently had a bottomless source of energy. RIP, Betty. Link to comment
miliosr Posted February 13, 2011 Share Posted February 13, 2011 ITA richard53dog! She was a marvelous talent who was never able to fulfill her enormous potential at M-G-M due to the blacklist. ( I think she would have been marvelous in the lead of Annie Get Your Gun once the studio had to remove Judy Garland from the film due to her drug-related problems.) Still, she had a great second act in the 1970s on All In the Family and, more famously, Laverne & Shirley. Sigh. There aren't many left from the M-G-M glory years -- Leslie Caron, Marge Champion, Jane Powell, Margaret O'Brien, Debbie Reynolds, Mickey Rooney, Elizabeth Taylor. In any event, more Betty Garrett: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLWx8dDbwIA&feature=related Link to comment
carbro Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 I brushed past Ms. Garrett on the Upper West Side, oh, 25 years ago or more, and as much as I admire her as a performer and a citizen, it is her astonishingly beautiful eyes that will stay with me. Link to comment
sidwich Posted February 18, 2011 Share Posted February 18, 2011 I saw Ms. Garrett as Mr./Ms. Majyx in a local revival of My One and Only only a few years ago. She must have been well into her eighties by then and she was as bright and charismatic a performer as ever. It's really a shame that her career never had the chance to fully blossom as it should have. She will be missed. Link to comment
ViolinConcerto Posted February 18, 2011 Share Posted February 18, 2011 Plus she was a wonderful person and dear friend. Betty (and Larry, her husband) kept in touch with my father, who they knew from NY theater in the 30's all their lives. A beautiful, accomplished, honest woman of the theater. Link to comment
dirac Posted February 21, 2011 Share Posted February 21, 2011 Thanks for posting this sad news, Mme. Hermine. A wonderful performer. She seems to have been in good health and active right to the end. Link to comment
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