Betty Garrett, the comic actress who pursued Frank Sinatra across Manhattan in the1949 musical comedy On The Town, has died Saturday morning in Los Angeles of an aortic aneurysm. She was 91.
Garrett became a contract player for MGM in 1947, following several years as a successful actress on Broadway. Her first role at the studio was in Big City and although it was a small one it was enough to get her an extension on her one year contract. Through 1949, she would appear in the musicals Take Me Out To The Ball Game with Frank Sinatra, Neptune’s Daughter with Red Skelton and On The Town. She curtailed her film career to accompany her husband, actor Larry Parks, on a nightclub tour of Great Britain. Following their return to the United States, Garrett once again returned to stage work.
In the 1970s, Garrett showed her comedy in supporting roles in two long running sitcoms, first as Archie Bunker’s feisty neighbor Irene Lorenzo on All In The Family and landlady Edna Babish on Laverne & Shirley.
