Beauty queen, pop singer, and spokeswoman who became an anti-gay crusader dies at 84
Anita Bryant, a former beauty queen and pop singer of the 1960s whose career led her to become a spokesperson for Florida oranges in the early ’70s and an evangelical crusader against gay rights later in that decade, died Dec. 16 at age 84, her family announced Thursday.
The family’s obituary for Anita Bryant Day, as she was known outside the public sphere, was published in her hometown newspaper, the Oklahoman, and said the singer-activist died at home last month in Edmond, Oklahoma, surrounded by family and friends.
During her heyday as a public figure, Bryant was one of the most polarizing celebrities in America, vilified by much of the show business community for campaigning against what she viewed as a gay takeover of American culture, while being embraced as a hero by many religious conservatives.
Prior to her taking those stands, she was best known for her appearances in commercials for Florida oranges that introduced the catchphrase “Breakfast without orange juice is like a day without sunshine” — and many parodies of that statement — into the popular lexicon.
Those advertisements eclipsed her long-dormant career as a pop singer, even as she made a move into recording gospel music after easy-listening sounds fell out of fashion in the rock era.
Bryant’s notable public appearances in her less controversial years included singing at both the Democratic and Republican conventions in 1968, being a staple of Bob Hope’s holiday tours for overseas troops for seven straight years, singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” at the 1971 Super Bowl, and providing that some anthem as a musical eulogy for President Lyndon Johnson at his 1973 funeral, after singing for him on several occasions.
In 1977, Bryant began fronting a “Save Our Children” campaign aimed at repealing an ordinance in Miami-Dade County that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
The crusade was successful in getting the ordinance repealed that year by a popular vote. (It was not restored until 1998.)
For the next three years, her activism against such regulations made her a poster girl for the religious right and the foremost public archenemy of the gay community and social liberals.
Her statement that she “loves homosexuals, but hates their sin” became a sort of mantra for evangelicals — and a much-mocked meme among what would later be known as the LGBTQ community — for decades to come.
In 1978, her views were further amplified by the national media when she was the subject of the monthly “Playboy Interview.”
The magazine began by recapping the sudden turnaround in her image:
“For her first 36 years, Anita Bryant was the stereotypic embodiment of the American dream; hers was a rags-to-riches saga in the best Horatio Alger tradition. … Her life was comfortable and distinctly uncontroversial. Last year, all that suddenly and dramatically changed; her halcyon routine perished in the flames of political warfare.
“When the Metropolitan Dade County Commission passed an ordinance that would, in effect, mandate that qualified homosexuals be hired as teachers in private and parochial schools, Bryant stepped forward to spearhead a drive to repeal it.
“The ensuing campaign was drawn along classic good-versus-evil lines. Bryant recruited a slew of religious leaders and conservative politicos under the banner of her ad hoc organization, Save Our Children.
“Her pitch was simple: Homosexuality is a sin, and if homosexuals were given carte blanche to glamorize their ‘deviate lifestyle’ in Miami-area classrooms, the American family would be destroyed and the American way of life would disappear. … Bryant had become a fixture on the American political scene.”
In the Playboy interview, Bryant said that she had not thought much about homosexuality prior to the Florida legislation that prompted her ire.
“I got involved only because they were asking for special privileges that violated the state law of Florida, not to mention God’s law. … God says the wages of sin are death, and one little sin brings on another. The homosexual act is just the beginning of the depravity. It then leads to-what’s the word?-sadomasochism.
“It just gets worse as it goes on. You go further and further down the drain and it just becomes so perverted and you get into alcohol and drugs and it’s so rotten that many homosexuals end up committing suicide.
“The worst thing is that these days, so many married men with children who don’t have a happy marriage are going into the homosexual bars for satisfaction-if they’re not careful, they’re going to get caught up in it totally.”
