What Ethel Merman did for love

She went walking through the rain and the snow

When there's nowhere to go

None of it, nothing of the lyrics. A, the song is easy to sing, B, Ethel's voice still could handle it, C the song speaks to her career. She loved being THE musical comedy star.

Ethel's 1964 marriage to Ernest Borgnine lasted 42 days, In her autobio, the chapter devoted to the marriage was a blank page,

this thread = peak DL

Wow... her rendition has all the wistfulness and gentleness...

of a ten ton truck smashing through a plate glass window and crushing twenty innocent people.

How restrained for the Merm.

She gave up a love affair with J. Edgar Hoover because she knew he was gay.

We saw - and heard - her live at the Hollywood Bowl!

Kiss today GOODBYEEEEEEE

And pernt me toward TAMARRAH ...

She used to go on talk shows and sing with peanut brittle in her mouth.

R3, The happy couple . . .

She was so homely. I can see why she never made it big in films. Woefully unphotogenic. Same with Mary Martin.

Much better here singing the hits that she introduced because they were written for her by the geniuses of the 30s, 40s, and 50s

As much as I loved The Merm, her rendition of this song hurts my ears.

For tender songs, I think her voice was much more suited to George and Ira Gershwin's 'Someone To Watch Over Me', which I believe was her final encore in her Carnegie Hall concert, which would mean it was the last song she ever sang on a New York stage.

I always thought she was just a woman who shouted words at music, until I had a close encounter with the album Merman sings Merman. So many good Irving Berlin, Porter and Gershwin songs. Your the top, Into his arms and Blow me Gabriel Blow me etc. And her voice really does add to them

I think everyone should do this pose once a day before leaving the house, To set you up for the day

Who can forget SCTV's commercial for Ethel Merman's album "Wake Up and Love Me"?

"...a woman who learned the language of love at the hands of Ernest Borgnine... and now she handles the romantic classics as only she can..."

One of Irving Berlin's favorite tricks to do for her shows was to have a dong where Ethel sing a brassy upbeat part in counterpoint to a soft romantic ballad from a male lead: "You're Just in Love" from Call Me Madam, "An Old-Fashioned Wedding" from the revival of Annie Get Your Gun.

I always figured this was his way of signaling to the audience, "I know and you know she's really obnoxious, but just imagine if we could figure out a way to soften her somehow!"

[quote]I think everyone should do this pose once a day before leaving the house, To set you up for the day

Oh, that is wonderful. I've always thought that everyone should do a Rosalind Russell Auntie Mame kick or an Ann-Margret backward C jump every day before walking out the door.

Here is one site where Ann-Margret is doing both.

I was lucky to see Merman in "Gypsy." But, once was enough. She was smart to turn down all new musicals after "Gypsy."

Ethel bumped pussies with Ann B Davis.

I disagree with the posters... I think her rendition was quite touching. I don’t think she had the marbles to connect the dots as to why it was touching...but it was.

Judy connected the dots

[quote] I always figured this was his way of signaling to the audience, "I know and you know she's really obnoxious, but just imagine if we could figure out a way to soften her somehow!"

Really?

The same Irving Berlin who wrote 'The Best Thing For You Would Be Me', 'Marrying for Love, 'I Got Lost in His Arms', and 'They Say That Falling in Love is Wonderful' for her?

Check her out in 20th Century Fox's Alexander's Ragtime Band with Tyrone Power and Alice Faye from the late 1930s. She's really kind of adorable (and quite photogenic) in her musical numbers.

She was fabulous, and you all know it!!!

When The Merm and Marty went to honeymoon in Japan the locals recognized Borgnine from McHale's Navy and swarmed him for autographs. The Merm was incensed because she perceived herself as the bigger star. She returned back home, alone, the next day.

R25 In various books, there have been various reasons given for the breakup (including what you describe).

One story has Borgnine getting too drunk to get an erection and an also-drunk Merman making fun of him ('Whatsa matter with you? You some kinda fag?) and he hauled off an hit her, which seems more plausible than her suffering from a bruised ago, but you never know.

Tony Cointreau told the NY Post that American Express picked up the tab for their honeymoon exchange for personal appearances Borgnine made on the company’s behalf. and that Merman was insulted that Ernie was too cheap to pay for his own honeymoon. On the flight to Tokyo, Borgnine told her he was broke and needed her money, which made her feel used.

Merman herself wrote that, even before they had the wedding, she knew it was a mistake.

Cointreau has Ethel's private papers and, out of respect for her memory, he has refused to allow them to be made public. Sure would be fun to read though.

[quote]One of Irving Berlin's favorite tricks to do for her shows was to have a dong

Oh, really? Did he have Russell Nype's dong?

Maybe she was thinking of her daughter who died very young, leaving two young kids,

I remember many years ago (1962 or 63) vacationing in LA with my parents and pleading with them to tour Hollywood. We got one of those free maps to the Hollywood stars' homes and there was listed and pictured the mansion of Merman and Borgnine, even though it was after their divorce. That map was clearly created in a very short window of time.

[quote]One story has Borgnine getting too drunk to get an erection and an also-drunk Merman making fun of him ('Whatsa matter with you? You some kinda fag?)

Who would ever be able to get an erection seeing a naked Ethel Merman? Other than Jacqueline Susann . . .

Check out young adorable Ethel at the Hollywood premiere of Alexander's Ragtime Band with her hot date Cesar "Butch" Romero! With scenes from the trailer.

Merman was ugly.

So was Alice Faye. They originally tried to make her into a Jean Harlow clone, but although she had somewhat puglike facial features like Jean, she didn’t photograph nearly as well. So Fox just loaded on the pancake makeup and elaborate hairstyles and covered it all over with Technicolor. And because she was blonde and white, said that she was pretty. No.

[quote]We got one of those free maps to the Hollywood stars' homes and there was listed and pictured the mansion of Merman and Borgnine, even though it was after their divorce.

What a collector's item that would be today!

The clip @OP is dreadful. Her vibrato is an aural assault and she obliterates all lyrical depth and nuance -- and there is already so little.

So no reference to the Dutch oven that Borgnine reportedly made her endure on their honeymoon?

[quote]I always thought she was just a woman who shouted words at music, until I had a close encounter with the album Merman sings Merman.

I used to think "Everything's Coming Up Roses" was the ultimate camp number, but once I learned what a monstrous person Rose Hovick was, I realized what a dark and ironic song it really is.

There is something endearingly ordinary about Ethel Merman. She had personality and pizzazzz even if you occasionally feel like blocking your ears at some of her 'high' notes. There aren't too many like her today.

One who comes close is Debra Monk. I loved her in Curtains, especially while performing 'It's a Business".

[quote]I used to think "Everything's Coming Up Roses" was the ultimate camp number, but once I learned what a monstrous person Rose Hovick was, I realized what a dark and ironic song it really is.

It's a really interesting song. Variety shows in the 60s and 70s had people singing it as a happy, upbeat song. But in the context of the show, it's ironic and scary.

[quote]There is something endearingly ordinary about Ethel Merman.

This is true. She was always just that girl from Astoria that made it good. Even when she was swathed in mink, people always got the impression that she was just plain old Ethel, no airs or fancy graces like other "stars".

I loved her autobiography. When she was first starting out, she would sing late night at clubs. When she went to her secretarial jobs, the other girls would cover for her while she took a nap. Can't you imagine it? "Hello, Mr. Pedigree. Where's Ethel? She went around the corner to get a sandwich for your lunch."

And some of her friends said that even when she became a big star, she would go back to Queens to play cards with them. So I think she was one of the few that never really took stardom seriously.

Alice Faye was a goddess! Though Fox tried to turn her into their own version of Harlow in her first years with the studio, they realized her true metier was as The Girl Next Door Trying to Crack Show Biz when teamed successfully with Tyrone Power, Don Ameche and John Payne.

Her rendition of the iconic You'll Never Know was as glorious as any ballad Judy Garland ever sang at MGM, IMHO.

I did not see "Together on Broadway," the one-night only concert with Ethel Merman and Mary Martin. but I have a recording of that performance (in the 1970s). I wonder why Martin agreed to the charity concert; she was not singing well. But, the bigger issue is Merman's huge ego. Martin fares much better as person.

Merman from the failed NBC show "The Big Party" doing "All That Jazz" and she's not half bad, considering that this was the same show she destroyed "What I did for Love".

I hated the way Merman did those half notes. It's especially bad on the OBC of Gypsy on "You'll Never Get Away From Me". You can say hey, here's your ha-aat, but a little thing like tha-aat wouldn't stop me no-owwwww.

Marvin camping it up with the Merm

[quote]There is something endearingly ordinary about Ethel Merman.

That was really the key to her popularity. No matter what kind of role she played she was still the sales girl from Macy's.

[quote]In the late 70s, Ethel merman loved singing Marvin Hamlisch's "What I Did for Love."

Besides the reasons that R2 gives, perhaps there's also the fact that it was a real song in the classic Tin Pan Alley tradition....so she got to sing something that was contemporary but in line with songs from the past.

No one sounded like her, and she sounded like no one else. You really can't say that about too many singers, especially now. And she sang from the gut, not the nose.

Here's an early cut of her singing something called "My Future Just Passed."

Boy, Alice Faye looks awful in that trailer. And what a hoot to see a young, dreamy-eyed John Carradine!

Merman would have made a great Matron Mama Morton in "Chicago."

r1

That was 10cc

Was Alice Faye pregnant during filming? I agree, I love her, but she does look rather bovine in Alexander's Ragtime Band.

R45, I heard Ethel on an interview, maybe it was with Merv, where she told the story about auditioning for George Gershwin. I believe she apologized for her voice before she sang. She sang "I've got rhythm". Gershwin loved it and hired her on the spot. He also told La Merman not to take voice lessons, they would destroy the uniqueness of her voice. She was proud of her career and never apologized for her voice after that.

69 years old at OP's clip.

Hate her style if you must, but bitch had some PIPES and Mama could still work at almost 70.

Donna McKechnie was Ingenue hired for the road show of Call Me Madam starring Ethel. She performed one of the two dances in the show for her approval.

After it was over Ethel said to everyone in the room

"Who did this broad have to fuck to get two numbers in this show?"

Merman Stevie Wonder's For Once in My Life on the Mike Douglas Show in the sixties.

Merman and Mary Martin were casual friends. She told Mary that many of "her" quotes were not true (made up by press agents).

From Bob Thomas's Bio of Merman

Merman had a scroll voice, was never pretty, couldn't act, couldn't dance at all. But she had an oddly effective presence on stage

SHRILL voice

Some thought Ethel was a dyke, about which she answered: "Are you kidding? I can barely stand to look at it in the shower"!

How about when she told Irving Berlin "If you can get it up I can get it in"

What she did for love?

She endured Ernie Borgnine's dutch ovens for two weeks.

That's plenty. The man was a chili dog and beer volcano.

Did Ernie still have Katy Jurado's stank on his peen when he mounted the Merm?

[quote]On the flight to Tokyo, Borgnine told her he was broke and needed her money, which made her feel used.

I find that hard to believe. Borgnine was in the middle of the run of "McHale's Navy" of which he was the star.

R61, Also, how much would Ethel have been worth in 1963?

Ethel high......

I believe Ethel's third husband (Bob Six) required Merman to pay her share of household expenses even though he was the president of Continental Airlines. So even a hint of the same behavior from Ernie would piss her off. Also, Merman seldom invested in her own Broadway shows. The marriage was never going to last.

Say what you will about "The Merm, " she Was one of the last good time BROADS.

Do you think she ever fucked Borgnine ?

