Anita Bryant, pitchwoman who crusaded against gay rights, dies at 84

Author of the article:

Washington Post

Bill Hewitt, The Washington Post

Published Jan 09, 2025  •  6 minute read

In this June 26, 1977 file photo, demonstrators carry signs of, from left, Adolf Hitler, Anita Bryant and the Ku Klux Klan during the annual Gay Freedom Day March in San Francisco. Photo by File photo /Associated Press

Anita Bryant, a beauty queen, singer and wholesome pitchwoman for Florida orange juice whose crusade against gay rights in the 1970s transformed her into one of the most polarizing figures in American public life, died Dec. 16 at her home in Edmond, Oklahoma. She was 84.

Article content

Article content

Recommended Videos

Article content

Her death was announced on Jan. 9 in an obituary her family placed in the Oklahoman newspaper. They did not cite a cause.

Ms. Bryant enjoyed a successful career in show business before wading into what turned out to be a career-ending controversy. Along with being a runner-up in the 1959 Miss America pageant, she was a singer noted for her powerful renditions of patriotic and Christian ballads, with three gold records, including “Till There Was You” from “The Music Man.”

She was a featured presence at the Rev. Billy Graham’s crusades and regularly toured with comedian Bob Hope to entertain troops overseas.

Her signature tune was “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which she delivered so movingly at a White House dinner that then-President Lyndon B. Johnson reportedly told her, “Honey, I want you to sing that when they lower me in the ground.” Ms. Bryant performed the song at Johnson’s funeral in 1973.

Article content

She was also a highly coveted corporate ambassador, promoting products including Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods and Tupperware. Her greatest renown stemmed from her work as a spokesperson for the Florida Citrus Commission, which was seeking to boost sales of the state’s orange juice.

Beginning in 1968, Ms. Bryant starred in popular commercials that featured her singing a catchy jingle, “Come to the Florida Sunshine Tree,” and perkily reciting a tagline, “Breakfast without orange juice is like a day without sunshine!”

Ms. Bryant and her husband Bob Green, a former disc jockey who served as her manager, enjoyed the fruits of her stardom, living in a 25-room mansion in Miami with their four children.

In January 1977, Ms. Bryant learned that Dade County officials were considering an ordinance that would prohibit discrimination against gays in hiring and housing.

Article content

Article content

Ms. Bryant, who said she was guided by a biblical injunction against homosexuality, led a delegation that sought to block the measure. The ordinance narrowly passed, prompting Ms. Bryant to form a group called Save Our Children and press for a referendum to overturn the decision.

“God drew a circle and more or less asked me to step into it,” she later said.

Ms. Bryant’s political activism dramatically altered her public persona, turning the cheery face of Sunshine State citrus into one of the most incendiary cultural warriors of her era.

For years, Ms. Bryant was lionized by fellow evangelicals and reviled by liberals as a bigot. With her fiery speeches, she stirred a media frenzy – even landing on the cover of Newsweek – and drew hate mail as well as death threats.

Article content

She found herself on the crest of a conservative revival sweeping the United States. Among her most vocal supporters was the Rev. Jerry Falwell, a fundamentalist preacher who founded the Moral Majority political action group in 1979.

“The culture wars were just beginning, and she played a very big role in getting them started,” said Marjorie J. Spruill, author of “Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women’s Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics.” “She rapidly grew a local issue into a national movement.”

Ms. Bryant insisted that she had nothing against gay people personally. “The hardest thing to do is to convince people I don’t hate homosexuals,” she said on “The Phil Donahue Show” in 1977. “I pray for them. I would like to help homosexuals.”

Article content

Her frequently strident rhetoric suggested otherwise. She maintained that gay people were trying to drip-feed what she considered a lifestyle choice into the mainstream. She claimed that gay teachers would use their positions to somehow recruit students into homosexuality.

In an even more inflammatory attack, she linked gay people and pedophiles. “A particularly deviant-minded teacher could sexually molest children,” she wrote at the time. “These were possibilities I was unwilling to risk.”

