Anita Bryant
Encyclopedia
Anita Jane Bryant is an American
singer, former Miss Oklahoma
beauty pageant winner, and gay rights opponent
. She scored four Top 40 hits in the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including "Paper Roses
", which reached #5. She later became widely known for her strong views against homosexuality
and for her prominent campaigning in 1977 to repeal a local ordinance in Dade County, Florida
, that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, an involvement that significantly damaged her popularity and career.
, Oklahoma
. After her parents divorced, her father went into the U.S. Army and her mother went to work, taking her children to live with their grandparents temporarily. When Bryant was two years old, her grandfather taught her to sing "Jesus Loves Me
". She was singing at the age of six onstage on local fairgrounds in Oklahoma
. She sang occasionally on radio and television, and was invited to audition when Arthur Godfrey
's talent show came to town.
Bryant became Miss Oklahoma in 1958 and was a second runner-up in the 1959 Miss America
beauty pageant at age 19, right after graduating from Tulsa's Will Rogers High School
.
In 1960, she married Bob Green, a Miami disc jockey
, with whom she eventually raised four children: Robert Jr. (Bobby), Gloria, Billy, and Barbara. She divorced him in 1980, drawing criticism of hypocrisy from the Christian right
regarding the indissolubility of Christian marriage which Bryant had championed and "the deterioration of the family" against which she had preached. She appeared early in her career on the NBC
interview program Here's Hollywood
and on the same network's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford
.
Bryant placed a total of 11 songs on the U.S. Hot 100, although most were at the bottom reaches of the chart. She had a moderate pop
hit with "Till There Was You
" (1959, US #30). She also saw three hits in "Paper Roses
" (1960, US #5, and covered by Marie Osmond
13 years later); "In My Little Corner of the World
" (1960, US #10); and "Wonderland by Night
" (1961, US #18).
Bryant released several albums on the Carlton and Columbia
labels. The 1959 Carlton LP Anita Bryant contained "Till There Was You" (from The Music Man
). The 1963 Columbia Greatest Hits LP contained both Carlton and Columbia songs, including "Paper Roses" and "Step by Step, Little by Little". In 1964 she released The World of Lonely People, containing, in addition to the title song, "Welcome, Welcome Home" and a new rendition of "Little Things Mean a Lot", arranged by Frank Hunter.
In 1969 she became a spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Commission, and nationally televised commercials featured her singing "Come to the Florida Sunshine Tree" and stating the commercials' tagline: "Breakfast without orange juice is like a day without sunshine." (Later, the slogan became, "It isn't just for breakfast any more!") All the commercials are now preserved and owned by the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives in Miami. In addition, during this time, she also appeared in advertisements for Coca-Cola
, Kraft Foods
, Holiday Inn
and Tupperware
.
She sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic
" during the graveside services for Lyndon B. Johnson
in 1973, and performed the National Anthem at Super Bowl III
in 1969.
She was interviewed by Playboy
in May 1978.
(now Miami-Dade County), passed an ordinance
sponsored by Bryant's former good friend Ruth Shack
, that prohibited discrimination
on the basis of sexual orientation
. Bryant led a highly publicized campaign to repeal the ordinance as the leader of a coalition named Save Our Children
. The campaign was based on conservative Christian
beliefs regarding the sinfulness of homosexuality
and the perceived threat of homosexual recruitment
of children and child molestation. Bryant stated:
The campaign began an organized opposition to gay rights that spread across the nation. Jerry Falwell
went to Miami to help her. Bryant made the following statements during the campaign: "As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children" and "If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards
and to nail biters." She also added that "All America and all the world will hear what the people have said, and with God's continued help we will prevail in our fight to repeal similar laws throughout the nation."
s all over North America
took screwdrivers
off their drink menus and replaced them with the "Anita Bryant", which was made with vodka
and apple juice. Sales and proceeds went to gay civil rights activists to help fund their fight against Bryant and her campaign.
In 1977, Florida legislators approved a measure prohibiting gay adoption. The ban was overturned more than 30 years later when, on November 25, 2008, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Cindy S. Lederman declared it unconstitutional and "not rational."
Bryant led several more campaigns around the country to repeal local anti-discrimination ordinances including St. Paul, Minnesota, Wichita, Kansas
, and Eugene, Oregon
. Her success led to an effort to pass the Briggs Initiative in California
which would have made pro- or neutral statements regarding homosexuals or homosexuality
by any public school employee cause for dismissal. Grass-roots liberal
organizations, chiefly in Los Angeles
and the San Francisco Bay Area
, sprang up to defeat the initiative. Days before the election, the California Democratic Party
opposed the proposed legislation. Former Governor and future President Ronald Reagan voiced opposition to the initiative, and it ultimately suffered a massive defeat at the polls.
In 1998 Dade County repudiated Bryant's successful campaign of 20 years earlier, and re-authorized an anti-discrimination ordinance protecting individuals from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation by a seven to six vote. In 2002 a ballot initiative to repeal the 1998 law called Amendment 14 was voted down by 56 percent of the voters. The Florida statute forbidding gay adoption was upheld in 2004 by a federal appellate court
against a constitutional challenge, but was overturned by a Miami-Dade Circuit Court in November 2008.