[quote] Also, Merman seldom invested in her own Broadway shows

Not entirely true. She received 10% of the profits from CALL ME MADAM, HAPPY HUNTING and GYPSY. According to Brian Kellow's biography, while married to Robert Six, she created a corporation American Entertainment Enterprises.

When Decca refused to loan her out to RCA for the OCR of MADAM, and Dinah Shore sang her part, Merman wrote:

[quote] ...for once, my 10% of all profits was cold comfort for having someone else take my place'

So, by 1963 she must've had a tidy sum

After her last marriage, she never owned property, always lived in hotels.

After the divorce from Ethel, Bob Six married Audrey Meadows and they remained married until his death.

I had the displeasure of seeing Ernest Borgnine in a steam room at a gym. His grotesque cock was just about down to his knees.

Yeah, poor Audrey had to settle for Ethel's sloppy seconds.

I don’t like Ethel’s version of this song. She’s too brassy and too loud for a song like this.

All of you Ethel naysayers need to hear her Annie Get Your Gun Lincoln Center revival recording. She was still quite brilliant in the role and I think its the superior recording of the show.

Don't you basically have to if you want to hear Old Fashioned Wedding, r73?

R74, there's the awful 1973 London Phase 4 studio recording, featuring former footballer Nielson (Jeff) Taylor as Frank Butler

There's also the Doris Day studio recording. Maybe it's the arrangements, but the Annie songs don't fit her voice well on that recording.

Presumably she did Ernest Borgnine.

I've always enjoyed Ethel Merman (assuming suitable material, of course).

"Call Me Madam" might have been the best thing she ever did. Every song seems perfect, but the one that blows me away every time is "International Rag." It's on YouTube, at the link.

Mary Martin and her husband were far better at investing in Broadway shows than Merman. And not just Mary Martin musicals like TSOM, also The King and I and other R & H musicals

Hostess with the Mostest is divine!

Merman was right when she said "I keep repeating myself." Yes, "Hello, Dolly" was new to her, but Ethel turns it down years before. She was a gifted comic... more difficult to shine in a nightclub or guest appearances on TV.

[quote] I had the displeasure of seeing Ernest Borgnine in a steam room at a gym. His grotesque cock was just about down to his knees.

Oh, that wasn't Ernie; that was Ethel.

I never got to see her perform, but I was lucky to meet her through Carole Cook after 42nd Street. I have a picture of the 2 of them. What a fabulous woman she was.

What I've always liked about Merman, is that she was a belter, she didn't need a microphone to reach the cheap seats. As a rather naturally loud singer myself, I respect that. Especially in a stage musical, microphones are just cheating and distracting.

Ethel was both Campy and Great. She also looked like my Grandmother and was often mistaken for her. They dressed very similarly and had the same furrier and jeweler.

Should read "who was often mistaken for her '.

The only Merman performance of importance. Note how they spell "merman".

Ethel's voice, even after the advent of hi-fi and stereo, never recorded with the same impact it had in the theater. You had to have heard her live to understand. She was a favorite of Toscanini, who, when he was in New York, always insisted on being taken to her latest show, preferably on opening night, and called her Steel Lung Merman.

OP's clip really moved me. I had added this thread to my watched list, but had no idea that I would have feelings reading this. She really was terrific.

[quote]Merman seldom invested in her own Broadway shows. The marriage was never going to last.

Merman and Bob Six were principal investors in Happy Hunting. Merman was always jealous of the way the composers, writers and directors of her hit shows got to sit around and collect sweet royalties while she had to haul her ass to the theater every night. Looking for a bigger piece of the pie, Merman and Six hired second-rate talent to create Happy Hunting.

The disappointing results are parodied in the book Valley of the Dolls where the opening night of Helen Lawson's flop show devolves into the wig-snatching episode with Neely in the powder room. In real life, the instant Happy Hunting broke even, it closed forever.

R58..."Oh, how come I can't get it up in the morning?"

But in the morning, no! No no, No no, No, No, No, No, No!

Ernie met Princess Grace at some function - can't remember if it was in Hollywood or Monaco - and she inquired of him, "do you still have that gold trinket I gave you?" She was referring to the Oscar for Marty. Grace was the presenter of the award to Borgnine in 1956. She won it the year before for The Country Girl.

Speaking of Oscar, do you think Merman was worthy of a nomination for any of her film performances?

I'm not joking but I would've added her to my ballot for her Supporting role in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963).

Bitch please.

She was brilliant in both Mad World and Airplane because she was in on the joke but didn't play it, Airplane especially. Neither would have worked if she seemed aware. Great performer.

One night she was playing Dolly and during the Horace speech before The Parade Passes By, a single tear trickled down her check. As she left the the stage, she announced loudly in the wings, "See, I told ya I can act!"

R90, "Happy Hunting" was the show in which Merman co-starred with Fernando Lamas' schlong.

R90, I posted recently that the novel of Valley of the Dolls is a brilliant roman à clef that most people today can't appreciate because they don't get the references.

^ For example, Helen is obviously Ethel, but Neely is not just Judy but a combo of Judy and Betty Hutton, whose showstopping number in Act II of Panama Hattie on Broadway Ethel forced the producers to cut.

More about Ernie's horsemeat!!!!!!

R97, They feuded throughout the show's run, only speaking to each other on stage.

Lamas wore no underwear and pants so tight and sheer that audiences would gasp when he entered, shameless girl.

R102, He appeared as a WML? mystery guest during the run and when Arlene Francis asked why he didn't wear one of his magnificent stage costumes to the broadcast, Fernando quipped that he didn't think the CBS censors would allow it.

[Quote] When you see her, she reminds you of Brenda Lee or Lesley Gore - cuddly and cute, like a little girl. But when she opens her mouth, it's Ethel Merman all the way.

Lulu does that "silver lame on a plain middle aged suburban housewife" look!

what were Betty Hutton;s songs that were cut from Panama Hattie?

Betty lost her Act Two solo "All I've Got to Get Now is My Man" - but all sources seem to indicate it was in the show opening night, and Ethel had it cut after that. She also had a number in Act One called "Fresh as a Daisy," which was a minor hit. She also had a duet with Arthur Treacher called "They Ain't Done Right By Our Nell," which may have been cut after the opening, too.

The link is to "Fresh as a Daisy" sung by Virginia O'Brien, who played Betty's part in the movie version.

Seems like the songs were not so interesting in the first place. Perhaps Ethel was concerned that they would slow down the show.

Ethel was great in her guest starring role in "That Girl" too. Nice comic timing and a nice rapport with the rest of the cast.

There's only one star that comes out of an Ethel Merman show and that's me, baby, remembah?

Does she ever shut up?

R111, During Gypsy's out of town previews, Ethel tried to put the moves on Jack Klugman, calling his hotel room after midnight and inviting him to her room, but he declined.

I forget which one, but a co-worker on McHale's Navy earned Borgnine's enmity by waving aloft a newspaper headline about Ernie and Ethel's marriage while shouting, "And I get the pick of the litter!"

I never heard that one, R112 but I do remember reading that Merman had designs on composer Jule Style, but that Styne was more interested in Sandra Church.

Merman obviously couldn't freeze out Styne, but she was cool towards Church. She even got in a dig at Church 19 years later in her autobiography when she wrote that she found Church's tour replacement Julienne Marie to be 'much more professionally compatible'.

Re: Klugman, apparently the failed attempt at seduction had no ill affects on their friendship. I have never read anything negative that one said about the other.

I liked the fact that she was a stenog and kept it up her entire life using it for all her notes.

My mother was a secretary when she got married and always used to do that as well. I guess it was faster but it might as well have been Arabic to me.

I always wanted to that hospital's shop to see her as a candystriper.

'to go to'

Because Happy Hunting was not a success, Merman refused to allow Sondheim to do the words and music to Gypsy and insisted on Jule Styne for the music.

nitially Merman was pleased with co-star Fernando Lamas, but soon after rehearsals began they clashed when he publicly criticized her performance, and as tensions between them escalated they stopped speaking to each other. Lamas was certain he would be overshadowed by Merman and plotted to draw the focus away from her. Known throughout Hollywood for his unusually large physical endowment, he instructed costume designer Irene Sharaff to cut his pants so they would cling as tightly as possible. On opening night in Philadelphia during the pre-Broadway tryout, his appearance elicited loud gasps from the audience when he stepped out on stage for the first time. Merman was not amused by the vulgar display and demanded his costume be altered.[1]

"Happy Cunting" should be DL's motto.

Merman did great on sitcoms.

Lucy was always such a goddamned idiot.

Ethel appeared twice on That Girl. I think it was the second time, she's in her dressing room for Granny Get Your Gun and she's talking to Ann Marie. The stage manager comes running and says, "Miss Merman, you're on" and Ethel responds, "How'm I doing?"

R121 That clip must come from around the time she married Borgnine. I read that the night before the wedding She, Lucy, and Vivian Vance, got drunk and did one another's hair in the beauty shop Lucille Ball had fixed in her home. I bet that would have been fun to witness.

More about Borgnine's sizmeat!

(A good reason for marriage)

[quote] I had the displeasure of seeing Ernest Borgnine in a steam room at a gym. His grotesque cock was just about down to his knees.

That was me, and you should all know better.

That line was originally from a Mae West movie, r123. I thought she worked in the hospital gift store, r116. Certainly not a Candy Striper. Adult women would have been Gray Ladies.

[quote]That line was originally from a Mae West movie, [R123].

Well, if you're going to steal, you should steal from the very best.

Don't forget, that means that West wrote it. (Or some vaudeville drag queen said it, and Mae stole it.)

I always love the following Mae West Line:

Mae: Why doncha come up some time and...see me.

Sailor: Aw, you know it's Lent.

Mae: Well, come up and see me when you get it back.

And I wonder why her show was closed down and she was arrested for indecency?

"I used to be snow white... but I drifted."

I think a much more interesting thread would have been:

What Ethel Mertz did for love - oh the stories Fred could tell!

If you were to sing in a theatre, could anyone, anywhere on Broadway hear you?

[quote]I'm not joking but I would've added her to my ballot for her Supporting role in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963).

This is my husband's favorite movie, so I've watched it a million times. The first time, I just wanted to reach through the screen and strangle her, but over time I realized that was because she was good at the role. And Dick Shawn was perfection as her smarmy son.

When I was little they played "...Mad, Mad World" every year on tv. I think it was Labor Day weekend. I would laugh until I was shaking at Merman slipping on the banana peel. Even though I knew it was coming, I would still laugh.

Merman was best on a Broadway stages, playing a role in a musical, especially in "Gypsy" or "Annie Get Your Gun." She did not do well in television. Her 1967 "Annie Get Your Gun" was a disaster on TV; she was much old. I did watch the night it was broadcast, never to be seen again. The tape was lost.

Merman was truly secure in her talent and stardom. Most stars today are far more transient.

I got rhythm

I believe the actor who played Anne Marie's father was in the original cast of Girl Crazy. I wonder if that's why she was on the show.

You're probably right. I wonder why I had candy striper in my head. It's not that I'm really familiar with those distinctions. Anyway she worked there for I don't know how long as a volunteer because she was so grateful for their care of her father when he was dying. I'm not finding anything about it on the web.

A strong believer despite her brashness and vulgarity she knew she would see her family after death. She said if you didn't believe you were going to see your loved ones again she felt sorry for you. I'm sure this is all in Brian Kellow's book or in one of her bios.

she let borgnine fuk her up the ass, that's what she did.

