Bette Anne Steele

American vocalist from Richmond, Virginia

Steele's career started when she won an "Original Amateur Hour" contest in December 1948. It led to her going to New York, to work for the radio and TV versions. Eventually, she joined the Buddy Morrow band, married the band's trumpeter Art Schindelbeck in 1954, and recorded for RCA Victor and Capitol Records. "Mr. Wonderful" was recorded just some weeks before her daughter Brye was born in 1956, a year that was tumultuous in Steele's life, and she ended up returning to Richmond.

In 1959, she started performing under the stage name Betsy Brye, borrowing the name of her daughter. She eventually switched back to her real name. After rock & roll took over, when her style of singing started going out of style, she also sang with the bands of Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey, and lived in Maryland, Wisconsin, and Texas. In Texas, she had a show called "Bette on the Run." She returned to Richmond in 1979 after a serious illness and the dissolution of her second marriage, and sang at the Gallery Cafe there. She passed away in 2018.