Six Degrees of Betty Grable

Six Degrees of Betty Grable: Movies, Music, and Murder is an abridged version of Betty Grable's life story told over a period of 55 years, 1945-2000, by six fictional characters whose lives were touched by the famous pin-up girl. Each episode relates the story of one of those people, and tells a little bit of Betty's story, as well. Their stories of misplaced love, Hollywood ambition, and even murder, are fictional. Her story is based on truth— and legend.

Six Degrees of Betty Grable: Movies, Music, and Murder is an abridged version of Betty Grable's life story told over a period of 55 years, 1945-2000 by six fictional characters whose lives were touched by the most famous pin-up girl of WWII. Each degree is a self-contained character study but every character who is the focus of one degree has a way of showing up as a secondary character in someone else's story. Betty Grable provides the ties that bind them. The characters include a five-year-old boy who develops an obsession for the blonde beauty, a big-boned, five-foot-ten girl who aspires to be the next Betty Grable, a young high school English teacher who has a clandestine affair with a married colleague, a former female movie extra who danced at the charity ball in Gone with the Wind, a partially paralyzed former cowboy star, and a psychopathic killer. The text is chocked full of movie trivia, nostalgia, and dark humor. Something for everyone.

J. B. (James Berton) Harris, has been active in both academic and professional theatre for over forty-five years. He has been a member of the theatre faculty at the University of Michigan, Boston University and, for 29 years, the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is the award-winning author of Once upon a Time at the Opera House: Drama at Three Historic Michigan Theaters, 1882-1928 published by Michigan State University Press. In 2014, he was commissioned by the Calumet Theatre in Michigan's Upper Peninsula to adapt an existing play for production to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1913-14 copper miners' strike. Professionally, J. B. Harris has worked extensively as a costume designer having designed productions for regional theaters and Shakespeare Festivals across the country. His New York City credits include productions at Manhattan Theatre Club and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, as well as on and off Broadway. He currently resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with a cool cat named Betty.