AND IT HURT

Too secure. Merman told the same stories over and over again including about Gershwin. She became a star after her first performance on Broadway in "Girl Crazy." She bragged about singing on stage while debating what to buy tomorrow at the market. She could not just walk through "Gypsy" because she had to act also.

Still, Merman was Broadway greatest musical star. Even there, she died before receiving the Kennedy Center Honors

And far, far worse, Ethel 's daughter died young leaving a husband and two young children. Ethel refused to believe it might have been a suicide.

While watching a game show, Ethel heard her named mentioned for "a Broadway star whose son is even more famous now."

The answer was Mary Martin (and Larry Hagman). Ethel's angry response to a friend who was in the room, "Ha, my son does not even have a job!."

R142, Ethel thought Gene Rayburn was quite attractive, which could be why she shows up on old episodes of The Match Game on BUZZR.

[quote]If you were to sing in a theatre, could anyone, anywhere on Broadway hear you?

Only in the legitimate theaters, Dot.

I find her voice absolutely insufferable.

Ethel also lost her actress daughter-in-law Barbara Colby to a random shooting in Hollywood. She was killed along with a fellow actor in a still unsolved double shooting that may have been a driveby random act.

You may recall Barbara as the prostitute/dress designer on an MTM show. MTM then hired her for the "Phyllis" spinoff series. Very funny and talented lady.

She might have been too old for ANNIE in '67, but she was a treat to see live, which I did in Detroit. Went to opening night, where there was a hitch backstage. She got stuck in an elevator and there was a deadly delay onstage while the cast (dressed for "I'm an Indian Too" kept marking time till she made her late entrance. I went to the stage door to seek her autograph and she game out as grumpy as she could be. She was with Jerry Orbach, who was trying to cheer her up as they piled into a limo. She barely acknowledged my friend and me, grunting as she signed my program.

It bears repeating: If you didn't see her live, you can't really evaluate her or understand her magic. Doesn't mean you had to like her, but I suspect you'd get why she was a star.

P.S. John Gielgud adored her, too.

Learning what I did on this thread, and knowing the lyrics, her love for this song now makes absolute perfect sense.

"Kiss today goodbye/ And point me toward tomorrow/ We did what we had to do"--Clearly this is a reference to her brief marriage to Borgnine. Its time was short, and they had to move on after they divorced ("we did what we had to do").

"Won't forget, can't regret/ What I did for love"--This refers in her mind to enduring Ernie's 'Dutch Oven.' It was, literally, unforgettable (as one might well imagine); but she can't regret it, because she [italic]had[/italic] to endure it... it's what she did for love. But then the marriage ended.

In later life, Merman believed she still loved her second husband, Bob Levitt, the father of her two children. She even obtained his ashes. For someone who hated the obligations of being a star (signing autographs is just one example), Merman loved to gossip about famous people and also dirty jokes.

Merman was surprised that many people thought she was Jewish (she was born Ethel Zimmermann).

R149, Bob Levitt committed suicide.

[quote] It bears repeating: If you didn't see her live, you can't really evaluate her or understand her magic.

Of course we can. She willingly made many films and TV show appearances; we can judge her from them all we please.

[quote]I find her voice absolutely insufferable.

#MeToo

Oh lord, don't try to sell anyone under 70 on Merman. That blaring voice with a mile wide vibrato. Yeah I heard all about Gershwin and Irving Berlin. They loved Jolson back then too and Libby Holman. I can't stand the sound of Ethel's voice. I recognize her dynamics and range. She pretty much grabs you by the throat until you do. STOP.

So here is a man under 40, a musician in musical theatre. What I can say is that What I Did For Love is just a favorite song for a group of people to sing together or at the piano. It's kind of like a corny old show, except that I have heard some very hip people sing it. Unlike some ignorant poster upthread said, it is not particularly easy to sing if you do all three modulations well. The song does glide from note to note and there are not great jumps between them. I don't know but I wasn't even born when A Chorus Line was produced but I have played or sang this song at least a hundred times. That's why I clicked on the thread. But no bueno for Merman. Not at that stage of life and probably never to my ears. Many hear hate Patti Lupone for her blaring tone and loud technique. Patti is a great singer compared to Merman, training means something. But no one can make anyone like a singer's tone. Either you do or don't. Ethel was a blaring singer with a blaring tone. She honestly would be laughed off stage today. Even Garland would have a hard time with her beautiful voice and wayward vibrato. She knew it at least and worked to control it.

Eydie Gorme did a showstopping version of this song but I can't find it now. Chenoweth loves to sing it too, the long notes are right in the sweetest part of her voice. Did Ethel have a sweet spot to her voice?

Listen to Reba McEntire sing Annie Get Your Gun and you'll hear it sung with all the spirit and so much more vocal beauty. Merman is a relic like those old men jewish comics and Carol Channing. Indecipherable talents.

[quote] It's kind of like a corny old show, except that I have heard some very hip people sing it.

Undoubtedly!

Take a seat Ethel.

Not easy to sing the song this beautifully. She doesn't need the autotune. Don't hate. Go back to sleep Ethel.

You heard of Aretha Ethel? Her voice was shimmering, soaring perfection at the time you tried to sing that song.

As we sat outdoors at the Hollywood Bowl with our parents listening to Merman's performance we turned to our mother and asked: " "Do you think they can hear her down the hill in Hollywood"? to which she replied: "They can probably hear her in heaven"!

Does the Lulu version have the three modulations?

Dear Jesus that was terrible.

It's like the vocal equivalent of a bull in a china shop.

Utterly horrid.

[quote]I believe the actor who played Anne Marie's father was in the original cast of Girl Crazy.

You're right, Lew Parker played Jake, one of the "villains" in Girl Crazy. He and Ethel were also in "Red Hot and Blue" together.

[quote]but I have played or sang this song at least a hundred times.

Really? You have played or "sang"? Not with the transitive verb you haven't. You have played or SUNG this song.

Or get rid of the transitive verb and just say "I played or sang this song ..."

152: Merman was much more than just her singing.. When I saw her in "Gypsy" I decided to go back again. Not quite as impressive the second time, but still wonderful.

Cole Porter wrote Broadway shows for Ethel Merman and Mary Martin partly because you could hear every word from the last row of the balcony without a mic. Also, they had personalities like nobody else, never missed performances, and, most important, sold tickets.

Mary Martin turned down Porter's "Kiss Me Kate" because her voice had changed.

With Happy Hunting, why did Ethel do a show with two virtual unknowns? Who were Karr and Dubey?

That's a fine way to lose a man, r161.

Well.....Happy Hunting did give us this......

Was there any classic musical that Martin was not offered other than Porgy and Bess?

[quote]Was there any classic musical that Martin was not offered other than Porgy and Bess?

She so wanted to play Ben Franklin in 1776, but all they would offer her was John Adams.

Oh you, r168. But you know had it been done in her heyday, Mary would be Abigail AND snatch Martha's song for herself.

My grandpa was in the Navy, and on shore leave circa 1957. He said someone in Times Square randomly handed him a ticket to Gypsy. He didn't really know anything about the show, and didn't know much about Merman. He arrived a bit after curtain, had an amazing seat, and said that he melted hearing Merman sing Small World. At intermission, he realized that Liz Taylor and Eddie Fisher were in the row ahead of him.

You don't really think of people "melting" at Merman's voice, but listening to the cast recording, I can kinda see it.

Op, I need proof she sang this song all the time as you put it.

I think she would have demanded Molasses to Rum be given to Abigail as well. She had to have an end showstopper. Abigail and Martha's songs come to early in the show.

And she would have gotten a leading rather than supporting Tony.

It would have been interesting if Daniels knowing the rules of the Tony committee and knowing that this was most likely a Tony winning part had demanded his name above the title and making that case to the producers. Did he just think he would get a leading actor nomination when that hadn't been the case in the past?

[quote]Listen to Reba McEntire sing Annie Get Your Gun and you'll hear it sung with all the spirit and so much more vocal beauty.

Horrible. Dinner theatre-community theatre level. Dull. Banal. I would never pay to see that.

Do you understand that there was a time that the B'way stage was not miked? Sound was not amplified? That's the era that Merman made her mark and she has to be understood in that context.

The people cheering Merman singing "What I Did for Love" are cheering her career, her legend, her status as an icon, they're cheering the woman who introduced: "I Got Rhythm", "It's De-Lovely", "You're the Top", "Anything Goes", "There's No Business Like Show Business", "Everything's Coming Up Roses", "Rose's Turn", "I Get a Kick Out of You".

Her voice and singing style was totally unsuited to a television studio...we know that... but that's not what people wanted from her anyway. They wanted the thrill of hearing those piercing high notes... wobbly vibrato not withstanding. Remember too, the woman is pushing 80 years old there.

Do this: listen to Reba McEntire's thoroughly amateur-hour rendition and then listen Merman's. Try to picture yourself in a theatre in the balcony without mikes (as it was originally done).

Listen to the brio, the crystal clear lyrics, the genuine sense of humour, the absurdity that Merman brings to the role. And even so, Merman's style was not meant for a recording studio either... it was meant for the stage.

I'm hearing Ethel sing Momma Look Sharp, r172....

[quote]Was there any classic musical that Martin was not offered other than Porgy and Bess?

"Oh! Calcutta!"

Mary Martin did - what, at least one of Merman's big roles? (AGYG).

Can you imagine Ethel doing one of Mary's big roles? Ethel as Maria Von Trapp? Ethel as Peter Pan? Ethel in One Touch of Venus?

What I did for love, I now do for a 50.

And Mary's Annie was splendid, as evidenced by the recent reissue of the video.

I would have been to Ethel's Peter Pan in a shot.

For me, Ethel Merman is best appreciated as a larger-than-life Broadway star whose musical appeal is limited to the stage. She’s perfect playing a caricature of herself as in Airplane, because she - and we - know that the caricature is the result of transplanting the live Merman to the screen version. The screen just can’t hold it.

I really love Aretha Franklin’s What I Did for Love posted upthread, but for me, the sentimental favorite is Grace Jones’ disco version, featured on my favorite of her albums, Portfolio, which also includes an unlikely version of Tomorrow from Annie.

I guess I'm the only one who finds the song inexecrable.

Did Mary Martin attempt a disco album?

r181 Oh, DEAR.

[quote]I guess I'm the only one who finds the song inexecrable.

I've always found it perfectly fraptitacious.

I find it ginormously twee.

Merman and Martin both had huge egos.. Martin was far more likely to admit she was wrong. Best example: her relationship with her son, Larry Hagman.

Martin letter to Hagman:

"Even if I weren't your mother and was just a friend --- and so help you darling one ---- I am both ---- I love you. Your Mom"

From a book by Larry's daughter, Kristina

R186 Mary Martin, clearly, was better off sticking to words someone else wrote.

Ethel in "South Pacific" Or in shows Martin turned down: Ethel in "My Fair Lady" or Ethel in "Mame."

Thoroughly unpleasant R173.

I wouldn't trade my talents for yours R161.

R5, Ethel Mermam was as “wistful and gentle” as jackhammer.

Height: Merman 5. 5.5 Martin 5. 4

Too generous by far

So Merman only had an inch on Martin. Still short enough to do Peter Pan. And what a TV spectacular in living color that would have been.

R193, that notion was clearly the inspiration for this:

Martin spent a huge amount of money on clothes. Merman did not, so she looked 80 years old even though she dies at age 76.

It wasn't Merman's clothes that made her look old, it was her face. She was really insulted when The Odd Couple asked her to play Jack Klugman's aunt, but realistically, she could have played his aunt or his mother.

Gypsy had not opened in 1957, r170.

