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Betty Garrett 1919 - 2011

Betty Garrett was born on May 23, 1919 at Saint Joseph, MO in Missouri United States. She was married to Larry Parks, and died at age 91 years old on February 12, 2011 in Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, CA. Betty Garrett was buried at Cremated..
Betty Garrett
Betty Garrett
May 23, 1919
Saint Joseph, MO in Missouri, United States
February 12, 2011
Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, United States
Female
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Betty Garrett's History: 1919 - 2011

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  • Introduction

    Broadway Garrett made her Broadway debut in 1942 in the revue Of V We Sing, which closed after 76 performances but led to her being cast in the Harold Rome revue Let Freedom Sing later that year.[11] It closed after only eight performances, but producer Mike Todd saw it and signed her to understudy Ethel Merman[12] and play a small role in the 1943 Cole Porter musical Something for the Boys.[13] Merman became ill during the run, allowing Garrett to play the lead for a week. During this time she was seen by producer Vinton Freedley, who cast her in Jackpot, a Vernon Duke/Howard Dietz musical also starring Nanette Fabray and Allan Jones.[14] The show closed quickly, and Garrett began touring the country with her nightclub act. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer After appearing on Broadway in Laffing Room Only, which closed there, Garrett traveled with the show as it played extended runs in Detroit and Chicago. After that she returned to New York and was cast in Call Me Mister, which reunited her with Harold Rome, Lehman Engel, and Jules Munshin. She won critical acclaim and the Donaldson Award for her performance, which prompted Al Hirschfeld to caricature her in The New York Times.[17] It led to her being signed to a one-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by Louis B. Mayer. Garrett arrived at the studio in January 1947 and made her film debut portraying nightclub performer Shoo Shoo O'Grady in Big City, directed by Norman Taurog and co-starring George Murphy and Robert Preston.[18] Mayer renewed her contract and she appeared in the musicals Words and Music, On the Town, Take Me Out To The Ball Game, and Neptune's Daughter in quick succession. She won the 1974 Golden Globe for her performance on the series. Death Garrett died of an aortic aneurysm in Los Angeles on February 12, 2011, at the age of 91. Her body was cremated. Filmography Big City (1948) as Shoo Shoo Grady Words and Music (1948) as Peggy Lorgan McNeil Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949) as Shirley Delwyn Neptune's Daughter (1949) as Betty Barrett On the Town (1949) as Brunhilde "Hildy" Esterhazy Some of the Best (1949, short subject) My Sister Eileen (1955) as Ruth Sherwood The Shadow on the Window (1957) as Linda Atlas Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003, Documentary) as Herself Trail of the Screaming Forehead (2007) as Mrs. Cuttle Dark and Stormy Night (2009) as Mrs. Hausenstout (final film role) Troupers (2011, Documentary) as Herself Carol Channing: Larger Than Life (2012, Documentary) as Herself Television work The Best of Anything (1960) The Fugitive (1964, Episode: "Escape Into Black") as Margaret Ruskin All in the Family (cast member from 1973-1975) as Irene Lorenzo Who's Happy Now? (1975) Laverne & Shirley (cast member from 1976-1981) as Edna Babish DeFazio All the Way Home (1981, TV Movie) as Catherine Somerset Gardens (1989, unsold pilot) The Golden Girls (1992) as Sarah The Long Way Home (1998, TV Movie) as Veronica
  • 05/23
    1919

    Birthday

    May 23, 1919
    Birthdate
    Saint Joseph, MO in Missouri United States
    Birthplace
  • Religious Beliefs

    Jonathan Arthur When I lived in Hollywood (1980), Betty Garrett would come and check in on an old lady who lived upstairs from me a few times a week, bring groceries, wash dishes, clean up the apartment, etc. The old woman was a bit of a drunk and rude to Betty at times, it made no difference, she'd happily go about her work and let the mean stuff roll off her, she had been friends with her for decades. At the time, she was in her 60s, but moved and spoke with the gusto of a much younger person, and was such a nice lady. She had presence. This was posted on Facebook.
  • Professional Career