Gay rights activists responded swiftly, mounting a campaign to boycott Florida orange juice. In some gay bars, a screwdriver was made with apple juice, rather than orange juice, and called the “Anita Bryant.” In a crude made-for-TV moment, a gay activist slammed a cream pie into Ms. Bryant’s face at an appearance in Des Moines.

Article content

In June 1977, the ordinance was repealed, with Ms. Bryant’s side winning in a landslide. “Tonight the laws of God and the cultural values of man have been vindicated,” she said.

Ms. Bryant sought to capitalize on the victory by venturing into other areas of what she considered moral restoration. She founded the Anita Bryant Ministries, an organization that offered “deprogramming” for gay people, and lectured on the sanctity of marriage.

But her success was short-lived. The repeal effort in Miami had the unintended consequence of energizing gay rights activists in the United States. “It spurred them to organize,” said Spruill, “and reach beyond their own movement for support in a much more significant way.”

Article content

For Ms. Bryant, the controversy took a devastating personal toll, leaving her nearly destitute.

At first there was little or no evidence that her involvement in the antigay cause had alienated her fan base. In polls conducted by Good Housekeeping magazine, she was repeatedly named America’s Most Admired Woman. “I was big business, honey,” she later said.

But almost immediately, companies including Singer, the maker of sewing machines, which had been planning to back a television show for Ms. Bryant, began cutting their ties. Within a year, she later said, 80 organizations had dropped her.

The Florida Citrus Commission, which at one point paid her $250,000 a year, initially stood behind her. Eventually, even that group ended the partnership.

Article content

Then came the unexpected announcement in 1980 that Ms. Bryant and her husband were divorcing after 20 years of marriage. The evangelical community, which had hailed her as its champion, sharply denounced her for being a poor role model.

Embittered by what she saw as a betrayal, Ms. Bryant told Ladies’ Home Journal in an interview, “I’ve given up on fundamentalists.”

She later laid part of the blame for the divorce on her husband, who she said was jealous and controlling and increasingly resentful that her political stand had cost the family its livelihood. Green died in 2012.

Ms. Bryant went bankrupt, struggled to provide for her children, said she contemplated suicide and admitted that for a time she became dependent on pills and wine – a striking coda to her early career, when she refused to perform in venues that served alcohol.

Article content

A strict statewide ban on adoptions by gay couples in Florida that was inspired by Ms. Bryant’s campaign was not overturned until 2010. The next year, she defended her decision to take a stand, telling the Oklahoman newspaper of Oklahoma City that “I’ve never regretted what I did.”

– – –

Early recording contract

Anita Jane Bryant was born March 25, 1940, in Barnsdall, Oklahoma, where her father worked in the oil patch. She grew up in Oklahoma City and later in Tulsa, after her parents divorced, remarried and divorced again. Raised among Southern Baptists, she sang in the church congregation and was soon singled out for her promise.

Ms. Bryant won local talent shows and began appearing regularly on Arthur Godfrey’s nationally broadcast TV show. By high school, she had a recording contract. In addition, she was named Miss Oklahoma and, at the 1959 Miss America pageant, was second runner-up, tying for Miss Congeniality.

Article content

She entered Northwestern University but dropped out the first year as her show business career started to gain altitude. She went on to release dozens of albums and had hits with the songs “Paper Roses” and “My Little Corner of the World.”

After her personal and financial troubles, Ms. Bryant attempted to resurrect her career, without much success. She mostly performed gigs in small Bible Belt towns. A theater venture in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, went bust, and she also left a trail of unpaid taxes and debts.

In 1990, she married her high school sweetheart Charlie Dry, a former NASA test crewman. He died last year at 85. Survivors include four children, two stepdaughters and seven grandchildren.

“No matter how many times I get knocked down … it’s not a sin to fail,” Ms. Bryant told Diane Sawyer on the ABC program “Good Morning America” in 2000. “Overcoming adversity and becoming stronger – and if you’re motivated by love of God and people, and that’s what I am – that’s what I’m all about.”

Article content