I am not an expert on fashion. But, in the last ten years of her life, Ethel Merman's clothes looked inexperience, and just thrown together at the last minutes. By then, she was singing at big deal event mostly where every one (men and women) took care of their appearance. Not Ethel. It's possible the brain tumor was somewhat responsible in the last year or so.

He typed circa, r197.

Merman's and Martin's ranges were distinctly different and yet they overlapped. Merman created Annie Oakley but Martin led the first national tour and did the first TV version. After Russell turned down Mame, telling the producers "I don't eat yesterday's stew," it was next offered to Merman and then to Martin, who both turned it down. And of course, Dolly was written with Merman in mind, but it was next offered to Martin after Merman passed. Martin declined only because she was exhausted at the time but went on to lead the first national tour, which became the International Tour, which finally became the original London production with its own cast album. And then Merman finally closed the Broadway production to rapturous reviews.

The Merm's famous comment on Martin:

"Mary's OK if you like talent."

They had never been enemies and actually became good friends during their final years and sometimes appeared on shows like Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin together. Some of the interviews are on youtube. They had memories and pasts that only the other could truly understand and appreciate, no matter their differences (like Mary being gay).

Very cool footage here.

Martin's International tour of Hello, Dolly included Vietnam in 1965. She realized it was a mistake when the Dolly company landed in Saigon. The press was hostile, and aggressive in asking Martin about exposing so many people to a war.

Martin and her husband agreed on Vietnam because Pres. Johnson asked when they were in Japan with Dolly Also, the next stop on the world tour cancelled. In Japan, Martin had to deal with a cast mostly against the war.

"Hello Dolly" for the military audience? And they say they didn't allow gays in the armed forces ...

Our first boyfriend was just out of the Air Force.

LBJ was so wise. Our troops, exposed to grenades and bombs and machine gun fire and suffering from PTSD, wanted nothing more than to while the hours of a leave afternoon away with the delightful misadventures of Mrs. Dolly Gallagher Levi and Horace Vandergelder, the celebrated half-a-millionaire.

If you watch "Full Metal Jacket" you sense this instantly. Vincent d'Onofrio's character only needed to see a debonair rendition of "Elegance" and he would have been right as rain again.

I served in Vietnam in '68-'69. By then, only Martha Raye entertained.. I did not see Bob Hope on purpose.

There's a you tube video of the applause at the end of the musical. Then Martin stopped, and talked to the audience, mentioning several soldiers by name. Still, Vietnam was a mistake in every way

Later, back in the states, Martin attended an anti-war rally near the New York Public Library. The Broadway crowd noticed her presence.

She's waking the dead.

Mary Martin (South Pacific) BEAT Ethel Merman (Gypsy) for the Tony Award in 1960

Not quite, r209......

I probably could have bucked an ensign, r209, but you can't buck a nun.

What is R209 doing on this thread?

R170's grandpa saw My Fair Lady and over time confused it with Gypsy.

Merman benefitted enormously from Lillian Roths move from Broadway to Hollywood in 1930. If Roth had stayed on Broadway, Ethel Zimmerman might have remained a secretary. Merman scored prime roles that would in all likelihood had gone to Roth. By the time Hollywood was done with her, Roth had developed a big drinking problem, which destroyed her career until the '50s. She returned to Broadway in I CAN GET IN FOR YOU WHOLESALE. I have heard that she toured as Rose in GYPSY, but I have not been able to find confirmation on the internet. Would have loved to have heard her - like Garland, Roth and her sister were pushed into show business by an overbearing mother.

Roth was much prettier than Merman and their voices were uncannily similar. Here she is in the film version of Merman's hit TAKE A CHANCE.

Go to 3:00 for a musical cameo by a DL Goddess.

Also r214, Viv gets the best line in the song! Here's Lillian on What's My Line......

Vivian Vance!

Roth was a great talent and charming and pretty to boot.

Ethel NEVER forgave Mary Martin for BEATING her that year for the Best Actress Tony Award in 1960

Trivia: The Featured Actress in a Musical that year was awarded to The Children in The Sound of Music. So two males officially have a Tony for Featured Actress.

I can see people going to see Merman in a show.

But what I can't imagine is anyone putting one of her records on. Such an annoying sound.

Same with Channing, r220. And there's a reason Verdon only did one solo recording.

I can;t believe you'd say that, r221. I often relax by listening to "The Queen of Show Biz and Lady Pearl: Carol Channing Sings Janis Joplin."

I saw Lillian Roth in I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE. Thanks for the information. I was a teenager back then.

I envy you!

Did Lillian and Barbra get along?

Harold Lang too! An amazing cast.

In the Boston tryout of WHOLESALE , Streisand received the most attention by far because very few people had seen in person yet.

[quote][R170]'s grandpa saw My Fair Lady and over time confused it with Gypsy.

Which one had "I Could Have Stripped All Night?"

No one ever made an Oscar-winning movie about that cunt Merman's life, now did they?

She was not averse to "Spreadin' it around" because she used to fuck (married) Bob Hope standing in deserted off-Broadway doorways on the way home after their performances in "Red, Hot, and Blue" in the 1930's. While she was having an affair with (married) Sherman Billingsley, the owner of the Stork Club.

On the other hand, Cole Porter said her voice "was like another instrument in the band" in "Anything Goes" when it first opened on Broadway. Think Patti Lupone before microphones. And who else in 1940 could get away with the lyrics of "I've Still Got My Health" from "Panama Hattie"?

By fashion and foppery, I'm never discussed. Attending the opry, my box would be a bust.

and...

The sight of my props never stops a thoroughfare, But I still got my health, so what do I care?

R182

I see you (and hear her, Big Ethel) and I raise you: Bette Davis' pre-disco attempt at "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane"

Based on the above video, Bette Davis ended her career slipping on a banana peel.

The video of Merman is cringeworthy. She looks like a dancing maid or an advertisement for some sort of laxative.

The look is "Hep Grandma" it was really happening!

R207, you make me want to start a new thread about DLers who served in Vietnam, with topics moving beyond Martha Raye.

R182 In the description of that youtube video, it says that the failure of the Disco album led to the cancellation of her follow up which would have been a Country one. Even though the album didn't happen, I know that she did later guest on Hee Haw but I can't find a video of it. It seems to me that she would have been better served doing the Country one first, especially since she was known for Annie Get Your Gun, which is at least Country adjacent. Carol Channing actually did two country albums in the mid/ late 1970's that weren't half bad, so I'm sure the Merm could have done Country better than Disco.

[quote]The Merm's famous comment on Martin: "Mary's OK if you like talent."

The Merm's other famous comment on Martin: "Big dyke, you know."

"Mary got more pussy than Hope!"

-- Merman on Martin

Hope who? Lange?

Bob Hope

LITTLE dispute that Martin was a lesbian. The latest Mary Martin bio shows her mostly interested in her career otherwise a cipher.

Has anyone ever seen the MGM/Ann Sothern film of Panama Hattie? Is it ever shown on TV?

I'm a big Ann Fan so I'm very curious...........

r242 Yes, it's been on TCM.

We had the chance once to read for Mary Martin and Larry Hagman -who was looking for someone to play his child in a new movie. Sadly, we did not return the phone call that night when the two of them were dinner guests at the Century City condo of our voice teacher(who was a close friend of Mary Martin) that night, She wanted us to come over right away, or so she said the next day. Maybe she made it up. We will never know.

Die you old racist shit eating AIDS infested bitch. Yeah you ERNA.

[R207], you make me want to start a new thread about DLers who served in Vietnam, with topics moving beyond Martha Raye.

I am not sure there is much more to add, except seeing naked soldiers in the showers every day.

I just saw several clips from Panama Hattie on youtube - surprisingly, they kept three numbers, "I've Still Got My Health," "Fresh as a Daisy," and "Let's Be Buddies." (Plus Lena Horne singing "Just One of Those Things) and several songs not by Porter.

It seemed a lot better than I expected it to be, and Virginia O'Brien actually smiles quite a lot in it, which I've never see her do before.

Ann Southern and Virginia O'Brien in the same movie seems Oscar worthy to me as best picture.

R248

With Red Skelton, Ben Blue, and Rags Ragland, too - definitely Best Picture material. But no nominations for the film.

"The Sping" with Lena Horne (in Carmen Miranda drag) and the Berry Brothers is the best thing in it.

Are there no videos of Ann Sothern as Hattie?

No, there videos are of Ann Sothern as Hattie.

Lots of bad musicals and performers back then, I guess. Panama Hattie would stink with Merman, Anne Southern or Mitzi Gaylord. Merman was some freak of her time warp though she enjoyed a long ASS success. That headache inducing blare with the wobble dunk notes must have thrilled audiences back before real singers started to take over popular culture in the recording studio. The songs were top notch. She was AWAKE. Merman like Liza was not a singer in the usual sense. Like the emperor without clothes - they were so successful at it that no one wanted to mention that they couldn't sing well. I guess Merman ran on personality, power and prestige. She seems very please with for a busdriver. I don't care to understand her. She could sustain a high note with sleep inducing power, but never as beautifully as Lupone, Buckley, Chenoweth or Beacham.

[quote]Anne Southern or Mitzi Gaylord

Wow, a rare TRIPLE "oh, dear!"

*She seems very pleased with herself for a busdriver.

R254 pounces on grammar mistakes but ignores the truth of the word. He has nothing else to contribute. These immobile type of old gays are sad.

r255 None of those errors is a grammar mistake.

^^^^^ overserved at Tea Dance this afternoon, hon?

You're dissing them but you don't know (or at least use) their names. The truth of the word depends on using the right words.

And an unforced error doesn't add to your cred.

"immobile"???

Love this thread, guys. This is DL at its best.

R181, no, you're not the only one.

[quote] Even though the album didn't happen, I know that she did later guest on Hee Haw but I can't find a video of it.

That was a great episode. She did a whole comedy routine with Minnie Pearl filled with veiled lesbian references: "If'n a feller like Ernie Borgnine won't kiss you in the moonlight, Ethel, do like we gals back in Grinder's Switch do, and go sink your lips into the closest mossy carpet instead!"

Merman was far more than just a singer. Even when someone else was speaking and she was just standing still, it was difficult to look at anyone else. By "Gypsy," Martin was more popular because of "Peter Pan" on live TV in 1954 and 1955.

[quote]Lupone, Buckley, Chenoweth or Beacham.

I can certainly understand praise for Lupone as a genuine B'way star....at the very least for Evita.

But those others? Oh c'mon.

I can see why Lupone is a star because of Evita, but I would actually consider her to be the contemporary version of Merman. Her voice is generally an acquired taste.

I cannot imagine Lupone in That Girl. Except in the pilot as Anne Marie after which the studio execs would have had the pilot burned.

Was it George Gershwin who told Merman to never take a singing lesson? Or Cole Porter. Maybe Irving Berlin or Julie Styne.

^ Gerswhin during Girl Crazy.

Merman sang at JFK's Inauguration.

I guess while Merman was on international tv, singing for an American President, Mary was doing her dewey-eyed impression of Maria von Trapp. Who ever heard of a 45 year old postulant?

^ Er, Gershwin.

She didn't need singing lessons. Her tone was hideous and her vibrato was unfixable. She needed a muzzle.

And she always said such nice things about you, r269.

[quote] Merman was far more than just a singer.

She was also a dessert topping!

I'll have the Bananas Foster, r271....

Well, r267, perhaps it was the millions of ticket buyers who made the show a sell-out while Martin was starring, as well as the Tony voters who chose her over Merman. That's who.

Gypsy is not a happy story, TSOM is.

