Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
THEME: Double double — celebrities (of a sort) who have the same double-letter pair in both their first and last names
Word of the Day: BETTY HUTTON (57A: "The Greatest Show on Earth" co-star, 1952) —
Betty Hutton (February 26, 1921 – March 12, 2007) was an American stage, film, and television actress, comedienne and singer. [...] Hutton made 19 films from 1942 to 1952 including the hugely popular The Perils of Pauline in 1947. She was billed above Fred Astaire in the 1950 musical Let's Dance. Hutton's greatest screen triumph came in Annie Get Your Gun (1950) for MGM, which hired her to replace an exhausted Judy Garland in the role of Annie Oakley. The film, with the leading role retooled for Hutton, was a smash hit, with the biggest critical praise going to Hutton. (Her obituary in The New York Times described her as "a brassy, energetic performer with a voice that could sound like a fire alarm.") Among her lesser known roles was an unbilled cameo in Sailor Beware (1952) with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, in which she portrayed Dean's girlfriend, Hetty Button. Eventually, like Judy Garland, Hutton earned a reputation for being extremely difficult. [...] Her career as a Hollywood star ended due to a contract dispute with Paramount following the Oscar-winning The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) and Somebody Loves Me (1952), a biography of singer Blossom Seeley. The New York Times reported that the dispute resulted from her insistence that her husband at the time, Charles O'Curran, direct her next film. When the studio declined, Hutton broke her contract. Hutton's last completed film was a small one, Spring Reunion, released in 1957, a drama in which she gave an understated, sensitive performance. Unfortunately, box office receipts indicated the public didn't want to see a subdued Hutton. (wikipedia)
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Had to write to a couple of friends last night to make sure I wasn't missing anything with this theme, which seems awfully flimsy. Double-double letters in the names of random entertainment figures. 
Maybe the "entertainment" part was supposed to make the theme cohere more, but the assortment is so ragged that it has the opposite effect, for me. This will surely take the average person longer than usual (for a Tuesday) due to the preponderance of names, at least one of which many solvers will not know. I'm guessing that the "I know EDDIE VEDDER" / "I know BETTY HUTTON" Venn diagram shows fairly slim overlap. I've never heard of Ms. HUTTON, who was famous a good thirty years before any of these (still-living) folks were. She's the thematic ODDBALL, is what I'm saying (25D: Kook). The rest of the puzzle was interesting, with a few nice moments (KEISTER, NAMEDROP) (41D: Tush / 3D: Imply ties with V.I.P.'s), an icky moment or two ("I LIKE YOU," FUISSE), and a fascinating-sounding autobiography title that I've never heard of before ("I, FIDO").Theme answers:
- 17A: ABC late-night host (JIMMY KIMMEL)
- 29A: Lead singer of Pearl Jam (EDDIE VEDDER)
- 44A: "Walking on Broken Glass" singer (ANNIE LENNOX)
- 57A: "The Greatest Show on Earth" co-star, 1952 (BETTY HUTTON)
HUTTON-wise, I know Lauren and Timothy. That is all. Had trouble right off the bat, as I can't keep those damn -NETA guys straight, and I can't even picture Norman MINETA (1A: Norman of the Clinton and Bush cabinets). FUISSE is too foreign and too long for what is essentially a partial (66A: Pouilly-___ (wine)). I know it only because of another crossword, which I disliked much more than this one. "I LIKE YOU" is very odd as clued (2D: A few words between friends). My wife: "Maybe if you're three." Wife also could not deal with the idea of QUINCE in a marmalade (12D: Marmalade fruit). She'd never encountered a marmalade that wasn't made of citrus. Neither had I, but I'm not so refined (or British Empire-esque) food-wise. Wife would also like you to know that there is another clue for BREE (62A: One of the housewives on "Desperate Housewives") — it's the name of the horse in C.S. Lewis's "A Horse and His Boy."Bullets:
- 27A: Western U.S. gasoline giant (ARCO) — I was surprised to see ARCO stations everywhere in CA, since I thought they were defunct. Maybe because I read this as I was trying to write a clue for ARCO recently: "On April 18, 2000, ARCO was purchased by BP America and was completely merged into BP operations; ARCO as a subsidiary no longer exists" (wikipedia). Most interesting ARCO fact, clue-wise, is that the ARCO Arena, where the Sacramento Kings play, was renamed the Power Balance Pavilion in March of this year. Good luck getting That in a puzzle).
- 44D: Online user's self-image (AVATAR) — like "My Cousin Vinny," this is a movie people looooove that I have no interest in seeing.
- 45D: Incendiary fuel in "Apocalypse Now" (NAPALM) — ... in the morning
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]
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