Bryant became one of the first persons to be publicly "pied
" as a political act (in her case, on television), in Des Moines
in 1977. Bryant quipped "At least it's a fruit pie", apparently making a pun on the derogatory term for a gay man ("fruit"). While covered in pie, she began to pray to God to forgive the activist "for his deviant lifestyle" before bursting into tears as the cameras kept rolling. Bryant's husband, after promising not to retaliate, later took another pie and threw it at the protesters who had pied his wife. By this time, gay activists had ensured the boycott on Florida orange juice had become more prominent and it was supported by many celebrities including Barbra Streisand
, Bette Midler
, Paul Williams
, John Waters
, Carroll O'Connor
, Mary Tyler Moore
and Jane Fonda
. In 1978, Bryant and Green told the story of their campaign in the book, At Any Cost. Even many years after her campaign, the gay community continued to regard her name as synonymous with bigotry
and homophobia
.
Bryant's 1977 political efforts are chronicled in Elizabeth Whitney's one-woman show A Day Without Sunshine.
Her marriage to Bob Green also failed at that time, and in 1980 she divorced him, citing emotional abusiveness and latent suicidal thoughts. Green refuses to accept this, given that his fundamentalist religious beliefs do not recognize civil divorce and that she is "still" his wife "in God
's eyes."
Some fundamentalist audiences and venues shunned her after her divorce. As she was no longer invited to appear at their events, she lost another major source of income. With her four children, she moved from Miami to Selma, Alabama
, and later to Atlanta, Georgia
. In a 1980 Ladies Home Journal article she said, "The church needs to wake up and find some way to cope with divorce and women's problems." She also expressed some sympathy for feminist aspirations, given her own experiences of emotional abuse within her previous marriage.
Bryant appeared in Michael Moore
's 1989 documentary film Roger & Me
, in which she is interviewed and travels to Flint, Michigan
, as part of the effort to revitalize the devastated local economy.
She married her second husband, Charlie Hobson Dry, in 1990. The couple tried to reestablish her music career in a series of small venues, including Branson, Missouri
, and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
where they opened "Anita Bryant's Music Mansion". The establishment combined Bryant's performances of her successful songs from early in her career with a "lengthy segment in which she preached her Christian beliefs." The venture was not successful and the Music Mansion, which had missed meeting payrolls at times, filed for bankruptcy in 2001 with Bryant and Dry leaving behind a series of unpaid employees and creditors.
Bryant also spent part of the 1990s in the country music mecca of Branson, Missouri, where the state and federal governments filed liens claiming more than $116,000 in unpaid taxes. Bryant and Dry had also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Arkansas
in 1997 after piling up bills from a failed Anita Bryant show in Eureka Springs, a tourist area in northwest Arkansas. Among the debts were more than $172,000 in unpaid state and federal taxes.
In 2005, Bryant returned to Barnsdall, Oklahoma, for the town's 100th anniversary celebration and to have a street renamed in her honor. She returned to her high school in Tulsa on April 21, 2007, to perform in the school's annual musical revue. She now lives in Edmond, Oklahoma
, and says she does charity work for various youth organizations while heading Anita Bryant Ministries International.
In a 1980 Ladies Home Journal interview, following her divorce and in the aftermath of her anti-gay activism, Bryant commented on her anti-gay views and said, "I'm more inclined to say live and let live, just don't flaunt it or try to legalize it." However, the biography page on her Anita Bryant Ministries website (written in 2006) continues to defend her earlier anti-gay activism and views.
People of the United States
The people of the United States, also known as simply Americans or American people, are the inhabitants or citizens of the United States. The United States is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...
singer, former Miss Oklahoma
Miss Oklahoma
The Miss Oklahoma competition selects a winner to compete on behalf of Oklahoma in the Miss America pageant. Miss Oklahoma has won the crown on five occasions. Also, in the years when city representatives were common, Norma Smallwood won, competing as Miss Tulsa, giving the state of Oklahoma a...
beauty pageant winner, and gay rights opponent
LGBT rights opposition
LGBT rights opposition refers to active opposition to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender civil rights. Organizations influential in LGBT rights opposition frequently challenge judicial rulings, and legislative initiatives, and dispute findings that sexual orientation is an immutable...
. She scored four Top 40 hits in the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including "Paper Roses
Paper Roses
"Paper Roses" is a popular song written by Fred Spielman and Janice Torre which was a hit in 1960 for Anita Bryant with Monty Kelly's Orchestra and Chorus and later for Marie Osmond in 1973....
", which reached #5. She later became widely known for her strong views against homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
and for her prominent campaigning in 1977 to repeal a local ordinance in Dade County, Florida
Miami-Dade County, Florida
Miami-Dade County is a county located in the southeastern part of the state of Florida. As of 2010 U.S. Census, the county had a population of 2,496,435, making it the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States...
, that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, an involvement that significantly damaged her popularity and career.
Early life and career
Bryant was born in BarnsdallBarnsdall, Oklahoma
Barnsdall is a city in Osage County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 1,325 at the 2000 census.-History:The town was founded in 1905 and originally named Bigheart, for the Osage Chief James Bigheart. It was initially a 160-acre site along the Midland Valley Railroad in March, 1905...
, Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
. After her parents divorced, her father went into the U.S. Army and her mother went to work, taking her children to live with their grandparents temporarily. When Bryant was two years old, her grandfather taught her to sing "Jesus Loves Me
Jesus Loves Me
Jesus Loves Me is a Christian hymn set to words by Anna Bartlett Warner. The lyrics first appeared as a poem in the context of a novel called Say and Seal, written by Susan Warner and published in 1860. The tune was added in 1862 by William Batchelder Bradbury who found the text of "Jesus Loves Me"...
". She was singing at the age of six onstage on local fairgrounds in Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
. She sang occasionally on radio and television, and was invited to audition when Arthur Godfrey
Arthur Godfrey
Arthur Morton Godfrey was an American radio and television broadcaster and entertainer who was sometimes introduced by his nickname, The Old Redhead...
's talent show came to town.
Bryant became Miss Oklahoma in 1958 and was a second runner-up in the 1959 Miss America
Miss America
The Miss America pageant is a long-standing competition which awards scholarships to young women from the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands...
beauty pageant at age 19, right after graduating from Tulsa's Will Rogers High School
Will Rogers High School
Will Rogers High School, located on 3909 E. 5th Place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was built by Tulsa Public Schools in 1939 using WPA workers and designed by Joseph R. Koberling, Jr. and Leon B. Senter. It was named for the humorist Will Rogers, who died in 1935 along with Wiley Post in a plane crash...
.
In 1960, she married Bob Green, a Miami disc jockey
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
, with whom she eventually raised four children: Robert Jr. (Bobby), Gloria, Billy, and Barbara. She divorced him in 1980, drawing criticism of hypocrisy from the Christian right
Christian right
Christian right is a term used predominantly in the United States to describe "right-wing" Christian political groups that are characterized by their strong support of socially conservative policies...
regarding the indissolubility of Christian marriage which Bryant had championed and "the deterioration of the family" against which she had preached. She appeared early in her career on the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
interview program Here's Hollywood
Here's Hollywood
Here's Hollywood is an American celebrity interview program which aired on weekday afternoons on NBC at 4:30 Eastern time from September 26, 1960, to December 28, 1962.-Overview:...
and on the same network's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford
The Ford Show
The Ford Show is a half-hour comedy/variety program, starring singer and folk humorist Tennessee Ernie Ford, which aired in color on NBC television on Thursday evenings from October 4, 1956 to June 29, 1961....
.
Bryant placed a total of 11 songs on the U.S. Hot 100, although most were at the bottom reaches of the chart. She had a moderate pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
hit with "Till There Was You
Till There Was You
"Till There Was You" is a song written by Meredith Willson for his 1957 musical play The Music Man, and which also appeared in the 1962 movie version...
" (1959, US #30). She also saw three hits in "Paper Roses
Paper Roses
"Paper Roses" is a popular song written by Fred Spielman and Janice Torre which was a hit in 1960 for Anita Bryant with Monty Kelly's Orchestra and Chorus and later for Marie Osmond in 1973....
" (1960, US #5, and covered by Marie Osmond
Marie Osmond
Olive Marie Osmond is an American singer, actress, doll designer, and a member of the show business family The Osmonds. Although she was never part of her family's singing group, she gained success as a solo country music artist in the 1970s and 1980s...
13 years later); "In My Little Corner of the World
My Little Corner of the World
"My Little Corner of the World" is a 1960 love song with music written by Lee Pockriss and lyrics by Bob Hilliard. It was first recorded by singer Anita Bryant in 1960, as "In My Little Corner of the World", and released on the album Hear Anita Bryant in Your Home Tonight!...
" (1960, US #10); and "Wonderland by Night
Wonderland by Night
"Wonderland by Night" is a popular song by Bert Kaempfert that was a Billboard number one hit for three weeks, starting January 9, 1961. It was Kaempfert's first hit with his orchestra. Another cover, recorded and released by Louis Prima, also charted in the same year, reaching #15 on the...
" (1961, US #18).
Bryant released several albums on the Carlton and Columbia
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
labels. The 1959 Carlton LP Anita Bryant contained "Till There Was You" (from The Music Man
The Music Man
The Music Man is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson, based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. The plot concerns con man Harold Hill, who poses as a boys' band organizer and leader and sells band instruments and uniforms to naive townsfolk before skipping town with...
). The 1963 Columbia Greatest Hits LP contained both Carlton and Columbia songs, including "Paper Roses" and "Step by Step, Little by Little". In 1964 she released The World of Lonely People, containing, in addition to the title song, "Welcome, Welcome Home" and a new rendition of "Little Things Mean a Lot", arranged by Frank Hunter.
In 1969 she became a spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Commission, and nationally televised commercials featured her singing "Come to the Florida Sunshine Tree" and stating the commercials' tagline: "Breakfast without orange juice is like a day without sunshine." (Later, the slogan became, "It isn't just for breakfast any more!") All the commercials are now preserved and owned by the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives in Miami. In addition, during this time, she also appeared in advertisements for Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
, Kraft Foods
Kraft Foods
Kraft Foods Inc. is an American confectionery, food and beverage conglomerate. It markets many brands in more than 170 countries. 12 of its brands annually earn more than $1 billion worldwide: Cadbury, Jacobs, Kraft, LU, Maxwell House, Milka, Nabisco, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia, Trident, Tang...
