Walter Bouillet (Aug. 28, 1916-March 16, 1987) was a talent manager and the Army officer who escorted Marilyn Monroe on her Korean tour in 1954.
Bouillet was elected to The Lambs in 1964 as a Professional member.
Walter Andrew Bouillet was a native of Astoria, Queens, and attended local schools. After college, he served in World War II from 1942-1956. He was commissioned in the U.S. Army, and served again beginning in 1950. After the Korean War, he served as a captain in the U.S. Army General Headquarters, special services entertainment. He was made the entertainment chief for the Far East Command, booking tours to Japan and Korea. The pinnacle of his time was with two major stars.
In 1952 he was in charge of a private trip for actress Betty Hutton to visit troops in Korea. It was Bouillet’s privilege to inform Hutton that her film The Greatest Show on Earth won Best Picture at the Academy Awards, on her 31st birthday.
But that was only the warm-up for February 1954. Marilyn Monroe, Jean O’Doul (the wife of her new husband Joe DiMaggio’s pal Frank “Lefty” O’Doul), and Bouillet went on a four day marathon tour by airplanes, jeeps, and helicopters. Marilyn performed ten shows in snow flurries and sub-zero temperatures, wowing the troops in a skin tight, low-cut purple sequined gown and no underwear. There were almost 20,000 in the audiences; she entertained more than 100,000 soldiers, sailors, and Marines.
A riot almost broke out when she segued into the come-hither George Gershwin tune “Do It Again.” The men whistled and hollered so much that a worried Bouillet suggested Monroe alter the suggestive words from “do it again” to “kiss me again.” She agreed. “Just kissing,” she promised. The tour was legendary and was a pinnacle of Monroe’s career.
In 1957, after he left the Army, he went to work for himself. This is how he came to represent the Folies-Bergere of Paris on a Far East Tour. He booked the famous nude dancers to visit Honolulu, Tokyo, Korea, Guam, Hong Kong and the Philippines. Then he returned to the U.S.
Post-army, in the 1960s when he was in The Lambs, he set up as a personal manager in Penns Grove, New Jersey. He handled the Four Saints, among others.
Bouillet moved to Nashville and created Artiste Services Unlimited. He was a country music manager for Leroy Van Dyke (“The Auctioneer” and “Walk on By”). Bouillet was named a vice president of the Country Music Association. He also worked as a vice president of one of the first country music media companies, Town & Country.
Walter Bouillet died March 16, 1987, in Nashville. He was 70 years old. He is interred next to his wife, Jean Ord Bouillet, in Bryn Athyn Cemetery in Bryn Athyn, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
Researched and written by Lambs Historian Kevin C. Fitzpatrick.