You think TSOM is happy? Oh yeah, the Nazis chasing an innocent family into the Swiss Alps. Let the good times roll!

I remember somebody posting who was around at the time that SOM was a tough ticket. Gypsy was not. You could go whenever you wanted to.

The story of TSOM was so highly fictionalized it is difficult to know what really happened.

The Captain was a draft dodger? He refused to defend his native Austria against the Khazar armies?

Merman sang at Kennedy's Inaugural gala, not the inauguration. And the Gala was on TV.

I saw Gypsy and TSOM. I would have voted for Merman even though I like Martin more.

It is interesting that Merman sang at the Kennedy gala, as she was a lifelong Republican. Did she just dislike Nixon? I know she loved Eisenhower, according to reports.

According to a wise Indian guru Eisenhower has been re-incarnated as a one celled amoeba!

raw footage

[R279] I should have written the Gala was NOT on TV.

SOM winning over Gypsy was exactly like Music Man winning over West Side Story a couple of years earlier.

Except that FIORELLO! won that year.

Ethel Merman was a RABID Republican and LOVED Richard Nixon!

"You can trust your car to the Texaco star!"

And she thought our songs were lousy.

Yes, she campaigned for Nixon, but when you're invited by Frank Sinatra to perform at the inaugural gala, you go (at least in those days)

R287 she did more than that, when I say she was a RABID Republican, people learned very fast you don't bring up politics up with Ethel.

Those where the days when you could love your party but your allegiance was to your country and your respect was always to your President. It's a mindset that's difficult for people today to understand for justifiable reasons.

^ Er, were, not where

R289 Ethel had no respect for Democrats, If you weren't a Republican, you were dead to Ethel. Which is why people learned not to bring up politics with Ethel.

[quote]TSOM winning over Gypsy was exactly like Music Man winning over West Side Story a couple of years earlier.

Equivalent to "Avenue Q" over "Wicked"?

And yet she sang for Kennedy, r291. The extreme polarization came in with Reagan and his miscreant enablers. Plus the fallout from Nixon. The late 1940s - early 1960s were different era.

Or Lion King over Ragtime, r292. As someone said at a cast gathering watching the awards, after stunned silence, "We lost to a puppet show."

Actually, bothFiorello and SOM won, in a tie.

R291

Not always. I looked and looked but can't find the picture. She campaigned for Ed Koch for when he ran for Mayor. It had to be either in 1977 or 1981 because she was dead the next time he ran. There was a picture of the two of 'em at Coney Island in the papers. She was carrying a semi-fabulous shinyl vinyl handbag with her initials on the outside - a big glue-on goldtone E and an M.

In case she forgot who she was, I suppose. Or maybe she'd forgotten she was a Republican. She was a feisty old broad but she was an old broad by then.

R296 when he ran for re-election in 1981, he was officially both the Democrat and Republican candidate.

R296, see my replies at r289 and r293. Everything wasn't so strictly black or white back in the day.

Merman only sang at Kennedy Inaugural for LBJ (vice-President) because ironically she was part of a group called "Republcians for Johnson!"

She sang "Everything's Coming Up Roses" at Reagan's inaugural. She was dead to me after that, but she obliged a short while after, so everything worked out.

What do you by mean "but she obliged a short while later," r300?

She stopped "singing" if it ever really was that.

He means she accepted an invitation to the Reagans' fancy dinner party, Rose.

Avenue Q won over Wicked because its reviews were mainly raves; Wicked's were largely negative.

R279, As I recall, Gypsy closed down that evening so Ethel could perform for JFK. A fierce blizzard blanketed DC with snow.

Reagan haters are soooooooooooooo tired.

Yet except by 3 theater aficionados Fiorello is completely forgotten. Not one hit song and never revived except by Encores and by some desperate small company.

There is very little affection for the show unlike She Loves Me which still gets major productions.

I saw it once at NYU where I've seen some excellent productions and they had nothing but absolutely nothing to work with.

Truly the most bewildering highly praised and awarded show in its time.

R307, From Fiorello, "The Very Next Man" is only known because Barbara Cook would include it in some of her concerts.

R307, Still, Fiorello gave the world Tom Bosley, who oddly won the Tony for Best Featured Actor for the title role.

R309 I don't know why people are so invested in speculating on the Tonys where the rules change willy nilly and money making road possibilities are its primary concern.

It is meaningless in most cases because it is nothing but a marketing tool. Ain't Misbehaving? Jerome Robbin's Broadway? Best musicals?!!

Tammy Grimes? William Daniels? Featured actors?!!

The Tonys became dead to me when Contact won for Best Musical. "Swing" was just a similar version of "Contact." The race should have been between "James Joyce's The Dead" which was a sleeper musical and "The Wild Party" even though it was a real downer. I felt that "The Wild Party" should have won.

[quote]Still, Fiorello gave the world Tom Bosley, who oddly won the Tony for Best Featured Actor for the title role.

Leading actor was determined by name above the title. Since Bosley was a relatively unknown actor at the time, his name wasn't above the title when it opened, so he was forced into Featured, even though he was the character in the title of the musical.

Bock and Harnick's score for Fiorello! is superb, one of the best of the era but so closely tied to the book that there were few songs that could be lifted for pop singers. I Love a Cop? On the Side of the Angels? However, Till Tomorrow was covered by a few singers (Lawrence and Gorme) and When Did I Fall in Love has been recorded by Audra and others, and was on Sondheim's list of 50 faves. It's gorgeous. The fact that the show itself doesn't lend itself to easy reviving shouldn't detract from its music and lyrics.

Are you saying the book itself is so poor? Because even simply a good book with an excellent score should make it more popular than it is. All I remember is Little Tin Box which seemed obvious and heavy handed in its satire. The rest of the score like The Rothschilds where I saw the original production seemed bland. I need to give them both another listen.

Getting back to La Merm, she did a radio commercial in the early eighties, I can't remember the product, but nobody woke me up faster- "What a difference a day makes- 24 little hours" EEK

Hey, you gaze, this thread is about ME, the great Ethel Merman. Not about Tom Foggley or whatever the hell his name was, nor that dyke Mary Martin and her gay husband and alcoholic son. It's about ME!!

Back to Ethel: My favorite story about her (as many of you know, but will be new to some), is when she was in an interview and they asked her about her marriage to Ernest Borgnine, and she said (huffily), "People make MISTAKES! That's why they put ERASERS on PENCILS!"

Other favorite Ethel story: hours before the opening of one of her shows on Broadway, one of the performers in a smaller role came up to Ethel and said, "Oh Miss Merman, I'm so nervous! Aren;t you!" And Ethel turned to her and said, "NERVOUS? What's there to be NERVOUS about? I KNOW MY LINES!"

I always like the advice Ethel gave: If people could do what I do, they'd be up here doing it!

And finally, in the parade of Ethel Merman chestnuts: for "Happy Hunting," the writers kept changing the dialogue and giving Ethel the script changes, which (being a professional) she accepted. Finally, on opening night, the director's assistant came up to her to give her a final round of script changes. She refused to take them when he handed them to her, and said to him, "Kid, you can call me 'BIRDSEYE' MERMAN, because THIS show is FROZEN!"

r313, the book isn't poor, it's just not gangbusters, and the title character is no long remembered by most people today. In 1960, he was a warm memory for New Yorkers. Plus it doesn't have the whiz bang production numbers that we've come to expect. It's intimate and clever, not hyper. As for Little Tin Box and Politics and Poker, the satire is gentle, but the craft of the songs is terrific. The two times I've seen Encores! do it, they stopped the show. There's a reason it won the Pulitzer.

A very rare anecdote I read a long time ago about Lamas being a nice person. Maybe the only one I've ever read.

At one point during a performance of Happy Hunting maybe at the end Merman and Lamas were next to each other facing the audience. Then they had to turn and walk upstage together. At this performance the top of the back of Merman's dress split open. Lamas saw this and before they turned Lamas took off his jacket and put it over her shoulders.

fascinating...

Was it Lamas that had to kiss Merman and he would then go upstage and animatedly wipe his mouth?

The short version: when Elaine Stritch was Ethel Merman's B-way understudy in Call Me Madam in 1952, she also got the reporter role singing 'Zip' in Pal Joey. In New Haven. At best, it's a 90 minute ride by train or car but her spot in "Pal Joey" wasn't until 10:05 pm, so if she knew Merman was OK (Ethel was never off so Stritch was never on) by 7:30, there was no problem. Still, every night she'd stop by Merm's dressing room to inquire if Miss Merman was feeling well and every night, she got the same answer: "I'm OK, Elaine." And it worked - she made it back and forth every night. Until the night when snow meant she had to ask Ethel if she could check with her earlier that evening in order to take the train. She got a different answer: "Oh, Elaine. For chrissakes, will you just go to New Haven and sing your fucking song."

The longer version:

[quote] the book isn't poor, it's just not gangbusters, and the title character is no long remembered by most people today. In 1960, he was a warm memory for New Yorkers. Plus it doesn't have the whiz bang production numbers that we've come to expect.

I love that you use outdated turns of phrase like Ethel Merman (or someone from 1960) would.

I love the mutual respect and admiration shown by Ethel and Elaine Stritch. In her autobiography, Merm mentions that Stritch was her understudy in Call Me Madam, and that whenever she saw Elaine having success on stage or on TV in England, she was completely unsurprised, because Stritch was so dedicated and talented when she knew her. And when Stritch spoke of Merman after her passing it was always with respect and reverence.

There is great story in Arthur Laurents's book where he invited to dinner a friend who desperately wanted to meet Merman. He warned him she could be rough, and not to interrupt her or make any references to her work. They were having Chinese food. The guy picked up an eggroll and said to Merman "Have an eggroll,Mr. Goldstone". Before he was done, Merman yelled at him "Are you mocking me? How DARE you!! Who the Hell do you think you are!!!. The guy left in tears.

Mary Martin could be harsh as well. If it was by accident, she would realize and try to correct the situation. I can speak from personal experience.

Maybe Merman was great as Rose because she wasn't a terribly smart or thoughtful actress. She knew she was the star and never made eye contact with others on stage. She didn't overthink the role and think "well, deep down, she loves her kids." There wasn't anything terribly warm about her, but she was funny as hell, which made you root for her.

It's something that's been lost in newer productions of Gypsy where the actress playing Rose seems too scared to play an honest to God monster. To me, it's a lot more moving to see a monster crumble at the end of the show than a well-meaning, but misguided woman falling apart.

Yes. That Imelda Staunton was clearly too scared to play an honest to God monster...

The problem is with the final scene where she suddenly becomes self aware and redeems herself for '50s audiences.

I like it because it's comforting and satisfying and I'm a reactionary at heart(at least concerning entertainment.)

But I know that if Gypsy were a more honest musical it would end with the final 'For me!' of Rose's Turn.

[R330] Excellent observations. I agree. And Merman was smart enough to be charming as Rose occasionally.

r318, I believe your remembering the well known story of Ethel on the opening night of Gypsy. Her dresser or someone arrived at the theater early, late in the afternoon, and walking past The Merm's dressing room with the door open, saw her inside polishing her jewelry.

"My goodness, Miss Merman. It's opening night. Aren't you worried about the critics?"

"To Hell with the critics, I know when I'm good."

^ you're, not your, and whatever other typos. Sorry.

The thing about Merman and other real STARS, is that they didn't need to be the best at what they did, because they just had "it". But, you can't define "it" and so many "stars" today just don't have "it."

[quote]The problem is with the final scene where she suddenly becomes self aware and redeems herself for '50s audiences.

