We just couldn't resist posting this... Yesterday, May 19, 2011 was offically Loretta Young day in Palm Springs! Two of our wonderful friends, Roger Freeman and Miguel Padro started plans to dedicate a star for Loretta on Palm Canyon Drive's "Walk Of Stars" well over a year ago. Palm Canyon Dr. is the main drag in downtown Palm Springs, much like Hollywood Blvd. is in Hollywood. Last month a fund-raiser was held at the beautiful former residence of Loretta Young in the heart of Palm Springs. Roger and Miguel managed to raise the $10,000 necessary to install a star for Loretta, thanks to the gracious help from the two gentlemen who now own Loretta's house. Can you imagine opening the doors of your beautiful home to over 100 strangers? Well, they did! Now, thankfully, Loretta's star will rest among the 350 other stars dedicated to well-known people that line our city's grand boulevard. Well, yesterday was the day when the star was dedicated with a huge ceremony downtown. We were lucky to be among the special invited guests! Loretta Young's daughter and son were in attendance, Judy Lewis and Christopher Lewis. (see photos below.) Other celebrities at the ceremony were our dear friend Kaye Ballard, child star - Margaret O'Brien, "Father Knows Best" older daughter - Elinor Donahue, and Ruta Lee. So, what does this all have to do with Betty Hutton? Well, in the not too distant future, we would like to get the ball rolling to have a star installed on the Palm Springs "Walk Of Stars" for our dear Betty. We have been talking about it for several years, and this time, the wish just may come true. Maybe Roger and Miguel will help! (hint, hint) We'll keep all of you posted!  Preparations underway prior to Thursday's 2:00pm star
dedication festivities for Loretta Young.  Loretta Young's daughter and son, Judy and Christopher Lewis.  Celebrities in attendance, from left to right, Margaret
O'Brien, Kaye Ballard, and Elinor Donahue.  The former Loretta
Young residence in Palm Springs, CA. ________________________________________________________________________ On Sunday, February 13th, 2011 over $10,000 was raised during our "For The Children" fund-raising event ! Thanks to all who participated and donated to this great cause.
Here's What Happened... Tony Award nominee, Sharon McNight, in "Betty, Betty, Bette" Saluting Hollywood Legends, Betty Grable - Betty Hutton - Bette Davis A BENEFIT PERFORMANCE TO ASSIST Additional Information about: "For The Children" 
 Executor of the Betty Hutton Estate and Board Member
of "FOR
THE CHILDREN", Carl Bruno with partner, Michael Mayer, and their
two adopted sons, Eric 7, and David 8. Bruno and Mayer first became involved
with the organization when they were in the process of adopting
their children.  The stage immediately prior to the performance, showing
photos of Betty Hutton, Betty Grable, and Bette Davis; all used in Sharon
McNight's show.  Items for our silent auction featured plenty of Betty
Hutton items! (all of which sold)  Actress/singer/comedian, Kaye Ballard - with "For
The Children's" Michael Mayer and the organization's President,
Silvia Signoret.  Kaye Ballard visits with comedian, Shecky
Green.  Sharon McNight, dressed in her Betty Hutton costume, visits with well-wishers after her performance. _________________________________________________________________________ |
See one fan's tribute, an entire Betty Hutton room! See how one Betty Hutton fan has decided to pay tribute to The Blonde Bombshell. This San Franciscan has his entire TV room filled with Betty memorabilia.  Garth Geary first met Betty Hutton years back at the
Hollywood Bowl where she was performing. Actually, he got past the security
guards by saying he was the son of Miss Hutton and wanted to congratulate his
mom on her great show! After being escorted backstage to her dressing room where
a curious Betty was waiting for her "son's" arrival, she grabbed hold of Garth
and said, "Welcome to the family, kid"!  Betty Hutton with Garth Geary backstage at the Hollywood
Bowl.  We're glad to see that "Backstage You Can Have: My Own
Story" has a place of honor right up front with all of Garth's other fine
collectables! ________________________________________________________________________ On Monday, February 28th, we had a very special visitor at our
house for lunch; Judy Rector, from Newport R.I. Those of you who have read
Betty's autobiography will remember her. Judy Rector became Betty's dear friend
after the two had been introduced by Father Peter Maguire in the 1970s in
Portsmouth, R.I. Betty and Judy remained close friends for the remainer of
Betty's life. Judy and her husband visit Palm Springs every winter for a short
vacation. It was a wonderful visit for us all and a chance for old friends to
catch up with each other... (Carl Bruno with Judy Rector)  ________________________________________________________________________ See how we celebrated Betty's special 90th
...  We invited 14 friends over to our house for a lunchon on February 26th, 2011 to
celebrate Betty's 90th Birthday. Actress, Kaye Ballard and her sister, Jean,
from Cleveland, OH were among our guests. Naturally, there was
cake!  Executor of the Betty Hutton estate, Carl Bruno, enjoys
Betty's Birthday festivities with guests. ________________________________________________________________________
