Anita Bryant scored three Top 20 hits in the United States in the early 1960s.
41 Facts About Anita Bryant
2.
Anita Bryant was the 1958 Miss Oklahoma beauty pageant winner, and a brand ambassador from 1969 to 1980 for the Florida Citrus Commission.
3.
Anita Bryant never regained her former prominence and filed for bankruptcy twice.
4.
Anita Bryant was singing onstage at the age of six, at local fairgrounds in Oklahoma.
5.
Anita Bryant sang occasionally on radio and television, and was invited to audition when Arthur Godfrey's talent show came to town.
6.
Anita Bryant became Miss Oklahoma in 1958, and was second runner-up in the 1959 Miss America pageant at age 18, right after graduating from Tulsa's Will Rogers High School.
7.
In 1960, Anita Bryant married Bob Green, a Miami disc jockey, with whom she eventually raised four children: Robert Jr.
8.
Anita Bryant divorced him in 1980, attracting allegations of hypocrisy from the Christian right, who cited the indissolubility of Christian marriage.
9.
Anita Bryant 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.
10.
Between 1964 and 1969, Anita Bryant performed at multiple White House functions, including both the Democratic Convention in Chicago and the Miami Republican Convention in 1968.
11.
From 1961 until 1968, Anita Bryant frequently joined Bob Hope on holiday tours for the United Service Organizations.
12.
Anita Bryant again traveled with Hope for televised shows during the Vietnam War.
13.
Anita Bryant was given the Silver Medallion Award from the National Guard for "outstanding service by an entertainer", and the Veterans of Foreign Wars Leadership Gold Medallion.
14.
Anita Bryant had a moderate pop hit with the song "Till There Was You", from the Broadway production The Music Man.
15.
Anita Bryant released several albums on the Carlton and Columbia labels.
16.
Anita Bryant sang the Orange Bird Song and narrated the Orange Bird record album, with music written by the Sherman Brothers.
17.
Anita Bryant recounted her autobiography, appeared in medleys of prerecorded songs, and interviewed Pat Boone.
18.
On March 23,1969, Anita Bryant participated in a Rally for Decency at the Orange Bowl to protest an incident involving Jim Morrison and The Doors' performance in Miami, Florida in 1969.
19.
Anita Bryant led a highly publicized campaign to repeal the ordinance, as the leader of a coalition named Save Our Children.
20.
Anita Bryant perpetuated the idea of the gay community 'recruiting' children through child abuse to become homosexual themselves.
21.
On June 7,1977, Anita Bryant's campaign led to a repeal of the anti-discrimination ordinance by a margin of 69 to 31 percent.
22.
However, the success of Anita Bryant's campaign galvanized her opponents, and the gay community retaliated against her by forming the Coalition for Human Rights and the Miami Victory Campaign, who organized a boycott of orange juice.
23.
Anita Bryant became one of the first persons to be publicly assaulted by being "pied" as a political act.
24.
Anita Bryant quipped "At least it's a fruit pie," making a pun on the derogatory slur of "fruit" for a gay man.
25.
Anita Bryant's husband said that he would not retaliate, but followed the protesters outside and threw a pie at them.
26.
Anita Bryant led several more campaigns around the country to repeal local anti-discrimination ordinances, including campaigns in St Paul, Minnesota, Wichita, Kansas, and Eugene, Oregon.
27.
The Florida Citrus Commission allowed her contract to lapse after the divorce, stating that Anita Bryant had "worn out" as a spokesperson.
28.
Anita Bryant rapidly became an object of ridicule, as her image shifted from being a model Christian spokeswoman to that of a self-righteous bigot.
29.
Anita Bryant married her second husband, Charlie Hobson Dry, in 1990.
30.
Anita Bryant spent part of the 1990s in Branson, Missouri, where the state and federal governments both filed liens claiming more than $116,000 in unpaid taxes.
31.
In 1996, Anita Bryant said she was happy to be out of show business.
32.
In 2005, Anita Bryant returned to Barnsdall, Oklahoma, to attend the town's 100th anniversary celebration and to have a street renamed in her honor.
33.
Anita Bryant returned to her high school in Tulsa on April 21,2007, to perform in the school's annual musical revue.
34.
Anita Bryant's name has frequently been invoked as a prototypical example of opposition to LGBT rights.
35.
Anita Bryant was regularly lampooned on Saturday Night Live, sometimes with her politics as the target, sometimes her reputation as a popular, traditional entertainer known for her commercials as the target, and sometimes targeting a combination of the two.
36.
Anita Bryant was the target of mockery in the RiffTrax short Drugs Are Like That.
37.
Armistead Maupin, in his 1980 novel More Tales of the City, used Anita Bryant's "Save Our Children" campaign to prompt a principal character to come out of the closet.
38.
Anita Bryant appears in archive footage as a principal antagonist in the 2008 American biographical film Milk, about the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk.
39.
Anita Bryant was portrayed as the principal antagonist in the 2011 play, Anita Bryant Died for Your Sins.
40.
Anita Bryant is a frequently portrayed character at drag shows across the United States.
41.
Anita Bryant is the subject of the musical The Loneliest Girl in the World, which had its world premiere run at Diversionary Theatre in San Diego during mid-2018.