I don't agree.

In Merman's autobiography she's clear that the only line Rose allows herself to be vulnerable at all about the kids (as she understood the part) is "I had a dream,/ I dreamed it for you, June..." And I think if it's played that way (and the Rose allows herself to be steely for the follow-up lines: "It wasn't for me, herbie,/And if it wasn't for me, etc."), then it's a very successful (and not "redeemed") part. Both Merman and Lansbury allowed themselves to be monsters; it's the later Roses who became too sentimental.

I think one of the reasons Merman was so successful in this part is that she could be genuinely alarming whens he sang because she had so much demonic energy in whatever she did, and so to have this crazed mother singing the insanely upbeat "Everything's Coming Up Roses" to try to force her timid child to be a star at the end of Act I must have been surreal for audiences.

I always wonder who would have been good to play Momma Rose in the film of "Gypsy." Merman would not have been good: she didn't do well in film (like two other huge musical stars from her era, Carol Channing and Zero Mostel) because she couldn't tone herself down well for the camera and be subtle. I think Roz Russell is much better than people give her credit for in the film, but of course she couldn't really sing the role and isn't scary enough (though she's good at the humor). It always makes me sad because I actually love both Natalie Wood and Ann Jillian in this movie. It's my favorite of Wood's performances from this period, and Jillian is really fine as June: She's annoyingly sugary (as she should be) in "The Cow Song," but in the "Broadway, Broadway" number you really believe she could be a huge star if her mother would let Grantziger sign her on according to his terms. And she doesn't draw focus away from Louise (the way too many Junes do) in the scene in Grantziger's office for "If Momma was Married."

Don't they sing it outside of Grantzinger's office? Whatever. I like the film very, very much with all its flaws.

R338 Not sure who else could have played her in 1962, but I often thought if she had lived longer, or with good make up, it would have been a great role for Judy Garland, because she could have drawn on her experiences with her mother.

Had Garland been healthy 40something she could have done the films of Gypsy, Dolly and Mame. Alone she would have solved all the casting problems.

[quote] Don't they sing it outside of Grantzinger's office?

Picky, picky.

I do not believe the rumors that she fukd her way too the top...

moreover, who would want to touch her cuntflaps?

If I were being picky I would have mentioned that it's Grantzinger, not Grantziger.

Thank God for the blocking button.

"Campaigned for him...she was dead the next time he ran."

That wouldn't stop Ethel!

Her brassy voice is better suited for songs like There's No Business Like Show Business

"Everything's Coming Up Roses" in context of the musical is a much better song than "There's No Business Like Show Business."

But, I am not sure Merman realized.

As to her brassy personality, she was more insecure and shy, according to friends

Source: Bob Thomas biography

This is not meant to be snarky, but how many people who know why Merman was great as Rose (or not great) actually saw her live onstage?

There's a full performance of Merman in the show out there. I think it's Closing Night. Audio only. Judge for yourself.

[348] here: I saw Merman twice in "Gypsy," once in New York and on tour later in Boston. I'm 74-years old now.

I also saw Martin in "The Sound of Music."

Then it's your opinion I trust!

I've heard the audio, but that's not quite the same as being there.

R351, please tell more. Especially about Ethel.

[quote]Getting back to La Merm, she did a radio commercial in the early eighties, I can't remember the product, but nobody woke me up faster- "What a difference a day makes- 24 little hours" EEK

It was a radio spot for a US Postal Service product called Mailgram, which was a way of sending someone an important message, You dictated over the phone (or in person at a post office) and it was delivered the next day with the recipient's regular mail (as opposed to a telegram, which was sent by deliveryman).

The ad went something like this: The recipient gets a Mailgram and wonders how it got there so soon. There is the sound of a door opening and Ethel's voice booms: "What a difference a Mailgram makes, in 24 little hours". That was it.

It hearkened back to 1963 when Merman sang a ZIP code commercial to the tune of “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” (audio clip at link). The Post Office even had cardboard figures of Mr. ZIP, that, when you pressed a button, told you about ZIP codes and blared the Merman jingle:

[quote] Welcome to ZIP code, learn it today. Send your mail out the five-digit way. For a time-saver to lighten the load, your return address should have the ZIP code.

LOL.

No one loves a Broadway pedant!

VEL....

Love this.....

Was Ethel that desperate for money?

Vel?

R358, Poor Sondheim didn't even get residuals for that unless he wrote the new lyrics.

God, Ethel looks ancient even then.

Shake it, Ethel!!!

DOLLY X 2

Styne must have made a lot of money on that Vel commercial.

The men in civies kill that image. Was this a rehearsal?

I go back and forth on the ending to Gypsy. I've seen some productions where they tweaked it a bit and it worked. It's NEVER worked when Gypsy laughs at silly ol' Rose and they go off, arm in arm, into the sunset like nothing ever happened. I despise that ending. I actually think Arthur Laurents finally got it right in the LuPone revival where Gypsy laughs at Rose in this cold, sarcastic manner and walks off as Rose stands there all alone. The Rose sign comes on as she tries to reach up, the light bulbs dim, one by one. I found that very powerful.

I do think "Rose's Turn" was just supposed to end with Rose shrieking "for me" without a big dramatic finish, but the audiences wouldn't pay attention to the final scene and Hammerstein told Sondheim that he needed to give the song an ending so people could applaud Ethel and pay attention to the rest of the scene. Laurents fixed this in the Lansbury production by giving her the big finish and having her take her bows as Rose, which was genuinely bone chilling and brilliant. She just kept going and going after the applause had died down with this crazed look on her face. One of the scariest things I've ever seen.

[R361] I have the complete recording. There's some confusing events left out. Ethel talks to Julie Styne. Mary recognized her son, Larry and says "My baby boy." The stage was very crowded. So neither Ethel or Mary may not have know who else was there..

[351] here. I saw "Gypsy" from the balcony in Boston, and the front row in New York. Seeing the musical that close was wonderful. Although I am not sure Merman was doing much acting. But, seeing someone who was still trying very hard to define a very difficult role was thrilling.

I don't recall if it came across in the broadcast but the Jonathan Kent production took advantage of Imelda's diminutive size and had her walk off with a gait, and lighting, that made her look like a child and an old lady next to Louise. She gave this little sort of skip while also looking slughtly hunchbacked. I thought it was very poignant. Nothing has really changed with Rose except the march if time, which put the dynamic of the mother-daughter relationship in higher relief.

The Staunton "Everything's Coming Up Roses" left Louise and Herbie not simply scared of Rose but scared FOR her. The ending image underlined that Louise is Rose's caregiver and virtually always has been.

JFK signed his own death warrant in June 1963 when he authorized the Treasury to issue money directly, interest free and not 'borrowed' from the Federal Reserve, A few billion of these silver-backed US Notes were issued. After the murder all of these notes were recalled and replaced with Federal Reserve Notes.

[quote]While rehearsing a guest appearance on NBC's The Loretta Young Show, Merman exclaimed, "Where the hell does this go?" Young, who was a devout Catholic, advanced towards her waving an empty coffee can, saying, "Come on Ethel. You know my rules. That'll cost you a dollar." To which Merman replied "Ah, honey, how much will it cost me to tell you to go fuck yourself?!

Loretta was such an idiot. Still she was an ethereal incredible beauty and very talented as both an actor and business woman.

As a person she was a crushing disappointment. True of so many Catholics.

She really did do an interesting range of roles on her show, r369......

Well, R369, there's 1 billion Catholics in the world, so it may not be so much Catholics as...people.

She licked out Jacqueline Susann.

Despite her devout Catholicism and prim and proper image, Loretta had a baby with Clark Gable out of wedlock and after their daughter's birth, tried to pass the child off as "adopted".

r373 But her dresses were fabulous, weren't they? My eighty-year-old mother still talks about them.

How can you and your mother be the same age R374? This thread is elderly elder gay. At least most of the other gushing threads about ancient monsters from times gone by are about people who had recognizable talent. Ethel Merman? She was a common fat homely broad with a very loud voice and zero awareness or sensitivity. She could sing in a Happy Birthday kind of way but hers was not a vocal instrument anyone would encourage beyond high school. She's such a mess as a singer she can't fairly be called one.

Her Oscar gown? To...die...for.

R375, dementia-ridden and sitting in a shit filled diaper.

Sorry if some already posted this but I am not going to read through 377 posts about Ethel Merman.

From Wikipedia:

While rehearsing a guest appearance on NBC's The Loretta Young Show, Merman exclaimed, "Where the hell does this go?" Young, who was a devout Catholic, advanced towards her waving an empty coffee can, saying, "Come on Ethel. You know my rules. That'll cost you a dollar." To which Merman replied "Ah, honey, how much will it cost me to tell you to go fuck yourself?!"

r375 God, you're a such a bitter, self-loathing queen. You're also such a shit stain because you knew my mother and I couldn't possibly be the same age. Such a pathetic attempt at humor. Go have another cocktail and check rentmen.com for your weekly date.

That Loretta Young story exists in dozens of versions, dating probably from the '30s onward. The amount per swear of the coffee can "swear box" ranges from 25 cents to a dollar. A Young co-star (doesn't matter which one) curses and Young says "Ah! Naughty naughty! You need to put (X-amont) into the box." Co-star: "Here's( $20, 50, 100) bucks. Now, fuck off, Loretta."

"God knows I love Little Ethel, but she can't sing a note!"

-- Ethel Merman on her daughter (while she was still alive), to an interviewer

I don't think I am the one drinking R379. Calm yourself. You are a child of the universe and well over 70. My mom is 63 and doesn't know who Merman is. She's not a memorable icon because she couldn't sing, ya know.

The Loretta Young Show premiered in 1953, so I doubt that story goes back to the 30s.

Loretta Young made Hollywood movies from the early 30s on. The story fits on both a film set or the set of "The Loretta Young Show".

Loretta Young had enough clout in the 1930s to demand such rules on her sets?

The bigger question is: did Ethel Merman really ever appear in a film or TV show with Loretta Young?

Sondheim himself told this story in "Broadway: The Golden Age".

Good morning, Ethel Merman!

Yes, r385: Along with Temple, Faye and Heine, Young was one of Fox's biggest female stars in the 1930s.

[quote]Joan often joked about Young's devotion to Catholicism: At a party once, a guest was about to sit down and Joan grabbed him, saying "Can't sit there. Loretta Young just got up, and it has the mark of the cross on the seat."

Loretta was one of Joan Crawford's rivals. Loretta pissed plenty of people off with her 'swear jar' and her supposedly devout Catholicism. Anyway, back to the Merm!

Loretta's television show was a 30 minute dramatic series. I seriously doubt Ethel ever appeared on it.

I've always believed the Merman-Loretta Young Show story but I just did a long Google search and couldn't find any evidence they ever worked together. If Merman had done the TV show, it should be on IMDB and it isn't.

And of course there's the other famous Merman quote:

Merman brought along her two children to the theatre during rehearsals for "Gypsy".

While some scenery was being moved and got stuck, two of the stage hands started cussing one another out.

At that point Merman shouted:

"Guys, guys, don't say "FUCK" around the "K" "I" "D" "S"!

Ethel Merman never appeared on Loretta Young's show, r368

R394, see me at r392. I had always believed that story because it is so typical of both Merman and Young so I was really surprised to find nothing to support it.

Didn't Loretta wear a 'bag' from about 1958 so that her gowns had to be specially designed to hide it?

How rude, r396.

Other variatias of the same story say it was Spencer Tracy, not Ethel, and it was on a film set.

Supposedly someone responded to one of her statements of the obvious, "Is the Pope Catholic?" To which she responded, totally seriously, "Yes."

