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Anita Bryant, a singer and an anti-gay activist, passed away at the age of 84 on December 16, 2024.
Her family announced the news in an obituary on Thursday, January 9, 2025. The obituary said that Bryant died at her home in Edmond, Oklahoma, surrounded by friends and family. The family did not, however, disclose the cause of her death.
“May Anita’s memory and her faith in eternal life through Christ comfort all who embraced her,” her family said.
She rose to fame as a multi-Grammy-nominated singer and was crowned Miss Oklahoma in 1958. According to reports, she subsequently became the second runner-up in the Miss America pageant held in 1959.
She gained national recognition with hits on the Billboard Hot 100, like Till There Was You, Paper Roses, In My Little Corner of the World, and Wonderland by Night, which were some of her hit numbers.
However, after leading a successful life, Anita Bryant’s career experienced a downfall when she opposed gay rights in the late 1970s.
Let us take a look at Anita Bryant’s personal and professional life.
Exploring Anita Bryant’s life and career
Anita Bryant was born on 25 March 1940 in Barnsdall, Oklahoma. Her love for singing ignited when she was just two years old when she sang Jesus Loves Me at her local Baptist church.
At the age of six, she performed onstage at local fairs in Oklahoma, as several reports mentioned. She established her presence in the entertainment industry by hosting her first show, The Anita Bryant Show, at the age of 12; it aired on WKY.
When she was 18 in 1958, she won the title of Miss Oklahoma and went on to become the second runner-up in the Miss America pageant that same year.
Following her success in the beauty pageant, Bryant stepped into the world of music and released her first album in 1959. She went on to record a dozen more hits. Throughout the early 1960s, she achieved notable success with hits like Paper Roses, Till There Was You, and other songs.
Bryant also performed at the White House for President Lyndon B. Johnson and at his funeral service. In 1968, she sang at both the Republican and the Democratic national conventions. Her popularity presented her with an opportunity to perform at the Super Bowl V Halftime Show in 1971.
Reportedly, she became a spokesperson for the Florida Citrus Commission in 1969 and coined the national catchphrase, “Breakfast without orange juice is like a day without sunshine.”
In the late 1970s, Bryant became a controversial figure in American history as she stood against gay rights. She organized the Save Our Children campaign in 1977 to oppose a Miami-Dade County ordinance that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation. Bryan said in a 1978 interview with Playboy,
“I got involved only because they were asking for special privileges that violated the state law of Florida, not to mention God’s law.”
She added,
“You know, when I was a child, you didn’t even mention the word homosexual, much less find out what the act was about. You knew it was very bad, but you couldn’t imagine what they tried to do, exactly, in terms of one taking a male role and the other taking a female role. I mean, it was too filthy to think about and you had other things to think about. So when I finally found out all the implications, it was a total revelation for me.”
She was eventually targeted by gay rights activists, who launched a nationwide protest against Florida orange juice. It led to her downfall, and she lost half a million dollars in concert bookings and a deal to host her TV show. As reported by Deadline, she became a butt of jokes during several shows like Saturday Night Live and The Carol Burnett Show.
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By 1980, the Florida Citrus Commission did not renew her contract due to her controversial stance, which had a severe impact on her career. Another report in Deadline indicated that she filed for bankruptcy in the 1990s.
After separating from her husband Bob Green in 1980, Anita Bryant married her childhood sweetheart Charlie Hobson Dry in 1990. She is survived by four children, two stepdaughters, and seven grandchildren and their spouses, her family said in a statement.
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