Unless I’m mistaken, there was no Betty Hutton moment at this year’s Academy Awards. (I was stuck in the Denver airport at the time and watched the awards intermittently at the Mexican restaurant there; afterward, my friend C. texted me each winner as they were announced, so it was an inadequate viewing experience, to say the least.) And now she can’t get a Lifetime Achievement Award, for which there was a movement afoot, because she’s gone. From Playbill News:

Betty Hutton, Vivacious Star of Hollywood Musicals, Dies at 86
By Robert Simonson
Betty Hutton, the high-energy comedic actress who had a brief but memorable career as the star of Hollywood musicals and comedies in the 1940s, died in Palm Springs, CA, it was reported by AP. She was 86 and had lived in virtual isolation for much of the last 40 years…. “Brassy,” “exuberant” and “energetic” were some of the adjectives routinely used to desribe Ms. Hutton’s singular performance style and she brought those qualities to nearly every role she took on. Cont’d.

Damn Academy has no taste. R.I.P. (Here’s the NYT obituary.)

Update: I asked Martin “Squib Report” Schneider to root out any Betty Hutton references in The Complete New Yorker. He notes that the magazine panned The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (!), and found only a breezy mention of Hutton as patriotic dish in a Talk from January 15, 1944—screen shot after the jump; click to enlarge. Let’s hope Denby, Lane, Lahr, or, say, Richard Brody mentions Hutton in a more nuanced spirit of appreciation (though she was a dish, too) in a column soon, or perhaps a Critic’s Notebook or DVD Note at the front of the book.