Marion Hutton
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Marion Thornburg, better known as Marion Hutton (10 March 1919, Battle Creek, Michigan - 10 January 1987, Kirkland, Washington) was a United States singer and actress.
She was the elder sister of actress Betty Hutton. Both sisters sang with the Vincent Lopez Orchestra. Marion was discovered by Glenn Miller and was invited to join the Glenn Miller Orchestra in 1938. She remained with Miller on and off until the orchestra disbanded in 1942.
She appeared in the films Orchestra Wives (1942), In Society (1944) with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, and Love Happy (1949) with the Marx Brothers.
Hutton was married three times to producer Jack Philbin and giving birth to two sons, John & Phillip, writer Jack Douglas producing a son, Peter and finally music arranger Vic Schoen. Plagued with alcohol addiction--and financial problems due to lack of work from Schoen's famous temper -- Hutton and Schoen eventually joined Alcoholics Anonymous and moved to Laguna Beach, California, where Schoen found work writing the musical score for the Pageant of the Masters stage show performed each summer.
Finding fulfillment in helping alcoholics with their addiction using her AA experiences, Hutton went back to school in her late 50's eventually getting two psychology degrees and finding work at a local hospital. Schoen was fired from Pageant of the Masters in the early 1980's for refusal to work with the new 27-year-old producer, leaving the 60ish Hutton little choice but to find work elsewhere.
As their bank account dwindled, Hutton and Schoen moved into progressively smaller and cheaper houses and selling a lifetime of collections to make ends meet. Offered a job running the Clinic Residence 12 in Kirkland, Washington, Hutton and her husband moved in 1981. Over the years Hutton developed as reputation as an excellent and intuitive therapist and was invited to speak at many local functions including radio and TV media. Had it not been for the cancer Hutton developed in the mid-80's -- she had been a heavy smoker in her younger years -- Hutton perhaps may have had a successful second career as a radio psychologist.
