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Anita Bryant Dies: Singer, Orange Juice Pitchwoman & Anti-Gay Campaigner Was 84
A Grammy nominee whose pair of Top 10 hits and show business career was overwhelmed in the public eye by her anti-gay crusades, died December 16.
Anita Bryant, a Grammy nominated singer, TV personality and orange juice pitchwoman whose show business career was submerged in the public eye by her anti-gay crusades of the late 1970s, died December 16 at her home in Edmond, Oklahoma. Gay rights advocates organized a boycott of the singer and the juice, and in an instantly famous 1977 incident that would presage the subsequent decades’ theatrical protests of ACT-UP and Queer Nation, Bryant was hit in the face with a pie during a TV appearance in Des Moines, Iowa. Bryant also became the frequent butt of jokes on late-night talk shows (particularly in the monologues of Johnny Carson), on Saturday Night Live, in sitcoms such as Golden Girls and Designing Women and in Armistead Maupin’s 1980 novel More Tales of the City.
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