, Holiday Inn
Holiday Inn
Holiday Inn is a brand of hotels, formally a economy motel chain, forming part of the British InterContinental Hotels Group . It is one of the world's largest hotel chains with 238,440 bedrooms and 1,301 hotels globally. There are currently 5 hotels in the pipeline...
and Tupperware
Tupperware
Tupperware is the name of a home products line that includes preparation, storage, containment, and serving products for the kitchen and home, which were first introduced to the public in 1946....
.
She sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
"The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is a hymn by American writer Julia Ward Howe using the music from the song "John Brown's Body". Howe's more famous lyrics were written in November 1861 and first published in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1862. It became popular during the American Civil War...
" during the graveside services for Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
in 1973, and performed the National Anthem at Super Bowl III
Super Bowl III
Super Bowl III was the third AFL-NFL Championship Game in professional American football, but the first to officially bear the name "Super Bowl". This game is regarded as one of the greatest upsets in sports history...
in 1969.
She was interviewed by Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
in May 1978.
Political campaigning
In 1977, Dade County, FloridaMiami-Dade County, Florida
Miami-Dade County is a county located in the southeastern part of the state of Florida. As of 2010 U.S. Census, the county had a population of 2,496,435, making it the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States...
(now Miami-Dade County), passed an ordinance
Local ordinance
A local ordinance is a law usually found in a municipal code.-United States:In the United States, these laws are enforced locally in addition to state law and federal law.-Japan:...
sponsored by Bryant's former good friend Ruth Shack
Ruth Shack
Ruth Shack was the sponsor of the 1977 Human Rights Ordinance in Miami-Dade County, Florida.Shack was elected to the Metro-Dade County Commission in 1976, 1978 and 1982...
, that prohibited discrimination
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
on the basis of sexual orientation
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...
. Bryant led a highly publicized campaign to repeal the ordinance as the leader of a coalition named Save Our Children
Save Our Children
Save Our Children, Inc. was a political coalition formed in 1977 in Miami, Florida, U.S. to overturn a recently legislated county ordinance that banned discrimination in areas of housing, employment, and public accommodation based on sexual orientation...
. The campaign was based on conservative Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
beliefs regarding the sinfulness of homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
and the perceived threat of homosexual recruitment
Homosexual recruitment
Homosexual recruitment is a term used, primarily in the U.S., to describe alleged attempts by homosexuals to actively "recruit" otherwise heterosexual youths into the 'gay lifestyle'. Allegations of gay recruitment are sometimes leveled at efforts by gay activists to encourage homosexuals to "come...
of children and child molestation. Bryant stated:
The campaign began an organized opposition to gay rights that spread across the nation. Jerry Falwell
Jerry Falwell
Jerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. was an evangelical fundamentalist Southern Baptist pastor, televangelist, and a conservative commentator from the United States. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia...
went to Miami to help her. Bryant made the following statements during the campaign: "As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children" and "If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards
St. Bernard (dog)
The St. Bernard is a breed of very large working dog from the Italian and Swiss Alps, originally bred for rescue. The breed has become famous through tales of alpine rescues, as well as for its large size.-Appearance:The St. Bernard is a large dog...
and to nail biters." She also added that "All America and all the world will hear what the people have said, and with God's continued help we will prevail in our fight to repeal similar laws throughout the nation."
Victory and defeat
On June 7, 1977, Bryant's campaign led to a repeal of the anti-discrimination ordinance by a margin of 69 to 31 percent. However, the success of Bryant's campaign galvanized her opponents and the gay community retaliated against her by organizing a boycott of orange juice. Gay barGay bar
A gay bar is a drinking establishment that caters to an exclusively or predominantly gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender clientele; the term gay is used as a broadly inclusive concept for LGBT and queer communities...
s all over North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
took screwdrivers
Screwdriver (cocktail)
A screwdriver is a popular highball drink made with fresh orange juice and vodka. Outside the US, it is often referred to as "vodka and orange"...
off their drink menus and replaced them with the "Anita Bryant", which was made with vodka
Vodka
Vodka , is a distilled beverage. It is composed primarily of water and ethanol with traces of impurities and flavorings. Vodka is made by the distillation of fermented substances such as grains, potatoes, or sometimes fruits....
and apple juice. Sales and proceeds went to gay civil rights activists to help fund their fight against Bryant and her campaign.
In 1977, Florida legislators approved a measure prohibiting gay adoption. The ban was overturned more than 30 years later when, on November 25, 2008, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Cindy S. Lederman declared it unconstitutional and "not rational."
Bryant led several more campaigns around the country to repeal local anti-discrimination ordinances including St. Paul, Minnesota, Wichita, Kansas
Wichita, Kansas
Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...
, and Eugene, Oregon
Eugene, Oregon
Eugene is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and the seat of Lane County. It is located at the south end of the Willamette Valley, at the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast.As of the 2010 U.S...
