Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1943)

the microphone. Suddenly it went over with a crash. She was now on her own. Undaunted, she began leaping about the stage like a frightened fawn, beating out the tempo in a sort of impromptu bacchanale, then grabbed the yellow -ochre curtain and, using it as a rope, swung right off the stage, singing as she sailed. The diners capitulated en masse, beating their plates with the silver and shouting rapturously, "More, more!" At a signal from Billy Rose she resumed singing and kept it up for a half-hour. Kid Hutton's first appearance in the big city had been a wow. But all she got out of it was a $15 raise, bringing her salary to a record $65 a week. The Huttons had to do considerable scratching for three of them to get by on it. To save carfare, Betty walked to work from her chalet on Eleventh Avenue. Every now and then she manipulated the flatiron, an operation which she thoroughly despised— and still does. Eventually she got her break in the Broadway show, "Panama Hattie," produced by Buddy DeSylva. Metro became interested. So did Mr. DeSylva, who was now producing head of Paramount. He wired her an offer for "The Fleet's In," subject to passing the usual screen test. Betty took care of that screen test business real pronto. "Hutton's allergic to screen tests," she wired DeSylva. "Paramount's allergic to Hutton." DeSylva wired back. "Metro isn't." "All right, you bandit, come on." Why linger over the last round? She tripped to Hollywood to make one picture, turned in a rip-roaring performance and was promptly cast in "Happy Go Lucky" before the returns were in on "The Fleet's In." The tumult that greeted her goofy gyrations in "Fleet" made such a disturbance on Paramount's box-office seismograph that the studio lost no time in putting her under contract and wafting her to the Milky Way. BUT stardom or no stardom, she has not for a moment lost the common touch. On Tuesday night — her night to howl at the Hollywood Canteen — she does her bit, rounds up a carload of sailors and off they go for a tour of the town, accompanied, mostly, by her best friend (and studio hairdresser) Doris Harris. And what a tour that is! Shunning the gilded boites haunted by the cinema's 400, they make the juke-joint circuit, singing, sight-seeing, quaffing and swapping gags. On Saturday nights, like as not, Doris will call up to ask what she's doing and, if it isn't important, how about doing a little morale work. "Sailors?" Betty asks. "They aren't sea scouts," Doris tells her. Ten minutes later she is speeding for the rendezvous in her flashy sedan, dressed in slacks and her hair in pigtails. "This is Hutton," Doris says, introducing her around. "Hi, Hutton!" the sailors say, friendly like. "How about taking the town apart?" "Oke," says Betty. Half the time the sailors don't even know who she actually is, which is how she'd prefer it. She has danced until three in the morning with sailors who think she's a better jitterbug than Betty Hutton who's in pictures. Gabby on almost any subject you care to bring up, she has been reluctant up to the present time to talk about Hutton in love. Practically all you could learn about True Love Number One was that he was a musician in the Lopez band — the very one who tipped her off that Lopez was planning to fire her. That faded when she left the band some time later. Then there was her first Hollywood romance with a dashing test pilot. He found the gap in their salaries too big to bridge and gave up. Betty picked up her love interest with Perc Westmore and they successfully weathered the engagement-ring stage, only to go their separate ways shortly thereafter. But now, far from being silent on the subject, Betty has announced to the world her betrothal to Charles Martin, NewYork's radio producer and personable tnanabout-town. In fact, she announced it on no less an occasion than at the conclusion of the Hollywood Cavalcade show at Madison Square Garden where Kid Hutton turned out to be the champ. "We're going to be married in January," beamed Betty. And there was none to deny her the beam. DART imp, she is also part slave-driver — ' but only in the direction of Betty Hutton, whom she would like to see emerge, in time, a real actress, if not a great one. She hopes her dramatic role in "The Miracle Of Morgan's Creek" will start the ball rolling. Nightly she returns from the studio, doffs the role of wack and tackles the next day's work and stays with it until the lines are memorized and practiced on her secretary, Helen Best. Chore over, she twists the dial looking for radio comics, grabs up a magazine and reads until ten-thirty, her bedtime. Then, after getting into a pair of pajamas (which most likely are vermilion or chartreuse), she locks the door of her bedroom, winds up her musical Teddy bear (which plays "Good Night, Ladies" for five minutes hand-running), and trundles herself and Teddy bear off to bed. She sleeps like a log. The End J THIS SUPERIORITY OF PHILIP MORRIS RECOGNIZED by medical authorities Here's what happened in clinical tests of men and women smokers . . . PROVED far less *"»ta«ns to the nose and throat When smokers changed to philip morris, every case of irritation of nose or throat -due to smoking -either cleared up completely, or definitely improved! These findings — reported in an authoritative medical journal— do prove Philip Morris far less irritating to nose and throat. BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE, BUY MORE WAR BONDS!