Every Old Witch Becomes New Again

Once upon a time there was a mean-spirited beauty queen from out West who became known as the Wicked Witch of the Gay Rights Movement.

No, child, I am NOT talking about Carrie Prejean, the Miss California whose 15 minutes of fame kast year came when she lost the Miss USA pageant and later her title because she couldn't keep her lipgloss lacquered big mouth shut about her disdain for gay rights and gay people.

Ms. Prejean was a pale imitation of the real Wicked Witch, a former Miss Oklahoma who lost her career because of her hatred for gay people, whom she saw as "eaters of life." I'm speaking of Anita Bryant, who used her homophobia to fight anti-sexual discrimination laws in Florida and California in the 1970s. She was successful in Florida but not so in California.

Ms. Bryant's efforts ended up costing her dignity, her career and possibly her marriage. She once was the all-American Girl Next Door, a regular on Bob Hope's Tours for the Troops, and a popular spokeswoman for Florida orange juice. She also was a pretty good singer, if you're a fan of Lawrence Welk-style pop standards.

Now, she's not invited to perform in many venues, because she's become a symbol of hate and a one-liner about obsessed idiocy. She's the ultimate Baptist Bighaired Bitch and pretty much a footnote in show biz history. Her legacy will be as a symbol of homophobic hate and whatever achievements her genuine talent may have garnered her will be secondary. She is to homophobia what Tiger Woods has become to adultery.

Bryant's bubble floated into gay history about the same time as Harvey Milk was breaking ground as the first openly-gay elected politician in American history. In the acclaimed biolographical film about Mr. Milk, vintage news footage of Bryant is used to document her influence on public opinion in mid-to-late 1970s.

The success of "Milk," the movie, has brought public attention to the early days of the gay rights movement and helped educate a younger generation about some of the events that went on back then. Consequently, it seems logical that some filmmaker would see the Anita Bryant story as a relevant topic for a film.

Reuters reported today that such a film is being developed by HBO. "Sex and the City" creator Darren Star will direct the film, which is being written by "Runaway" creator Chad Hodge. No actress has been announced to play Bryant as yet.

Bryant first garnered national public attention in 1958, when she represented the state of Oklahoma in the Miss America Pageant. She made quite an impression with her singing and her dazzling tan which offset her beautiful white teeth. But she lost, placing only third behind a sweet little southern belle from Mississippi named Mary Ann Mobley and a forgotten Miss Iowa named Joanne Lucille McDonald.

The Bravo cable network, a few years ago, rebroadcast the September 1958 Miss America Pageant (back then, pageants were postdated; the contestants competed as state representatives for the year 1958 but the young woman who won was always known as the Miss America of the following year, hence Miss Mobley is listed as Miss America of 1959). It was a perfect time capsule of what was one of the most watched television specials of the year back in the 1950s and 1960s.

The pageant was slow-moving and long. Each of the ten finalists smiled nervously in one-piece swimsuits and high heels. Most wore white dresses with big hoop skirts. They answered questions about dating and marriage --- never anything about politics or world affairs. And they each performed a little "talent" number.

Miss McDonald played a sonorous version of "Clair de Lune" on the piano. Bryant, at 18, was a past winner of the Arthur Godfrey talent show, was considered a shoe-in based on her talent and good looks alone.

But in retrospect, knowing Bryant's history, one can see a bit of her creepier aspects. She came out and sang a ballad called "What the Boys Say about the Girls After Midnight." The song was a cautionary tale about what happens to good girls who give in to passion --- they get talked about and are no longer called "nice girls." Bryant performed it well and no doubt her very religious family and friends were proud of her.

But at the same time, the song gave the impression that maybe Miss Oklahoma was not much fun. And her singing effort was overshadowed by Mobley's talent number. The petite little gal from Brandon, Mississippi, came out onstage dressed like the Queen of the Junior League and started to sing a dainty litlle operatic aria. Suddenly, she stopped, and said, "Sometimes Ah jes' have to express mahself diffrently" and ripped off her hoop skirt and started singing "There'll Be Some Changes Made" while shimmying in her Scarlett O'Hara pantaloons. And THEN she ripped the pantaloons off, grabbed a top hat and cane and started doing a tap dance in her scanties!

The audience went wild and it was pretty clear that a queen was in the making.