[quote]Loretta Young had enough clout in the 1930s to demand such rules on her sets?

Perhaps. She made her screen debut at three years of age in the late teens and by the late twenties she was an over the title star under her own name in silent films. She was a Baby Wampus star in the early thirties and by the mid thirties was a Marquee name star for Fox.

Incidentally, just a little while ago I was watching an episode of her show on Decades TV. She played an overdressed to the nines society wife terrified her workaholic husband was going to work himself literally to death so she secretly bought his company away from him. The husband was was played by John Newland, the host and occasional star of One Step Beyond. That was followed by an episode of Life with Elizabeth starring Betty White, followed by an episode of Steve Canyon where he dropped the first hydrogen bomb, followed now by -- an episode of One Step Beyond starring John Newland! And people ask me why I don't miss cable TV.

At one time she owned a fabulous apartment building (where our barber lived) on Fountain in WeHo and was also one of the owners of the Beverly Hills Hotel.

R392, That's an excellent observation. The same story about Loretta Young is also told about Robert Mitchum. At least we know they did make a film together.

After years of dormancy, Loretta resumed her acting career in the 1980s with a couple of made for television movies, won a Golden Globe for one, beating out her goddaughter, Marlo Thomas. One of her sisters was married to Ricardo Montalban, but she never appeared on his show Fantasy Island. She was given the honor of presenting the Oscar to Chariots of Fire for Best Picture. In her later years, she married famed designer Jean Louis.

Loretta Young . . . stunning.

The "Is the Pope Catholic?" story was about Tab Hunter.

While rehearsing Gypsy, Ethel asked Sondheim if Tab was gay, as rumored.

Sondheim replied to Ethel: "Well, Ethel, is the Pope Catholic?" And she answered in all-seriousness confusion: "Yes."

I can't believe I'm writing this on R405. You guys are really young.

Get back, Loretta!

And get the fuck out olf my thread!

^^^^ that was Loretta Martin, whoever she was...

But, but, but: I always thought Loretta Young was the one they were singing about, too. Young's show always opened with her sweeping through the door or down the stairs in a fabulous gown and I was left with the babygay idea that the Beatles were somehow singing about her, rejecting her vision of glam in a Jean Louis gown. I was about 7 when she was on TV and about 14 when the Beatles came along and didn't know shit, though.

But I knew who you were, Ethel...you were encoded in the DNA back then.

[quote]Avenue Q won over Wicked because its reviews were mainly raves; Wicked's were largely negative.

It was also a much better show.

(Although I wonder if it has aged well.)

Have you aged well, Babe?

Could Betty Garrett have done the movie version of Gypsy? I guess her star had faded by the time the Gypsy movie came out, but she could definitely have acted and sung it.

(And where did she get some of those lyrics changes Did Sonheim write them?)

^^^^more terrible singing, painful.

It could have been a movie comeback for Lillian Roth. Natalie Wood would probably have insisted on top billing. And they might have lost Malden. Klugman could have recreated his role.

Did anyone see Susan Hayward in the Vegas MAME? Could she have sung Rose?

Betty Garrett has a pretty decent voice. Ask even the best belters in the world, those "here"s at the end of "I'm Still Here" are nearly impossible to belt without modifying it to "hair."

Susan Hayward would have acted the shit out of Rose. I know she had to be dubbed in Valley of the Dolls, so I'm guessing her voice wasn't very good, but if she played Mame in Vegas...could she have just pulled a Rex Harrison and spoke sung the score?

Hey, she's actually not that bad at all.

Susan could have probably handled Rose. Certainly more than Roz. Then again, just about anyone was more qualified for that role than Roz.

This is apparently Hayward's own voice.

Here's Lillian Roth's 1950s recording.

Susan's actually got a pretty great voice. Color me surprised. She'd have definitely been a better choice for Rose.

I've always loved Hayward's spunky rendition of Red, Red, Robin!

Let's not forget the under-used musical stylings of Miss Jane Wyman. She was on the possible casting list for Follies.

This number has soooo much.....

Izzhat Bing zhinging my zhong?

Wyman was second (or third or fourth) choice. Bing wanted Garland (just let go by MGM), but Paramount refused on the grounds she was uninsurable. Crosby usually got whatever he wanted from his studio, but he reluctantly agreed.

Well I'm sure he was fine with Jane as they'd done an Oscar winning song previously.

Jane Wyman was a bitch.

I like Jane's voice....

So who was hotter in bed? Jane or Nancy? Not that anybody on this board would know.

But I'll take a shot in the dark: Jane.

JANE WYMAN

What a fascinating career she had! Languishing through the 1930s and 1940s as 2nd female lead in B pictures and minor musicals, she finally found unlikely huge success and an Oscar when she was "re-juvenized" as the deaf mute girl in Johnny Belinda in 1948 and then Laura in The Glass Menagerie and the innocent ingenue opposite Marlene Dietrich in Hitchcock's Stage Fright.

From there she seemed to alternate between Bing Crosby musicals (singing an Oscar-winning song!) and those technicolor Douglas Sirk soap operas as the older woman looking for romance with younger men, finally winding up at Disney at the end of the 1950s in character roles. Her comeback in the 1980s as the matriarch of Falcon Crest was truly impressive.

How many other actresses had such long and varied careers? She really never became typecast. Does she deserve her own thread?

Her hairdo did, r429.

She's so Nellie in Stage Fright, r429.

R429, Jane Wyman never looked more beautiful on film than in "Pollyanna".

OK, you fuckers, I'm not gonna tell you again. This thread is about ME! Ethel Merman! Jane Hyman can go make her own thread. This thread is about the brassiest, sassiest Broadway singer, Ethel Merman.

Miss Show Business Herself in the sensation that rocked New York for two hit years! Vera Ellen - a vision of breathtaking loveliness! (Although the anorexia was already visible)

I really love this thread.

This is about the worst combination of song and performer I can imagine.

Can't finish watching it.

Ethel's films opened at the Roxy. Mine opened at the far classier Radio City. Including Gypsy which had Ethel starred would have been immediately been dumped second on bill to the summer drive in crowd. Who would have complained to management Ethel was killing their horny fueled romantic inclinations.

Fuck you Roz!

MY film OPENED the Roxy, r437!

Radio City was newer and bigger but never touched the glamor of the Roxy, as Gloria knew and everyone else understood.

Russell Nype, Merman's co-star from CALL ME MADAM, has died at age 98. I posted this in the Broadway thread, but in case you missed it, here is the famous duet 'You're Not Sick You're just in Love' with Merman and Nype. It's from a radio broadcast, and since Dinah Shore did the OBCR, it may be the only existing recording of the two of them singing this song.

Thank you for that link. I prefer Donald O'Connor to Nype... but I realize Nype may not translate well.

I love the brassy Alfred Newman arrangements for the CALL ME MADAM film.

I love the song nobody remembers: "Mrs. Sally Adams" (- Requests the Pleasure of Your Company.) It's sung by a chorus of her secretaries at the beginning and end of the film. I don't know if it was in the Broadway show (it's not on the Broadway soundtrack) but I saw CMM maybe 10 years ago in revival at the Goodspeed Opera House and the cast was incredible. And Russell Nype was there and talked about his experiences in the show after the performance. Sorry to hear he's gone.

Russell Nype - the poor man's Larry Blyden.

Was he gay?

Nype just died in May at 98.

Having worked with Merman finally killed him. Sad.

He was 50 when he played Cornelius on Broadway.

Nype and Merman were longtime close friends, but there were times when their friendship was tested and they would not speak for months or more.

Russell Nype had a small role in "Love Story" as a Harvard dean.

I love the original Playbill for "Call Me Madam." It's clear the cartoonist was aware exactly of how terrifying Merman was.

It looks like something out of a Mad magazine of the period.

She ok'd that?

Merman finally agreed to do Dolly only if Nype were in the cast with her. He turned out to be fine as Cornelius, if a few years older than the part is usually cast.

R448 that caricature was done by the famous New Yorker cartoonist, Peter Arno.

And why wouldn't Merman be happy with that? Merman knew her persona was that of the loud, brassy dame.

Look at the cover of Playbill for GYPSY, 9 years hence. I think Arno captured her quite well.

And that cast included Danny Lockin.

As a very young teen I used to pass in front of the St James and I used to look at the photos. I'd be like there's Danny Lockin from the movie!

Why I did not go to see it I still don't know. I must have been insane. At that point I was thinking of going to the more recent musicals. One of the great if not greatest regrets of my going to Broadway.

Well another great regret which comes pretty close is not going to Home. I would pass in front of the Morosco and look at the dreary black and white photos. Oh god a depressing British drama. Not in a million years.

What a fool I was.

Georgia Engel was Minnie Fay opposite Lockin.

On the very clear audio boot of Merman's final performance in Dolly, Nype is good, Ethel is great, especially singing the two songs Jerry Herman wrote just for her.

On her 1971 This Is Your Life edition, surprise guest Nype admits that he was only cast in Dolly because of Ethel's insistence.

To answer somebody's question, Russell Nype was not gay.

I worked on a show with him and was friendly with him and Diantha (his wife) for years afterward. Stayed with them in Kennebunkport and often went to their dinner parties. Met Dolores Gray there, a terror. Saw Dick Kalman on one of his last nights alive.

[Quote] Met Dolores Gray there, a terror.

Did she expect you to play "Here's That Rainy Day" from memory?

If she hadn't but she did, r457.

How many elder gays remember Dick Kallman on the television series "Hank"?

Did Kallman do his own make up in that pic? He went a little heavy on the eyeliner.

I saw Dick as Finch in national tours of HOW TO SUCCEED and as Kipps in HALF A SIXPENCE.

What the hell kind of name is Dabbs, fer chrissakes?

R42 Those are appoggiaturas Ethel added -- didn'tcha know she was a bel canto singer? :)

I saw Dick Kallman in the first national of How to Succeed, with Willard Waterman and Dyan Cannon as Rosemary. I think he toured the show several times after that.

R149 Merman was TERRIFIED that people might thinks she was Jewish. She was born Ethel Zimmermann with two "n"s, not one like most Jewish folk with the name. Hell, she once showed up to Irving Berlin's Passover seder and brought a fucking ham! I wonder if they served her any at the seder table.

Caricatures of the stars used to be terrifying back in the day and that's why they were so much fun. Not like the shit they're doing at Sardis in the last decade or two.

Peter Arno, who did that Merm caricature, also did the iconic logo for The Pajama Game that sold thousands of tickets to the show (without really having much to do with it).

[quote] Ethel is great, especially singing the two songs Jerry Herman wrote just for her.

Jerry wrote the ENTIRE SHOW for me! FOR ME!!!

I was MISS SHOW BIZ!!!

Just watched "Strike It Pink" on TCM -- corny by very funny Eddie Cantor musical co-starring Merman. That "High and Low" by Harold Arlen cited by R63 is really film like something out of expressionism and Merman had a very nice head voice which she later rarely used. It's a very entertaining film, btw, and the closing amusement park sequence, even though filmed with rear projections, is still great fun.

[quote]Hell, she once showed up to Irving Berlin's Passover seder and brought a fucking ham!

If she was there, that made TWO hams in attendance.

R438, I know it's low-brow, but that was one of my Dad's favorite movies. He'd laugh until he'd cry when it was on. Thanks!

Yes, she did, R452. In fact, she barked at me, "'Here's That Rainy Day,' in A Flat," as if we were in a Deanna Durbin movie.

I told her I can't play without the music (though I can sight-read Brahms), so she sang it a cappella, glaring at me the whole time.