Her activism extended well beyond Florida as her fame in that arena grew, and she advocated for California’s infamous Briggs Initiative, which looked to ban public school employees from making pro-gay statements, at the cost of their employment.
Even former California governor Ronald Reagan joined liberals in opposing the initiative, and once it went down to a massive defeat among voters, Bryant’s influence waned.
Her activism led to the end of any substantial career Bryant had beyond the conservative Christian community.
With Bryant becoming a punchline for Johnny Carson, and counteractivists boycotting oranges and adopting catchphrases like “A day without human rights is like a day without sunshine,” the Florida Citrus Commission declined to renew her contract as its brand ambassador in 1980, after an 11-year run that had included co-hosting the Orange Bowl Parade telecast for nine years.
Other endorsement deals also dried up, although she had a sort of last hurrah with a two-hour “Anita Bryant Spectacular” patriotic special in 1980, with Bob Hope and Pat Boone costarring.
Bryant divorced her husband, Bob Green, also in 1980, despite his publicly contesting the split on religious grounds. Her support in the evangelical community dropped as a result, with some of her former supporters believing that her initiating a divorce was sinful.
After a decade of being single, she married her second husband, Charlie Hobson Dry, a childhood sweetheart, in 1990.
One of Bryant’s most curious public appearances came in 1989 when she was interviewed by Roger Moore for his “Roger & Me” documentary. “Cheer up, Flint, Michigan,” Bryant was seen as advising the economically depressed city, leading to further derision.
Bryant represented Oklahoma in the Miss America pageant in 1958, becoming second-runner-up.
Many people believed she won the contest, because she already had some notoriety in television and music at that point. “I already had a recording contract when I did Miss America, so people knew me,” she said in a 2008 interview. “It’s really funny because people still tell me they remember when I won Miss America.”
Bryant’s biggest break came when one of Arthur Godfrey’s talent scouts discovered her and put her on his variety show when she was 16, with a series of appearances there leading to her record deal.
She soon was appearing on other shows, from Ed Sullivan’s to “American Bandstand.” Commercials for Kraft, Coca-Cola and Holiday Inn followed.
Her biggest charting song was “Paper Roses,” which reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1960. It was followed by one other top 10 song, “My Little Corner of the World.”
She registered 14 singles on the chart between 1959 and 1964, recording for the Carlton and Columbia labels. As rock sounds took over, she was seen more often on TV variety shows than on pop radio.
Bryant did not have any breakout albums, although a holiday album that became something of an easy listening perennial, “Do You Hear What I Hear?: Christmas With Anita Bryant,” peaked at No. 25 in 1967.
In 1970, Bryan released her first album with Word, the prominent Christian label of the day, and released primarily religious material thereafter.
She also wrote a series of books with and without her then-husband Bob for Fleming H. Revell, a Christian publisher, that were popular in religious bookstores throughout the ’70s. Her last album was released in 1985.
She was nominated for three Grammys in the late ’60s and early ’70s, all for religious material, two in the since-renamed “best sacred performance” category and one for best inspirational performance.
During her glory days as one of TV’s most sought-after advertising personalities, Bryan’s campaign for Florida oranges had such a positive effect, she was credited with orange juice sales climbing from 382 million gallons to 800 million-plus gallons during her 1969-80 tenure as pitchwoman.
In the subsequent years when the gay rights controversies made her anathema to most mainstream television programmers and advertisers, she continued to enjoy name value among some older consumers who came to see her first in Branson, Missouri, where she and her second husband opened a theater in the early ’90s, and then Nashville, where she moved in 1998 to put on a live variety extravaganza.
Bryant moved back to Oklahoma in 2002 to care for her ill mother, deciding to remain in the state thereafter because of its friendliness to her traditional religious values. Well out of the limelight, she worked on writing inspirational books and founding Anita Bryant Ministries International.
Bryant was preceded in death by her husband, Charlie, and is survived by four children, two stepdaughters, and seven grandchildren and their spouses.
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