. Her success led to an effort to pass the Briggs Initiative in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
which would have made pro- or neutral statements regarding homosexuals or homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
by any public school employee cause for dismissal. Grass-roots liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
organizations, chiefly in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
, sprang up to defeat the initiative. Days before the election, the California Democratic Party
California Democratic Party
The California Democratic Party is the state branch of the Democratic Party in the state of California, headquartered in Sacramento. It is chaired by veteran Democratic politician and former United States Representative John L. Burton, who succeeded Art Torres in April 2009. It is the majority...
opposed the proposed legislation. Former Governor and future President Ronald Reagan voiced opposition to the initiative, and it ultimately suffered a massive defeat at the polls.
In 1998 Dade County repudiated Bryant's successful campaign of 20 years earlier, and re-authorized an anti-discrimination ordinance protecting individuals from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation by a seven to six vote. In 2002 a ballot initiative to repeal the 1998 law called Amendment 14 was voted down by 56 percent of the voters. The Florida statute forbidding gay adoption was upheld in 2004 by a federal appellate court
Appellate court
An appellate court, commonly called an appeals court or court of appeals or appeal court , is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal...
against a constitutional challenge, but was overturned by a Miami-Dade Circuit Court in November 2008.
Pieing
Pieing is the act of throwing a pie at a person or persons. This can be a political action when the target is an authority figure, politician, or celebrity and can be used as a means of protesting against the target's political beliefs, or against perceived arrogance or vanity. Perpetrators...
" as a political act (in her case, on television), in Des Moines
Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines is the capital and the most populous city in the US state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small portion of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines which was shortened to "Des Moines" in 1857...
in 1977. Bryant quipped "At least it's a fruit pie", apparently making a pun on the derogatory term for a gay man ("fruit"). While covered in pie, she began to pray to God to forgive the activist "for his deviant lifestyle" before bursting into tears as the cameras kept rolling. Bryant's husband, after promising not to retaliate, later took another pie and threw it at the protesters who had pied his wife. By this time, gay activists had ensured the boycott on Florida orange juice had become more prominent and it was supported by many celebrities including Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
, Bette Midler
Bette Midler
Bette Midler is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys...
, Paul Williams
Paul Williams (songwriter)
Paul Hamilton Williams, Jr. is an Academy Award-winning American composer, musician, songwriter, and actor. He is perhaps best known for popular songs performed by a number of acts in the 1970s including Three Dog Night's "An Old Fashioned Love Song", Helen Reddy's "You and Me Against the World",...
, John Waters
John Waters (filmmaker)
John Samuel Waters, Jr. is an American filmmaker, actor, stand-up comedian, writer, journalist, visual artist, and art collector, who rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films...
, Carroll O'Connor
Carroll O'Connor
John Carroll O'Connor best known as Carroll O'Connor, was an American actor, producer and director whose television career spanned four decades...
, Mary Tyler Moore
Mary Tyler Moore
Mary Tyler Moore is an American actress, primarily known for her roles in television sitcoms. Moore is best known for The Mary Tyler Moore Show , in which she starred as Mary Richards, a 30-something single woman who worked as a local news producer in Minneapolis, and for her earlier role as...
and Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
. In 1978, Bryant and Green told the story of their campaign in the book, At Any Cost. Even many years after her campaign, the gay community continued to regard her name as synonymous with bigotry
Bigotry
A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one exhibiting intolerance, and animosity toward those of differing beliefs...
and homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
.
Bryant's 1977 political efforts are chronicled in Elizabeth Whitney's one-woman show A Day Without Sunshine.
Career decline and bankruptcies
The fallout from her political activism hurt her business and entertainment career. Her contract with the Florida Citrus Commission was allowed to lapse in 1979 because of the controversy and the negative publicity generated by her political campaigns and the resulting boycott of Florida orange juice.Her marriage to Bob Green also failed at that time, and in 1980 she divorced him, citing emotional abusiveness and latent suicidal thoughts. Green refuses to accept this, given that his fundamentalist religious beliefs do not recognize civil divorce and that she is "still" his wife "in God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
's eyes."
Some fundamentalist audiences and venues shunned her after her divorce. As she was no longer invited to appear at their events, she lost another major source of income. With her four children, she moved from Miami to Selma, Alabama
Selma, Alabama
Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, Alabama, United States, located on the banks of the Alabama River. The population was 20,512 at the 2000 census....
, and later to Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
. In a 1980 Ladies Home Journal article she said, "The church needs to wake up and find some way to cope with divorce and women's problems." She also expressed some sympathy for feminist aspirations, given her own experiences of emotional abuse within her previous marriage.
Bryant appeared in Michael Moore
Michael Moore
Michael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...
's 1989 documentary film Roger & Me
Roger & Me
Roger & Me is a 1989 American documentary film directed by Michael Moore. Moore portrays the regional negative economic impact of General Motors CEO Roger Smith's summary action of closing several auto plants in Flint, Michigan, costing 30,000 people their jobs at the time and economically...
, in which she is interviewed and travels to Flint, Michigan
Flint, Michigan
Flint is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and is located along the Flint River, northwest of Detroit. The U.S. Census Bureau reports the 2010 population to be placed at 102,434, making Flint the seventh largest city in Michigan. It is the county seat of Genesee County which lies in the...
, as part of the effort to revitalize the devastated local economy.
