Betty Hutton; Energetic Star of Film Musicals, Comedies

Betty Hutton, 86, the brassy, bouncy, big-voiced movie actress of the 1940s and 1950s who sparkled in musicals and shined in comedy, has died in Palm Springs, Calif., the Associated Press reported.

The AP said that a friend of Miss Hutton's had confirmed the death but that details were not available.

Such films as "The Fleet's In," "The Perils of Pauline" and "The Greatest Show on Earth" won Miss Hutton recognition as a prominent member of Hollywood's pantheon of blond leading ladies.

Often hilarious in their comic zest, her performances were hailed as incandescent in their abounding energy and vitality.

She may have reached the pinnacle of her movie career in "Annie Get Your Gun," the 1950 musical in which she played famed sharpshooter Annie Oakley, belting out Irving Berlin's songs with all-out verve and exuberance.

Despite a drive that never deserted her onscreen, Miss Hutton's career lapsed after 1952. Temperament and an instinct for confrontation led to the severing of her ties to Paramount Studios.

She began a slow descent into obscurity. At one point, she was described as reclusive and beset with physical, financial and emotional troubles.

Miss Hutton, who was originally named Elizabeth Jane Thornburg, was born in Battle Creek, Mich. Her father left home when she was a toddler. At age 3, during Prohibition, she sang at a makeshift bar that her mother operated in their basement.

"I quit school when I was nine years old and started singing on street corners because my mother was an alcoholic," Miss Hutton was quoted as saying.

While in her teens, she made her way to New York. Before too long, she was singing in front of the Vincent Lopez band. Broadway appearances followed, as did a couple of short film features.

Buddy DeSylva, a songwriter who had guided her career, went to Hollywood, and she did, too, winning plaudits in 1942 with her first feature film, "The Fleet's In," about sailors on shore leave.

Playing a female sailor in a cast that included Dorothy Lamour and William Holden, Miss Hutton made an impressive debut, which led to 14 more major movies in the next 10 years. Reviewers described her as rowdy, raucous and rambunctious. "Incendiary Blonde," the title of one film, seemed to fit her, too.