The moment that did Bryant in and put Mobley on the throne came during the question-and=answer session. Bryant was asked what she would do if she was on a date and the boy asked her to stay out after curfew. She responded by turning into an uptight Sunday School teacher and went off on a diatribe about how such boys didn't respect girls and she would never see him again and have her daddy change the locks on the house if necessary. In other words, she showed the world that she was just no fun at all.

Mobley was asked how she would get a boy to talk on the first date. In moonlight and magnolia accents, she described how she'd find out what kind of sports he liked.

"If he lahks football, Ah'd get him to talk about football," she began, and started rambling on from there like everybody's cute little featherbrained younger sister. "If he didn't lahk football, well, Ah'd get him to talk about basketball or baseball. And if he didn't lahk ANY sports, well Ah'd try to find out what he DID lahk, what hobbies he had, what classes he lahked and if'n you cain't get him to talk about any of those thangs, Ah reckon you're jes' STUCK with a boy that won't talk to you and you're jes' gonna have t' sit there in sahlence!"

The audience roared. Emcee Bert Parks' smile got bigger and he probably started warming up his voice to sing "There She Is" because the winner had been found.

Mary Ann Mobley went on to star in an Elvis Presley movie and later become a regular co-host, with her actor husband Gary Collins, of later Miss America Pageants. Joanne Lucille McDonald no doubt went back to Iowa to marry and give piano lessons.

But Anita Bryant got a recording contract. She had million-seller hits with "Till There Was You" and "Paper Roses," and as mentioned above, was scooped up by Bob Hope to help him entertain the troops in Vietnam and other locales. Bryant's versions of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "Dixie" were always big inspirational hits with the boys in green.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, she returned to her Christian roots. She married a man who started managing her career and settled in Florida. She became known as a gospel singer with a wholesome image, which she used to become a spokeswoman for Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods and Holiday Inn. Mainstream America in the Age of Nixon loved Anita.

Her most famous celebrity endorsement gig was for the Florida Citrus Commission, for which she sang in a series of TV commercials, closing each ad with the tag line, "A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine."

Now a Christian celebrity, Bryantpublished several best-selling books and won Good Housekeeping's "Most Admired Woman in America" poll for three consecutive years.

In 1977, she switched to political activism, launching a crusade to repeal a new Miami-Dade County ordinance prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

From the Reuters report:

"As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children," she said. Her Save Our Children coalition got the new law overturned within a year, and it took 20 years for it to be reinstated.

Celebrating her victory, Bryant promised she would "seek help and change for homosexuals, whose sick and sad values belie the word 'gay,' which they pathetically use to cover their unhappy lives."

She also said, "Homosexuals eat life. They swallow sperm."

Her picture appeared on national news magazines covers. She became a sought-after "Christian values" speaker. She thought she had the stuff to use her celebrity for predatory anti-gay causes outside of Florida and went to California to support the Briggs Initiative in 1978, a failed attempt to ban gay teachers from the state's public schools. During this time, she was photographed being hit in the face by a pie.

With the crust and juice dripping from her face, she bravely tried to make a joke:

"At least it was a FRUIT pie."

But gay people weren't laughing. An effective nationwide boycott of orange juice was organized and Bryant eventually lost her Citrus Commission contract, and her record and book sales fell sharply. Bryant remarried, tried unsuccessfully to revive her singing career and eventually filed for bankruptcy.

I can see why this would be a good project for an HBO movie and would welcome it, assuming that Pam Tebow and Mel Gibson are not asked to play Bryant and her husband. It would portray Bryant as a talented singer who achieved great heights but who, like all tragic protagonists, had a fatal flaw, in Bryant's case, her religion.

I think the Anita Bryant story should be told, weird as it is, because it's about the Peter Principle, the theory that people rise to their highest level of incompetence and end up stuck there. If Bryant had just stuck to entertainment, she still would probably be a respected gospel singer and active as a performer. But because she went too far with her homophobia --- if you're in show biz, you don't diss the fags and dykes and expect them to buy your records, do your hair or sew sequins on your dresses --- she was done in by her own ambitions.

I can see the story being a rallying point for the Christian right and maybe even getting some new interest in Bryant's career, if she's still able to sing at age 70. Likewise, I can see the telling of her story as a means of reminding gay people to be ever vigilant --- the extremists of religion are always out there, waiting to hate us. And they're armed with bibles, songs, corporate sponsors and lots of hair spray.