Betty lived until 2007, despite her many trials and tribulations of trying to balance motherhood and show business and her later years which were wrought with self doubt, depression, and a feeling of unacceptance and alienation from Hollywood and her children alike. The interview that Robert Osbourne did with Betty in 2001 was very touching; Hutton told Osbourne he made her feel accepted for the first time in decades.
And here is Betty, singing one of the all-time 'girl-power' fight songs, "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better"; such a funny lady with a BOOMING voice.
I watched that interview Robert Osbourne did with Betty Hutton again a few weeks ago and it really it is a treasure for all film lovers. Since the inception of TCM in 1994 Osbourne has done several interviews with classic stars who are/were still with us such as Janet Leigh in her last years, her former husband Tony Curtis, Dick Powell, just to name a very few not to mention the plethora of contemporary stars that often accompany the host on TCM. But one gem of an interview Osborne conducted was with Robert Mitchum in his last years, in which Mitchum decided to basically "stone-wall" Osbourne for practically the entire interview. Something that he'd been known to do before, but it's just funny when you think about the great Film-Noir King and Hollywood bad boy/golden boy Robert Mitchum as an old cranky codger giving one-word answers to the mild mannered Osbourne, who later said the event INFURIATED him, but one that he still valued as a great document in classic film lore.
But the Hutton interview as I stated earlier was probably my favorite for a number of reasons, including the apparent catharsis the aged Hutton appeared to have during the interview. Betty talked about being distant from her children and grandchildren throughout their lives and she candidly said in her later years that she didn't think it was possible in those early times, or perhaps in ANY time, for a woman to be such a tremendously diverse artist engaing in so many fields (singing, dancing, acting, screw-ball comedy) and a "Good Mother" simultaneously.
It's that context with which I approach Betty's whistful yet cathartic version of "I Wish I Didn't Love You So". I'm reminded of that fine line we all walk between pursuing our own ambitions and how our life decisions affects others around us. Topically, the song tells of falling in love against one's own wishes, but beneath the surface is an ode to the 'bohemian', artisan, or deep thinkers and lovers of simple gifts that seek out the good things that life has to give beyond the rhealm of the prototypical, provincial human experience of life-and-love, but who can still never can quite escape certain forces or conditions of human experience that beckon them back to a simpler (and perhaps happier) existence.
Something that he'd been known to do before, but it's just funny when you think about the great Film-Noir King and Hollywood bad boy/golden boy Robert Mitchum as an old cranky codger giving one-word answers to the mild mannered Osbourne, who later said the event INFURIATED him, but one that he still valued as a great document in classic film lore.