    Betty Garrett Born May 23, 1919 in St. Joseph, Missouri, USA Died February 12, 2011 in Los Angeles, California, USA (aortic aneurysm) Mini Bio (1) A sunny singer, dancer and comic actress, Betty Garrett starred in several Hollywood musicals and stage roles.. Garrett went on to appear in roles in many television series. Spouse (1) Larry Parks (8 September 1944 - 13 April 1975) ( his death) ( 2 children) Sons with Larry Parks: composer Garrett Parks and actor Andrew Parks. Studied acting at New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse under Sanford Meisner. Attended and graduated from the Annie Wright School in Tacoma, Washington. Godmother of Jeff Bridges. She and Larry Parks spent a month on their honeymoon in Malibu Beach, California, and then lived apart for the next two years while pursuing their careers. She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Live Theatre at 6706 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on May 23, 2003 (her 84th birthday). Co-founder, with Carol Eve Rossen and Sandy Kenyon, of "Theatre West", an internationally acclaimed non-profit arts organization in Hollywood, in 1962. Performed at the 1939 World's Fair. Was under contract at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1947-1949). Made her theatrical debut in a 1938 Mercury Theatre production of "Danton's Death". Best known by the public for her roles as Irene Lorenzo on All in the Family (1971) and as Edna Babish on Laverne & Shirley (1976).
  • Personal Life & Family

    Stage work Danton's Death (1938) Railroads on Parade (1939) You Can't Sleep Here (1940) A Piece of Our Mind (1940) All in Fun (1941) Meet the People (1941) Of V We Sing (1942) Let Freedom Sing (1942) Something for the Boys (1943) Jackpot (1944) Laffing Room Only (1944) Call Me Mister (1946) The Anonymous Lover (1952) Bells Are Ringing (1958) (two-week replacement for Judy Holliday) Beg, Borrow or Steal (1960) Spoon River Anthology (1963) A Girl Could Get Lucky (1964) The Tiger/The Typists (1965) Plaza Suite (1968) Who's Happy Now? (1968) Call Me Mister (1969) Something for the Boys (1969) And Miss Reardon Drinks A Little (1972) Betty Garrett and Other Songs (1974) The Supporting Cast (1981) Breaking Up the Act (1982) Quilters (1984) Meet Me in St. Louis (1989) A High-Time Salute to Martin and Blane (1991) Tom-Tom on a Rooftop (1997) Arsenic and Old Lace (1998) Happy Lot! (1998) Tallulah & Tennessee (1999) Follies (2001) Follies (2004) Nunsense (2005) My One and Only (2006) Morning's at Seven (2007)
  • 02/12
    2011

    Death

    February 12, 2011
    Death date
    Unknown
    Cause of death
    Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California United States
    Death location
  • Gravesite & Burial

