Photo: WCTV - Public Domain

Singer Anita Bryant: Dead At 84

Grammy-nominated singer, former Miss Oklahoma, and prominent spokesperson of orange juice and other products who became famous throughout the second half of her life for her outspoken opposition to gay rights, Anita Bryant has died at the age of 84.

On Thursday (1.09) in a formal statement posted to The Oklahoman new site, Bryant’s family confirmed her 12.16.24 passing but did not list the cause of death.

Bryant began singing at an early age, and was just 12 years old when she hosted her own local television show. In 1958 she was crowned Miss Oklahoma and shortly thereafter began a successful recording career that included such hit singles as “Till There Was You” (from the Broadway musical The Music Man), “Paper Roses” (Top5 on the Billboard Hot 100), and “In My Little Corner of the World” (Top10 on the Billboard Hot 100). A card-carrying Christian, Anita received two Grammy nominations for best sacred performance for Abide With Me and “How Great Thou Art” and one for best inspirational performance, for Anita Bryant … Naturally.

Come the late 1960s, Bryant was chosen to join Bob Hope on his USO tours for troops overseas, had sung at the White House and performed at the national conventions for both the Democrats and Republicans in 1968. Anita also became a highly visible commercial spokesperson and her ads for Florida orange juice featured the tag line, “A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine.”

However, in the late 1970s, the celebrity’s life and career took a dramatically turn. Displeased with the cultural changes of the time, Bryant led a successful campaign to repeal an ordinance in Florida that would have prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation. Supported by the Rev. Jerry Falwell among others, Bryant and her “Save Our Children” coalition continued to oppose gay rights around the country, denouncing the “deviant lifestyle” of the gay community and calling gays “human garbage.”

In return for her anti-Gay position, Anita became the object of significant criticism and ridicule with activists organizing boycotts against products she endorsed and designed T-shirts mocking her. In fact, during her appearance in Iowa, an activist jammed a pie in her face.

In Florida, the former singer’s legacy was challenged and the ban against sexual discrimination was restored in 1998. On Friday (1.10) Tom Lander, an LGBTQ+ activist and board member of the advocacy group Safe Schools South Florida, told The Associated Press “She won the campaign, but she lost the battle in time.”

As her career in the entertainment industry declined, her marriage to her first husband, Bob Green, broke up, and she later filed for bankruptcy.

Anita Bryant spent the latter part of her life in Oklahoma, where she led Anita Bryant Ministries International. Her second husband, NASA test astronaut Charles Hobson Dry, died in 2024, NDA according to her family’s statement, she is survived by four children, two stepdaughters and seven grandchildren.

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Author: Al Denté

Photo: WCTV – Public Domain