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The former beauty queen and spokeswoman for Florida orange juice was an all-American entertainer before she began crusading against L.G.B.T.Q. rights.
Anita Gates
Anita Bryant, the singer and former beauty queen who had a robust and flourishing music career, including hit songs like “Paper Roses,” in the 1960s and ’70s, but whose opposition to gay rights — she called homosexuality “an abomination” — virtually destroyed her career, died on Dec. 16. She was 84.
The death, at her home in Edmond, Okla., was caused by cancer, her son William Green said. The family placed an obituary in The Oklahoman, a newspaper in Oklahoma City, on Thursday.
Ms. Bryant was just 18 when she won the Miss Oklahoma beauty title and was named second runner-up in the Miss America pageant. She promptly turned that success into a lucrative show business career.
For almost two decades, she had a smooth run — entertaining troops on U.S.O. tours with Bob Hope, performing during Billy Graham’s evangelical tours and co-hosting nationally televised parades. She sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl and “Battle Hymn of the Republic” at President Lyndon B. Johnson’s graveside.
Most memorably, she represented the Florida Citrus Commission in a long campaign of television commercials, in which she sang “Come to the Florida Sunshine Tree” and offered the tagline: “Breakfast without orange juice is like a day without sunshine.” Wearing gingham, ruffles or both, she sauntered down country lanes (juice pitcher in hand), talked to cartoon birds and beamed with joy about the wonders of vitamin C.
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