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Anita Bryant, the beauty queen and singer who became America’s most outspoken anti-gay activist in the 1970s, has died at the age of 84.
According to public obituary Ms. Bryant, known as Anita Bryant Dry, died Dec. 16 at her home in Edmond, Oklahoma, in the hands of her family.
Bryant, a former Miss Oklahoma and Christian pop star, was best known as the singing spokesperson for the Florida Citrus Commission. Her performance of “Come to the Florida Sunshine Tree” in a television commercial catapulted her to fame.
In 1977, she threw herself into the Save Our Children movement, fighting a historic Miami-Dade County ordinance that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation.
In the name of protecting children, she successfully overturned the ordinance (which lasted more than 20 years before being repealed), and then united with fellow conservatives like Reverend Jerry Falwell to We have expanded our efforts to fight LGBTQ rights in all forms. , whose Moral Majority campaigned against gay rights, abortion rights, and more.
In 1977, he was famously punched in the face by gay activist Tom Higgins in Des Moines, Iowa. She quickly said, “At least it’s a fruit pie,” and her husband, DJ Bob Greene, urged Higgins to be left alone so that he could rest in peace.
In 1978, she inspired California’s Briggs Initiative. This is an early “Don’t Say Gay” proposal to ban pro-gay speech by public school employees. Liberals and even former Republican Gov. Ronald Reagan opposed it, but they were soundly defeated.
Her anti-gay campaign received more attention than she had ever received before, much of it negative. Bryant told Playboy in 1978, “When I was a kid, you didn’t even say the word ‘gay,’ much less know what the act was about. I knew it was very bad, but I just couldn’t do it.” Imagine what they were trying to do, in that one person played the male role and the other the female role. Please try it. I mean, it was too filthy to think about and I had other things to think about. I mean, I found everything, it was a total revelation for me. ”
Her work also led to a more than 30-year ban on gay adoptions in Florida.
By 1980, her policies were deemed too detrimental to the Florida Citrus Commission, and the commission decided not to renew her lucrative contract. She also lost many other gigs and became the focus of protests. By her own estimates, she lost $500,000 in revenue over her position.
Bryant’s career was in decline by 1980, but her divorce had as much to do with her anti-gay stance. Her fans were very religious and rejected her for breaking up with her husband. She performed in Branson, Missouri in the 1990s, but ran into tax problems. With her new husband Charlie Hobson Dry, she opened Anita Bryant’s Music Mansion in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. It failed in 2001.
Born on March 25, 1940 in Barnsdall, Oklahoma, she moved with her family to Oklahoma City and recorded her first song in 1953. She made her television debut soon after and was signed as a pop singer right after high school.
First she was crowned Miss Tulsa and then Miss Oklahoma, but lost Miss America to Mary Ann Mobley in 1959.
Her self-titled debut album was released the same year, and she went on to release over 20 more, many of which were gospel in nature.
Before becoming an evangelical, Bryant enjoyed a number of secular hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Most famously, “Till There Was You” (1959) and the Top 5 hit “Paper Roses” (1960), which were later covered with similar success. “All American” Marie Osmond.
Her rendition of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” so captivated former President Lyndon B. Johnson that he asked her to perform it at his funeral, which she did in 1973.
Predeceased by her second husband, she is survived by four children, two stepchildren, and seven grandchildren.
