Betty Garrett was born on May 23, 1919, in St. Joseph, MO. Shortly after, her family moved to Seattle. A friend of the family arranged an audition with Martha Graham, who recommended her for a scholarship at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York.
Both Ms. Garrett and her mother arrived in New York in 1936. Working with Sandy Meisner, Lehman Engel and Margaret Webster, she concentrated on serious roles, feeling she was destined to be a dramatic actress. Performing in the Catskills during the summer, she was exposed to the talents of Danny Kaye, Imogene Coca and her future On the Town co-star Jules Munshin. She made her Broadway debut in 1942 in the revue Of V We Sing. Producer Mike Todd saw it and cast her as an understudy to Ethel Merman in Cole Porter's Something for the Boys in 1943. Jackpot and Laffing Room Only followed, along with the Harold Rome revue Call Me Mister.

During two short years, 1948 to 1949, Ms. Garrett starred in series of notable pictures at the movie musical powerhouse studio, M-G-M. She was in "Words and Music," the fictionalized story of the songwriting partnership of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart; played opposite Frank Sinatra, Esther Williams and Gene Kelly in "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"; and appeared alongside Williams again in "Neptune's Daughter," in which she and Red Skelton sang the Oscar-winning song "Baby, It's Cold Outside."
Following her foray into Hollywood, Ms. Garrett and Parks replaced Judy Holliday and Sydney Chaplin in the Broadway production of Bells Are Ringing. In the coming years, she would return to Broadway in Beg, Borrow or Steal, Spoon River Anthology, A Girl Could Get Lucky and The Supporting Cast. From the 1980s on, she often appeared in an autobiographical one-woman show called Betty Garrett and other songs.
Source: Playbill.com