She married her second husband, Charlie Hobson Dry, in 1990. The couple tried to reestablish her music career in a series of small venues, including Branson, Missouri
Branson, Missouri
Branson is a city in Taney County in the U.S. state of Missouri. It was named after Reuben Branson, postmaster and operator of a general store in the area in the 1880s....
, and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
Pigeon Forge is a mountain resort city in Sevier County, Tennessee, located in the southeastern United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 5,875....
where they opened "Anita Bryant's Music Mansion". The establishment combined Bryant's performances of her successful songs from early in her career with a "lengthy segment in which she preached her Christian beliefs." The venture was not successful and the Music Mansion, which had missed meeting payrolls at times, filed for bankruptcy in 2001 with Bryant and Dry leaving behind a series of unpaid employees and creditors.
Bryant also spent part of the 1990s in the country music mecca of Branson, Missouri, where the state and federal governments filed liens claiming more than $116,000 in unpaid taxes. Bryant and Dry had also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
in 1997 after piling up bills from a failed Anita Bryant show in Eureka Springs, a tourist area in northwest Arkansas. Among the debts were more than $172,000 in unpaid state and federal taxes.
In 2005, Bryant returned to Barnsdall, Oklahoma, for the town's 100th anniversary celebration and to have a street renamed in her honor. She returned to her high school in Tulsa on April 21, 2007, to perform in the school's annual musical revue. She now lives in Edmond, Oklahoma
Edmond, Oklahoma
Edmond is a city in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, United States, and a part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area in the central part of the state. As of the 2010 census, the population was 81,405, making it the sixth largest city in the state of Oklahoma....
, and says she does charity work for various youth organizations while heading Anita Bryant Ministries International.
In a 1980 Ladies Home Journal interview, following her divorce and in the aftermath of her anti-gay activism, Bryant commented on her anti-gay views and said, "I'm more inclined to say live and let live, just don't flaunt it or try to legalize it." However, the biography page on her Anita Bryant Ministries website (written in 2006) continues to defend her earlier anti-gay activism and views.
Charted hits
| Year | Title | Chart Positions | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Pop Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday... |
US R&B | US AC Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks The Adult Contemporary chart is a weekly chart published in Billboard magazine that lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary and "lite-pop" radio stations in the United States... |
UK UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ... |
||
| 1959 | "Till There Was You Till There Was You "Till There Was You" is a song written by Meredith Willson for his 1957 musical play The Music Man, and which also appeared in the 1962 movie version... " |
30 | — | — | — |
| "Six Boys and Seven Girls" | 62 | — | — | — | |
| "Do-Re-Mi Do-Re-Mi "Do-Re-Mi" is a show tune from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music. Within the story, it is used by Maria to teach the notes of the major musical scale to the Von Trapp children who learn to sing for the first time, even though their father has disallowed frivolity after... " |
94 | — | — | — | |
| 1960 | "Paper Roses Paper Roses "Paper Roses" is a popular song written by Fred Spielman and Janice Torre which was a hit in 1960 for Anita Bryant with Monty Kelly's Orchestra and Chorus and later for Marie Osmond in 1973.... " |
5 | 16 | — | 24 |
| "In My Little Corner of the World" | 10 | — | — | 48 | |
| "One of the Lucky Ones" | 62 | — | — | — | |
| "Promise Me a Rose (A Slight Detail)" | 78 | — | — | — | |
| 1961 | "Wonderland by Night Wonderland by Night "Wonderland by Night" is a popular song by Bert Kaempfert that was a Billboard number one hit for three weeks, starting January 9, 1961. It was Kaempfert's first hit with his orchestra. Another cover, recorded and released by Louis Prima, also charted in the same year, reaching #15 on the... " |
18 | — | — | — |
| "A Texan and a Girl from Mexico" | 85 | — | — | — | |
| "I Can't Do It by Myself" | 87 | — | — | — | |
| "Lonesome For You, Mama" | 108 | — | — | — | |
| 1962 | "Step By Step, Little By Little" | 106 | — | — | — |
| 1964 | "The World of Lonely People" | 59 | — | 17 | — |
| "Welcome, Welcome Home" | 130 | — | — | — | |
Cultural references
Bryant's public persona has led to her being referred to (and often satirized) throughout popular culture:- In the comic book, Howard the DuckHoward the DuckHoward the Duck is a comic book character in the Marvel Comics universe created by writer Steve Gerber and artist Val Mayerik. The character first appeared in Adventure into Fear #19 and several subsequent series have chronicled the misadventures of the ill-tempered, anthropomorphic, "funny...
, a character called The Sinister SOOFI (with her organization "Save Our Offspring from Indecency") is a parody of Bryant. After Howard smashes her mask (in the shape of an orange) on her head, he recognizes her, and she says, "And what's a girl from the Sunshine State doing in the trenches...A day without imposing my morality on someone else is like a day without--well, you know!" - In the TV series Will & GraceWill & GraceWill & Grace was an American television sitcom that was originally broadcast on NBC from September 21, 1998 to May 18, 2006 for a total of eight seasons. Will & Grace remains the most successful television series with gay principal characters...
