left. 1958-59 - crowned miss oklahoma; finishes second runner-up in the miss america pageant. middle. 1977 - leads "save our children" campaign to repeal a gay rights ordinance in dade county. spinoff effect prompts florida legislators to pass law banning gay adoptions. right. singer anita bryant is on the downside of a comeback and on the bad side of dozens of people owed money in three states.

By THOMAS C. TOBIN
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 28, 2002

PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. -- Margaret Cole expected great things when she went to work at the Anita Bryant Music Mansion, a plantation-style showplace with towering white columns and sparkling chandeliers set in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains.

"There's something about the theater business that just gets in your blood," she said.

The first to arrive in the morning and the last to leave at night, Cole, a 58-year-old Baptist, felt she was doing something good for the world: Anita Bryant, the show's star, would belt out tunes from her '50s and '60s heyday, but the cornerstone of her act was a lengthy segment in which she preached her Christian beliefs.

Attendance was so sparse some nights that the manager put employees in the seats to boost the cast's morale. Cole, who worked in the ticket office, didn't mind.

"I thank God daily I have a Christian place to work," she told Tennessee labor investigators in August 2000. She scowled at locals who started to bad-mouth Bryant and Charlie Dry, the singer's husband and business partner.

But even Cole gave up on the couple after six months of bounced paychecks and daily promises that God would bring forth new investors. She holds little hope of ever seeing more than $6,400 in missed pay.

Here in the hills of eastern Tennessee, the story is much the same for dozens of others who labored, often for weeks or months without pay, to produce Bryant's jaunty, toe-tapping show, "Anita With Love."

Twenty-five years after her famous antigay crusade in Florida ended a high-flying career, Bryant, 62, is known in three other states for not paying bills. She has spent the past few years in small entertainment capitals across the Bible Belt, gamely attempting a comeback but leaving bankruptcy and ill will in her wake.

It has been a long, difficult slide for Bryant, who, as a wholesome, 30-something singer in the 1970s, was proclaimed the "Most Admired Woman in America" by Good Housekeeping magazine three years running.

In Florida, meanwhile, her name is surfacing once more as lawyers and gay activists try to repeal the state's ban on gay adoptions, blaming Bryant for its passage in 1977.

Back in Tennessee, the singer's latest foray unfolded in Pigeon Forge, part of a Smoky Mountain vacationland known for its theme parks, rustic lodges and music theaters where second-tier celebrities perform two and three shows a day. Some call it the "Hillbilly Las Vegas."

Many of the 60 or so Music Mansion employees had cars repossessed or were evicted from apartments. The general manager, a retired Army helicopter pilot who served in Operation Desert Storm, lost his good credit rating after unpaid vendors pursued him in court because he signed for deliveries.

"In my opinion, you do not do people like they have done people and live a Christian life," said Margaret Cole, who cannot explain the strange, faith-based hold that kept her in Bryant's service for so long.

"If I owed people like they owe people I would not be able to lay down at night and sleep."

Ashley Matthews, a dancer who is owed $3,200 in back pay, said the hard times left some workers so strapped for cash they stole popcorn and candy from the theater's concession stand so they could eat.

The theater's troubles do not appear to have had the same effect on Bryant and Dry, her second husband. The couple leases a $350,000 home tucked into a mountainside in the Smokies, where a local real estate agent reports they are paying the rent on time. The two-level home sits on a picturesque lake inside a gated community.

"They were always telling us God's going to come through," Matthews said of the couple. "They would attach his name to everything and if we didn't believe them, we didn't have faith. It didn't have anything to do with God. We knew their track record."

Bryant would not be interviewed for this story, leaving Dry to speak for her. During a brief visit with Dry on the porch of their home, the singer -- wearing glasses -- peeked out the door to ask if everything was okay. She spoke in the familiar, throaty voice of the long-ago Florida orange juice ads that made her famous. Then Dry shooed her back inside.

He said the latest bankruptcy is part of the couple's plan to divest of partners who reneged on promises to provide cash for the Music Mansion. He said he and Bryant tried to keep it running with their own money, and now plan to re-emerge with control of the theater and enough money to pay everyone back.

Asked whether his critics in Pigeon Forge should blame his former partners for the troubles, Dry said two words:

"Amen. Amen."