A Special Thank You... We would like to extend a big thank you to the Palm Springs library and to all of those people who participated in our author lecture and book signing event on Tuesday, December 14th. It was a huge success! We appreciate all the interest that was shown in Betty's story, "Backstage You Can Have". It was an enjoyable evening for us; getting to talk once again about Betty and her life. From many of the comments made to us, we think the audience had an equally enjoyable evening... ______________________________________________________________________________________ April 15, 2011 was more than just tax day! We had a wonderful talk with Betty's life-long friend, Ben Carbonetto, from New York City last evening. It has been quite some time since we touched base with Ben. So long, in fact, that Ben recently stumbled upon our website purely be accident ! Sorry Ben, if anyone should have been informed early on about the existence of our official Betty Hutton website, it should have been you! Ben has been a collector of Betty memorabilia for years. (The very first time Betty signed a photo to him, Ben's collection was undoubtedly off and running.) Needless to say, Ben has, without question, the largest and most important collection of Betty Hutton items anywhere to date. (We are extremely envious!) It does make us feel good when we come up with something that Ben doesn't have that we can share with him. That, unfortunately, doesn't happen too often! In the past, Ben has been very generous in sharing his booty of Betty goodies with us! As a matter of fact, it would have been very difficult to complete Backstage You Can Have without Ben's wonderful collection of photos. The best news is that Ben has promised to send a bunch of new things for us to post to our website! We are sure, many of the things Ben will be sending have probably not been seen for years, or better yet, have never been seen before! Thanks Ben! Once again, we will keep everyone posted... ________________________________________________________________________ July 5, 2011  We had an E-mail today from a man by the name of Graham Pass. Mr. Pass represents a production company in the UK who is in the process of producing a documentary celebrating the life and career of Betty Hutton for BBC Radio. We offered our full support and assistance in providing anything Mr. Pass deemed necessary from our end to assure a successful and accurate program. We will keep everyone posted as things materialize. The documentary will be presented by Barbara Windsor, one of the UK's leading actresses, and will air in October... ________________________________________________________________________ August 2, 2011 All the arrangements have been set - we are being interviewed for the BBC Betty Hutton documentary on Thursday, August 4, 2011. A crew is coming to our home in Palm Springs for the taping. We will report to you on the event... ________________________________________________________________________ August 13, 2011 Ok, so the interview went very well! It did not pull off without a hitch, however. We received a distress call at 8:30 in the morning. While driving out to the desert from Los Angeles very early that morning, our interviewer's car went out of commission. About 15 miles up the interstate outside of Palm Springs, in a high and barren area, a large piece of scrap metal fell off of a truck traveling somewhere in front of the driver, bounced underneath his car, and ruptured the gas tank. The driver made it to the next exit before the gas drained out completely. One of us had to drive up to rescue him. Lucky for us, we arrived home just in time for the hook-up call from the studio in London at 10:00am - 6:00pm London time. We talked and were recorded for almost 2 hours. One of the questions we were asked is if we thought Betty might have some objection to the interview. When we asked why, he said, "Well, how would you explain our car trouble this morning?" Good question -Betty, can you help us out here... ________________________________________________________________________ October 7, 2011 Good news! Betty's NEW BBC2 Documentary will air on Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 for the first time on BBC2 radio. CLICK HERE for the internet link to BBC2 Radio. They have a beautiful and easy to use website. On the page that pops up, you will see on the right hand side toward the top, an orange box that says listen. Click on it and you will be able to hear LIVE STREAMING AUDIO programming as it is happening on BBC2 Radio. The program airs from 10:00-11:00pm, London time. You will need to tune in at 2:00-3:00pm California time or 5:00-6:00pm New York time. All of the rest of you please adjust your times as appropriate (Central, Mt.time). We hope you all listen in! It promises to be a fun and informative program... What else would we expect from the BBC? The program presenter (host) is famous British actress, Barbara Windsor and the program is produced by our friend Graham Pass. Betty's documentary is the second in a three part series entitled Female Comedy Icons, which has already featured Lucille Ball in part 1. Phyllis Diller will follow Betty's program as part 3 at a later date (to be announced). Here is the BBC2 write-up on Betty's documentary from their website: click here If you miss the live air program, watch the BBC2 radio schedule on their site. They will be posting the program to watch at your leisure - but ONLY for a very limited time before they remove it! Lucille Ball's documentary is still posted, but soon to be removed. ________________________________________________________________________ |