, the character Karen Walker refers to Anita Bryant as being her enemy who fell in love with her. - Bryant was often lampooned by comedy actress Jane CurtinJane CurtinJane Therese Curtin is an American actress and comedienne. She is commonly referred to as Queen of the Deadpan.First coming to prominence as an original cast member on Saturday Night Live in 1975, she went on to win back-to-back Emmy Awards for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series on the 1980s...
who was a regular on Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
. The first was in a 1976 edition in which she portrayed Bryant being held captive in BeirutBeirutBeirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
by two Arab terrorists but tries to promote orange juice to them. Her captors drink the juice and agree it is delicious, but as Bryant starts to sing her infamous jingle from the TV commercials, they place a bag over her head and order a firing squad to shoot her. In a 1977 edition in which Curtin played a newscaster on a spoof news show "Weekend Update", the then-recent clip of Bryant being pied on television was shown. Returning to the news studio, Curtin stated "Fortunately, Ms. Bryant, who was not injured, enjoyed a good laugh, and said it was okay if the assailant dated her husband." Another was in 1980 in which she portrayed Bryant planning an anti-gay sting operationSting operationIn law enforcement, a sting operation is a deceptive operation designed to catch a person committing a crime. A typical sting will have a law-enforcement officer or cooperative member of the public play a role as criminal partner or potential victim and go along with a suspect's actions to gather...
with police and gets angry when one of the officers turns down her offer of orange juice by saying he'd already had some for breakfast (Bryant's famous slogan when she did her Florida Orange Juice commercials was "it's not just for breakfast"). - In the TV series Designing WomenDesigning WomenDesigning Women is an American television sitcom that centered on the working and personal lives of four Southern women and one man in an interior design firm in Atlanta, Georgia. It aired on the CBS television network from September 29, 1986 until May 24, 1993. The show was created by head writer...
, Bryant is mentioned in several episodes by Suzanne Sugarbaker (played by Delta BurkeDelta BurkeDelta Ramona Leah Burke is an American television and film actress. Her television work includes a leading role as Suzanne Sugarbaker in the CBS sitcom Designing Women...
), referencing both her beauty pageant history, as well as her political activism which Suzanne disagreed with. - In an episode of the TV sitcom The Golden GirlsThe Golden GirlsThe Golden Girls is an American sitcom created by Susan Harris, which originally aired on NBC from September 14, 1985, to May 9, 1992. Starring Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty, the show centers on four older women sharing a home in Miami, Florida...
, an effeminate male wedding planner is overcome with emotion, causing character Blanche DevereauxBlanche DevereauxBlanche Elizabeth Devereaux is one of the four main fictional characters on the 1985-1992 NBC sitcom The Golden Girls, and its CBS spin-off The Golden Palace. In the pilot episode her last name was given as Hollingsworth, but this was somewhat "corrected" in later episodes by making this her...
to sarcastically comment, "You're ready to fly right outta here, aren't you?" The man replies, "Well, excuse me for living, Anita Bryant!" In another episode, character Dorothy ZbornakDorothy ZbornakDorothy Hollingsworth , is a fictional character from the TV series The Golden Girls, portrayed by Bea Arthur for 7 years and 183 episodes. Dorothy was the strong, sarcastic, sometimes intimidating, and arguably most grounded of the four women in the house...
complains that although she and Rose NylundRose NylundRose Nylund was born May 1930 in St. Olaf, Minnesota. She is a fictional character featured on the popular 1980s situation comedy The Golden Girls, and its spin-off The Golden Palace. She was portrayed by Betty White for 8 years and 208 episodes.Rose was comically portrayed as naïve and simple,...
placed second in a song-writing contest about Miami, they still got "treated badly" because the judges told them "to get out of the way as they took the winner's picture with Anita Bryant." - MadMad (magazine)Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. Launched as a comic book before it became a magazine, it was widely imitated and influential, impacting not only satirical media but the entire cultural landscape of the 20th century.The last...
magazine's parody of the television sitcom Three's CompanyThree's CompanyThree's Company is an American sitcom that aired from March 15, 1977, to September 18, 1984, on ABC. It is based on the British sitcom, Man About the House....
(where John RitterJohn RitterJonathan Southworth "John" Ritter was an American actor, voice over artist and comedian perhaps best known for having played Jack Tripper and Paul Hennessy in the ABC sitcoms Three's Company and 8 Simple Rules, respectively...
's character, Jack, pretends to be gay to share an apartment with two women) ends with a visit from the "new landlord", a whip-wielding Anita Bryant. - In an episode of TV's Gilmore GirlsGilmore GirlsGilmore Girls is an American family comedy-drama series created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, starring Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel. On October 5, 2000, the series debuted on The WB and was cancelled in its seventh season, ending on May 15, 2007 on The CW...
, Lorelai says to her father that he could fill a huge gap after Anita Bryant because her father always has half a grapefruit for breakfast. - In the song "Fuck Aneta Briant" [sic] on his 1978 album Nothing SacredNothing Sacred (David Allan Coe album)Nothing Sacred is the eleventh studio album by American country musician David Allan Coe. Released in 1978, it is Coe's fourth independent album, after Penitentiary Blues, Requiem for a Harlequin and Buckstone County Prison....
, country singer David Allan CoeDavid Allan CoeDavid Allan Coe is an American outlaw country music singer who achieved popularity in the 1970s and 1980s. He has written and performed over 280 original songs throughout his career...
expresses his feelings for Bryant. - In Armistead MaupinArmistead MaupinArmistead Jones Maupin, Jr. is an American writer, best known for his Tales of the City series of novels, based in San Francisco.-Early life:...