    mm/dd/yyyy
    Funeral date
    Cremated.
    Burial location
  • Obituary

    Betty Garrett, Antsy Cabby in ‘On the Town,’ Is Dead at 91 By JOSEPH BERGER FEB. 13, 2011 Betty Garrett, the brassy comic actress who played Frank Sinatra’s ardent, taxi-driving pursuer in the movie “On the Town,” Archie Bunker’s liberal foil of a neighbor in “All in the Family” and a sardonic landlady in “Laverne & Shirley,” died on Saturday in Los Angeles. She was 91. The cause was an aortic aneurysm, her son Andrew Parks said. In a career covering more than six decades, Ms. Garrett was seen in everything from theatrical revues to nightclubs to television sitcoms, but she most beguiled film audiences in a number of standout supporting roles in the popular MGM musicals of the late 1940s. In “On the Town” (1949), she played a love-struck cabby, Brunhilde Esterhazy, who chases after an overwhelmed sailor (Sinatra), one of three sailors on a wartime leave in New York. (Gene Kelly and Jules Munshin were the other two.) While Sinatra is trapped in her cab hoping to see sights like Luchow’s restaurant and Radio City Music Hall, she pesters him in song to “Come Up to My Place.” Earlier that year she played a lovestruck fan who swoons for Sinatra — wearing a baseball uniform instead of Navy whites — in “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” the story of a team in the sport’s younger days that is surprised when its new owner is a woman (Esther Williams). While one of the movie’s most memorable songs was “O’Brien to Ryan to Goldberg,” again with Kelly and Munshin joining Sinatra, Ms. Garrett had a lively turn in “It’s Fate, Baby, It’s Fate.” Just one year before, in 1948, Ms. Garrett had made a strong impression in a small role in “Words and Music,” a biographical film about Rodgers and Hart that highlighted the charm of their music. She played the girl who rejects Hart (Mickey Rooney) partly because he was short, but she gets to sing the classic “There’s a Small Hotel.” Her career stalled soon after these milestones because in 1951 her husband, Larry Parks, an actor who had played Al Jolson in the movie “The Jolson Story,” was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and admitted he had been a member of the Communist Party between 1941 and 1945. He also identified other Hollywood professionals who had belonged. Choice roles dried up for both of them in the climate of the McCarthy-era America. Ms. Garrett with Phil Foster in “Laverne & Shirley.” Credit ABC Photo Archives, via Getty Images “She was tarred with the same brush,” Andrew Parks said in a telephone interview. Her husband’s film career never quite recovered, but the couple began a two-decade circuit of summer stock and other theaters where they could perform together. Both also substituted in Broadway’s “Bells are Ringing,” with Ms. Garrett taking over from the show’s star, Judy Holliday, and Mr. Parks assuming the Sydney Chaplin role. According to Andrew Parks, Ms. Garrett often said, “If it hadn’t been for the blacklist , we probably would not have worked together as much.” Mr. Parks died in 1975. Besides her son Andrew, Ms. Garrett, who never remarried, is survived by another son, Garrett, and one grandchild. Ms. Garrett was able to resume work in the film industry by 1955, when Columbia Pictures had her star as Janet Leigh’s sister, Ruth, in a musical version of “My Sister Eileen,” the story of two starry-eyed newcomers from Ohio who tackle the hurly-burly of New York out of a Greenwich Village basement apartment. “Miss Garrett has the proper skepticism and the right desperation for the role,” wrote Bosley Crowther in The New York Times. “Her way with a line is homicidal. What’s more she can dance and sing.” In the early 1970s, the television producer Norman Lear gave her perhaps her biggest break since her MGM days with a role in “All in the Family.” Ms. Garrett and Vincent Gardenia played a couple who move next door to Archie and Edith Bunker. Her character, Irene Lorenzo, argued politics and social issues with the bigoted Archie, played by Carroll O’Connor. After two years on that series, Ms. Garrett moved to “Laverne & Shirley,” where she portrayed the oft-married landlord, Edna Babish, who lands Laverne’s father. Born on May 23, 1919, in St. Joseph, Mo., Ms. Garrett was 3 when her parents moved to Seattle. After her parents divorced, she and her mother moved to New York. After winning a scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse, she played some roles at a 1939 World’s Fair production and joined some acts at the Catskills stages, then received her first Broadway role as an understudy in Orson Welles’s Mercury Theater production of “Danton’s Death.” She was signed by the producer Michael Todd as Ethel Merman’s understudy in the 1943 Cole Porter musical “Something for the Boys” and then appeared in several other Broadway shows, including “Jackpot” and “Laffing Room Only.” Her big breakthrough came in 1946 with “Call Me Mister.” In that Broadway revue, she stopped the show with “South America, Take It Away,” playing a U.S.O. hostess tired of America’s infatuation with Latin American dances like the rumba and samba. She continued working well into her 80s, appearing in the musical “Meet Me in St. Louis” on Broadway in 1989 and in Noël Coward’s “Waiting in the Wings” in 2007 in Los Angeles. Her final Broadway appearance came in 2001 in a revival of “Follies,” the Stephen Sondheim-James Goldman musical. She sang, appropriately, the much-loved anthem “Broadway Baby” — “I don’t need a lot,/Only what I got,/Plus a tube of greasepaint and a follow spot” — nearly 60 years after landing her first Broadway role.
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16 Memories, Stories & Photos about Betty