's 1980 novel More Tales of the CityMore Tales of the City (novel)More Tales of the City is the second book in the Tales of the City series by San Francisco novelist Armistead Maupin, originally serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle.-Plot:...
, Michael Tolliver's parents write to him praising Anita Bryant's "Save Our Children" campaign, prompting him to write back and come out of the closet. - In the film Airplane!Airplane!Airplane! is a 1980 American satirical comedy film directed and written by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker and released by Paramount Pictures...
, Leslie NielsenLeslie NielsenLeslie William Nielsen, OC was a Canadian and naturalized American actor and comedian. Nielsen appeared in more than one hundred films and 1,500 television programs over the span of his career, portraying more than 220 characters...
's character, Doctor Rumack, upon seeing a large number of passengers become violently ill, vomit, and suffer uncontrollable flatulence, says, "I haven't seen anything this bad since the Anita Bryant concert." - In the 2008 film MilkMilk (film)Milk is a 2008 American biographical film on the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors...
, Bryant's anti-gay activism is shown in various newsreels. - On their 2004 album UnUn (album)Un is a Chumbawamba album released in mid 2004, and features major influences from both electronic and folk music, containing many samples from world music. It serves as a bridge between the band's earlier electric sound and the current acoustic sound...
, UK band ChumbawambaChumbawambaChumbawamba is a British musical group who have, over a career spanning nearly three decades, played punk rock, pop-influenced music, world music, and folk music...
made reference to Bryant being pied on television on the track "Just Desserts". The track also included an audio sample of the event itself. - In 1977, the album Lesbian ConcentrateLesbian ConcentrateLesbian Concentrate: A Lesbianthology of Songs and Poems is a compilation of music and spoken word by lesbian artists. It was released by Olivia Records in 1977 in response to Anita Bryant's anti gay rights campaign Save Our Children....
was released by Olivia RecordsOlivia RecordsOlivia Records was a collective founded in 1973 to record and market women's music. Olivia, named after the heroine of a pulp novel by Dorothy Bussy who fell in love with her headmistress at French boarding school, was the brainchild of ten lesbian-feminists living in Washington, DC who wanted to...
in protest to Bryant's anti-gay campaigning. The album featured a collection of songs and poems by different artists. The liner notes to the album referred to Bryant as "a part-time orange juice pusher". Part of the proceeds from the album went to the Lesbian Mothers National Defense Fund, an organization dedicated to helping lesbian mothers keep their children. - The Dead KennedysDead KennedysDead Kennedys are an American punk rock band formed in San Francisco, California in 1978. The band became part of the American hardcore punk movement of the early 1980s. They gained a large underground fanbase in the international punk music scene....
song "Moral MajorityIn God We Trust, Inc.In God We Trust, Inc. is a hardcore punk EP by the Dead Kennedys; it is now reissued with the Plastic Surgery Disasters album. The thrashing, lightning-fast beats and shouted vocals, on the first six tracks, resembles Washington D.C.'s punk bands of the time; more than on any other Dead Kennedys...
" addresses Bryant along with Phyllis SchlaflyPhyllis SchlaflyPhyllis McAlpin Stewart Schlafly is a Constitutional lawyer and an American politically conservative activist and author who founded the Eagle Forum. She is known for her opposition to modern feminism ideas and for her campaign against the proposed Equal Rights Amendment...
and others, with the refrain "God must be dead if you're alive." - In the 1978 song "Mañana" by Jimmy BuffettJimmy BuffettJames William "Jimmy" Buffett is a singer-songwriter, author, entrepreneur, and film producer. He is best known for his music, which often portrays an "island escapism" lifestyle. Together with his Coral Reefer Band, Buffett's musical hits include "Margaritaville" , and "Come Monday"...
, Buffett says "I hope Anita Bryant never ever does one of my songs." - Rock musician Leon RussellLeon RussellClaude Russell Bridges , known professionally as Leon Russell, is an American musician and songwriter, who has recorded as a session musician, sideman, and maintained a solo career in music....
wrote a song entitled "Anita Bryant" in 1978 in which he makes reference to going to school with her. The song was released as the B-side of his single "Elvis & Marilyn". Russell, born Claude Russell Bridges, did in fact attend Will Rogers High School in Tulsa, OklahomaTulsa, OklahomaTulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 46th-largest city in the United States. With a population of 391,906 as of the 2010 census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 937,478 residents in the MSA and 988,454 in the CSA. Tulsa's...
with Bryant and Elvin Bishop. - In the TV sitcom Soap, Anita Bryant is mentioned in various episodes in conjunction with the gay character Jodie Dallas.
External links
- Anita Bryant Ministries International
- Image of Anita Bryant in the 1970s (available for public use from the State Archives of Florida)
- Belated curtain call, Tulsa World, 19 April 2007
- Readers Forum: Anita Bryant to star in Round-Up 2007, Tulsa World, 18 April 2007
- Celebration draws Anita Bryant back to Barnsdall, Tulsa World, 28 May 2005
- Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - Bryant, Anita