Book by Betty Garrett and Ron Rapoport.
Book by Betty Garrett and Ron Rapoport.
Can hardly wait to read it.
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RON RAPOPORT - BETTY GARRETT
BETTY GARRETT AT 100
A day or two before Betty Garrett died nine years ago, she was with one of her sons in a mid-city rehab facility when a quite heavy woman orderly brought in her dinner.
Betty waited until she had left and then turned to her son, grinned and said, “I hope she doesn’t start singing.”
Betty’s ability to laugh at anything life threw at her was her second most endearing quality. The first was her ability to make everyone who knew her love her, and though I count myself lucky to have been among them I knew I was standing at the end of a very long line.
Way back in 1946, for instance, shortly after Betty became a musical comedy star on Broadway overnight, Nathaniel Benchley wrote this in the New York Herald-Tribune: “Would anybody like a punch in the nose? Very well, buster, all you have to do is say you didn’t like Betty Garrett in ‘Call Me Mister.’ Aha, I thought so.”
See what I mean?
A writer isn’t supposed to choose a favorite subject any more than a father is supposed to have a favorite child, but if Ernie Banks, Ring Lardner, Bobby Jones, Eddie Einhorn, Tom Dreesen, Tim Reid and a few others will forgive me, the time I spent helping Betty write her autobiography will always be what I cherish most.
Betty would have turned 100 Thursday and I plan to celebrate by watching “On The Town” with some of her friends at Theatre West in the Valley, where she acted, directed and ran a musical comedy workshop for many years. Like Betty’s other fans, we discovered her in a variety of places—in the classic musicals of MGM’s Golden Age, in her key parts in two of the biggest hits in the history of television, in one of her many stage roles—and I think it’s fair to say that we all claimed her with an almost personal pride of possession.
At an appearance in a theater in Boca Raton, Fla., in the ‘90s, for instance, a man called out from the audience that he had been a waiter at Camp Tamiment in the Poconos 60 years earlier and had danced with her in one of its variety shows. Betty called him up to the stage where he demonstrated that he remembered the lyrics of their number down to the last syllable.
Betty told marvelous stories—Louis B. Mayer poking her in the chest, stomping on her feet and warning her not to get pregnant because it upset the shooting schedule; Frank Sinatra needing padding to fill out the rear end of his sailor suit in “On The Town”—but also, and I think this helps explain the admiration so many people had for her, she was resilient in ways that took your breath away.
At the age of 79, she walked off a stage in Chicago, tripped into a stairwell and ripped open her shin to the bone. A few days after the second of two skin-graft operations, she was hosting a non-stop salon in her hotel suite and writing a poem about how loving and supportive her good right leg was behaving toward her mangled left one, as well as a hilarious velvet-shiv ode to hospital food. Three months later, she was tap dancing and turning somersaults at the annual S.T.A.G.E. benefit in Los Angeles for AIDS patients she co-chaired for many years.
But the greatest test of her resilience was not physical but emotional and political. Are there any other victims of the Hollywood blacklist who have funny stories about Sen. Joseph McCarthy? Betty’s was about the time McCarthy, drunker than a forest full of skunks, offered to buy her and her husband, Larry Parks, a drink after their performance in Las Vegas, then put his arm around Parks and said, “Are they giving you a tough time, kid?” Years later, when Betty told this story to the legendary interviewer Studs Terkel for his radio show, Terkel pounded the table in magnificent rage and yelled, “Son of a B****!”
To open the second act of her one-woman show, “Betty Garrett and Other Songs,” Betty sang, “I’m Still Here,” the Steven Sondheim song from “Follies” that has become an anthem for women singers of a certain age. (Been called a pinko Commie tool/Got through it stinko by my pool.)
One day the phone rang and a man who identified himself as Sondheim’s representative said, “We have been informed you have rewritten the lyrics to one of Mr. Sondheim’s songs. We must insist you cease doing this. Mr. Sondheim’s songs must be sung exactly as they are written.”
“Rewritten his lyrics!” she said. “I would never do that. Will you tell him that for me? And tell him something else, too? Tell him I think he’s been spying on me. I’ve done almost everything in that song.” Unlike the women who sang “I’m Still Here” defiantly at the top of their voices, Betty approached it with a wistful sort of bemusement. The effect was devastating. (Seen all my dreams disappear/But I’m here.)
But as much as Betty could laugh through the apocalypse, the blacklist never ceased to haunt her. Not so much for the harm it did to her own career—she did recover to some extent, making the cult classic “My Sister Eileen” with Jack Lemmon, Janet Leigh and Bob Fosse at Columbia, and acquiring a new generation of fans through her roles on “All in the Family” and “Laverne and Shirley”—but for the toll it took on Parks, who had been nominated for a best-actor Oscar for “The Jolson Story” and whose career as a leading man seemed assured.
The accusation that he had “named names” before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1951 was false—the committee handed him a list of people it had already subpoenaed; he was not volunteering but reading—but, as is often the case, the myth left the truth in the dust and the death of Parks’ movie career at the hand of the right wing was accompanied by the snubs of friends on the left.
“I just love Betty and Larry,” said one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, with whom she had starred in several movies, “but it’s really dangerous to be around them anymore.” That friendship eventually healed, but others never did. Those who did remain close to her, however, were never far from the realization that through the good times and bum times she had lived a great American life with humor, courage and grace.
“Betty Garrett is not a survivor,” Times theater critic Dan Sullivan once wrote, “she is a prevailer.”
Happy 100th, Betty. We love you.
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People who are very spiritual choose cremation.
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Betty Garrett
Betty Garrett
A photo of Betty Garrett. I met her many times and she was so wonderful to meet. Warm and friendly and autographed every
Playbill and listened to fans.
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Betty Garrett
Betty Garrett
A photo of Betty Garrett
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Betty Garrett
Betty Garrett
A photo of Betty Garrett
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Betty Garrett
Betty Garrett
A photo of Betty Garrett who was one of the nicest actresses in show business. She always stopped to talk to people and I had met her many times. That is why I did this tribute. She deserves to be remembered.
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Betty Garrett
Betty Garrett
A photo of Betty Garrett
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Betty Garrett
Betty Garrett
A photo of Betty Garrett
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Betty Garrett
Betty Garrett
A photo of Betty Garrett
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Betty Garrett's Family Tree & Friends

Betty Garrett's Family Tree

Parent
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Larry Parks

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Betty Garrett

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Betty's Friends

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