I've told the story here before, I think. Russell opened up the piano bench to offer her something else to sing instead, but she insisted on HER SONG. Actually, he was offering her things like "Ya Got Trouble" from The Music Man and other such stuff, which wouldn't have suited her. Kalman was there because he was her designated escort for nighttime events. In Gray's day, a lady didn'[t go out at night except with a man.

The Nypes' dinners were fun, because Diantha always made beef bourguignon, which is one of my faves.

^^^ Sorry, that was meant for R457.

We have a fabulous and rich Jewish elderfishsister in LA who always has honey-baked hams for special occasia.

Oh please, people. She didn't know what Berlin (and his Catholic wife, the former Ellin Mackay) were serving as she'd never been to a Seder. She brought a ham sandwich wrapped in wax paper in her handbag in case she didn't see anything she liked. Like it or hate it, Ethel was known for voice and her professionalism, not a finely-honed intellect. Nothing I've read or seen said she did it to insult her host and why would she? He was writing songs and shows that made her famous. And if not rich, at least well-off.

Is Panama Hattie reviveable? At least at Encores?

r475: I've always wanted to see PANAMA HATTIE at Encores. When I looked up the plot, I found one possible reason why - the book stinks. Not that it hasn't;t stopped Encores before....

Act I Hattie Maloney owns a night club in the Panama Canal Zone where she also performs. Three sailors from the S.S. Idaho, Skat Briggs, Windy Deegan and Woozy Hoga, ask her to sing at a party they are organizing ("Join It Right Away"). Nick Bullet, Hattie’s fiance, is a wealthy Navy officer. They are about to meet his eight-year-old daughter Geraldine (Jerry), off the boat from Philadelphia. He tells Hattie, "My Mother Would Love You". Hattie, eager to make a good impression on her prospective stepdaughter, spends three weeks' wages on her elaborately frilly outfit. But when she arrives, Jerry makes fun of Hattie's clothing and way of speaking. Feeling that her marriage is off, Hattie gets drunk on rum ("I’ve still Got my Health"). Kitty-Belle, the daughter of Admiral Whitney Randolph, wants to marry Nick, and she schemes to end his romance with Hattie.

Florrie, a singer in the night club, develops a crush on Nick's very proper butler Vivian Budd ("Fresh as a Daisy"). Nick’s efforts to persuade Jerry and Hattie to get along with each other finally succeed, with Jerry making the still hungover Hattie cut the bows off her dress and shoes ("Let’s Be Buddies"). Jerry gives Hattie advice on how to behave like a lady at a party where she is to be presented to Nick’s boss, the Admiral ("I’m Throwing a Ball Tonight"). Admiral Randolph is to be presented with a cup, and his daughter Kitty-Belle suggests that Hattie might present it filled with goldenrod. This gives Whitney hay fever; Hattie is blamed, and Nick is ordered not to marry Hattie.

Act II The sailors from the S. S. Idaho uncover a spy plot involving saboteurs. Hattie swears off rum ("Make It Another Old Fashioned Please"). Hattie has it out with Kitty-Belle, whose boyfriend keeps being called in whenever Hattie is on the verge of hitting her. Meanwhile, Florrie continues to try to attract the romantic attention of Budd ("All I’ve Got to Get Now is My Man"). Hattie, two of the sailors and Budd meet regarding these various threads ("You Said It"). Mildred Hunter, Kitty-Belle’s best friend, turns out to be a terrorist ("Who would Have Dreamed"). She gives Jerry a secret package to put in Nick’s desk. Fortunately, Hattie overhears the plot to blow up the Panama Canal control room, finds the bomb and throws it out, saving the day. The grateful Admiral Whitney retracts his order and the sailors praise Hattie ("God Bless the Woman").

Musicals Tonight did it's version of Something for the Boys. Very silly(the climax being enemy messages being transmitted through a filling in Ethel's character's teeth.)

But more entertaining then anything I'd see on Broadway with a pleasant Porter score. A score which is again better than anything you'd hear on Broadway.

'its'

It's good to think Merman did OK that caricature at R448, R449, it has some spark to it and captures something of her intense persona. The terrible portraits they now proudly unveil at Sardis' have the stench of PR interference all over them and the resulting blandness is ludicrous, Merman didn't shy away from her own refection in this respect.

"Christmas carols always bring tears to my eyes. I also cry at weddings. I should have cried at a couple of my own."

Ethel Merman

Ethel took pride in never having hired a secretary. She did her own typing and also took shorthand.

[quote] Hell, she once showed up to Irving Berlin's Passover seder and brought a fucking ham! I wonder if they served her any at the seder table.

Caryl Flinn wrote it was Jule Styne's Passover seder

Personally, I like Hattie's ensemble.

"Ethel has great legs and we decided to show them."

Only because the coat was too small and you "draped" it on her in "toga" fashion. Which is exactly what it looks like. Ethel deserved better. They at least could have put a rose in one hand and a gun in the other.

Ethel Merman had her quirks. She removed all of her kitchens in the various hotels suites she resided in. She couldn’t cook and had no interest in doing so. She did have a toaster oven though to cook hot dogs, though.

She was fixed in her ways.

At restaurants, she always tipped 15%, never higher. She was very thrifty and not known for her generosity.

She enjoyed Chinese cuisine, but she enjoyed ordinary meals, such as meatloaf. When she’d go back to her old neighborhood, her friends would provide home cooked food for her.

She was an only child and had a warm and loving relationship with her parents. She adorded them. She financially supported them and made sure they were comfortable. In this instance, she was very kind and generous.

She never forgot her roots and often returned to her old neighborhood. She was loyal to her old friends.

She never had stage fright.

She could make up shopping lists for her marketing while she was on stage belting out a song.

I only tip 15%. Fuck 20%. Food is expensive enough in restaurants. Though I tip 20% for delivery people.

To be honest I rarely go to restaurants but get more home delivery.

Are you zaftig, mit hips?

Ha! Yes.

Two Broadway legends . . .

R361 I have that entire recording and man, oh man does Merman blow the roof off the joint when she does Blow Gabriel Blow. It was never released commercially, and I think that's because Mary's performance just isn't there. When she has to hit a high note, she tries to fake it, or it just goes south on her.

An amazing evening nevertheless.

R361 I know I'm forever and hopelessly gay because :43 on that recording makes me smile ear to ear and get goosebumps. Imagining those two grand ladies appearing at the same time at the top of the Dolly staircase. I so wish it had been filmed.

I cannot imagine people who love Broadway musicals for their brashness and liveliness and can listen to Merman classics recorded in the 30s and 40s and not like them.

One of those things I can't understand.

And her performance in IAMMMMW will always be known by people who love and will love that movie(though personally I could have done without Spencer Tracy who everytime he appears stops the movie dead in its tracks) for generations to come.

R493, Ethel was all for having the evening filmed, if not televised, but Mary nixed it.

There isn't a single laugh in Mad Mad World.

Philistines.

Unlike Ethel Merman, Mary Martin had not been singing and performing for some time and knew she wasn't in top shape for that 1977 concert.

Almost 500 replies to a thread about Ethel Merman. GOD, I love you bitches!!

Fuck off, Benay. DL needs the Ethel!

That Panama Hattie photo of Merman is the first time I've seen a resemblance between Ethel and Gypsy Rose Lee.

Who replaced Merman in DUBARRY WAS A LADY?

I think one of the things she did for love, was the hokey pokey.

Here's the Merm blowing off the roof R492, Mary must have spent the concert waving a white flag.

Circa 1977 I was 7 years old, hanging out in my parents bedroom while the adults were downstairs. I must have tuned to PBS to see Electric Company or Sesame Street, but they were running Evening at Pops with Ethel Merman. I had no idea who that lady was, but I loved her instantly. She reminded me of my grandma. 8 loved her, I loved the music she was singing- all of it. A gay was born.

It's a little confusing r501. The show ran one year, which I suppose was respectable back then. Merman played both roles, of course. But the replacements page lists two different women in the two roles.

Still confused. I looked again at above and apparently it moved theaters and Gypsy Rose Lee did it? Does that sound right?

R504, I was there at Symphony Hall when that show was recorded in 1975. Tip O'Neill sat a few tables away from me in one direction, Julia Child in another direction.

Wow R507. What a great night that must have been!

I was the host of Standing Room Only on WERS, so I got to see all kinds of shows for free. One great one was A Tribute to Leonard Bernstein at Symphony Hall. Bea Arthur did Conga from Wonderful Town, and June Anderson did Glitter and Be Gay

R508, Are your initials T. K.?

Ethel Merman was a true inspiration. Even if her pantyhose stunk to high heaven.

R507 I replaced Tim.

Why would they have two different people? It's the same person, he's just dreaming about her as Dubarry. To have two different people makes no sense.

Merman replacements

Thank you, r513. Wow, FRANCES WILLIAMS! I would have loved to have seen her. She also did the PANAMA HATTIE tour.

"Bankers with their Cinder-relatives listen' to those hot high-yeller-tives!"

How many times would you guess Ethel rode Ernie Borgnine's cock?

R514

Had only heard Bobby Short's version - thanks for that.

What film is Hollywood Party from?

r518: HOLLYWOOD PARTY (1934) an MGM mess.

Mia's Mamma

Why was Mama Mia a hit and Carmelina a flop when they are both closely based on the same source material and Carmelina has the far superior (Burton Lane) score?

I saw Carmelina...it was a dud. It was like watching an insignificant B'way musical from circa 1955.

Georgia Brown didn't have an ounce of humour.... none of the vivaciousness of Gina Lollobrigida who was fabulous in the film.

Also, Georgia Brown was in her cackling phase by then, and she cackled all through her performance.

They should have canceled Carmelina and just put on Hansel and Gretel.

Would Carmelina have been a hit with Ethel Merman in the lead?

Only if they got Ernest Borgnine to reprise his McHale as one of the possible daddies.

Gina was not only very beautiful but talented and charming who when she saw her beauty begin to fade and Hollywood changing smartly found another career.

But god a true Italian bitch.

@ R516 . Too many !

CARMELINA was done on the cheap and Josie de Guzman was terrible. I rather liked Georgia, and the score has some real beauties. Has MUFTI ever done it?

[quote] How many times would you guess Ethel rode Ernie Borgnine's cock?

According to one of her biographies. they were regularly sneaking off to hotels during the 'courtship' phase. They ruined a good thing by getting married.

You can't really blame ol' Ethel. Who among us hasn't kept a relationship going too long just because of a big dick?

I saw a photo of Gina not too long ago, and she actually still looks quite beautiful. She's in her 90s but aged very well.

Gina films I recommend are Come September with Rock Hudson and postcard beautiful Italian scenery(and a very young, cute Joel Grey)

and the french Fanfan la Tulipe what they used to call a rollicking adventure comedy with the dazzling Gerard Philipe.

Did Elizabeth ever forgive Gina.....

r484 Let me show you how it's done, Ethel dear.

Try to avoid dinosaur imagery.

Shit, r533......

Umm, I was the very first.

Why didn't Ginger rate one?

So come on in and play me...

What. A. Coat.

R536

She had her own

Hell r539, she had a friggin' mink dress!

Joan's got a semi.

So Norma Desmond did Lady in the Dark?

Ginger in a mink dress recreating that fabulous iconic Lady in the Dark costume......what a lost opportunity that was for the Blackgama campaign!

As always Edith you stole credit for a fabulous costume designed by someone else.

Did you win an Oscar for this theft as well?

Ginger Rogers did "Lady in the Dark."

Gloria Swanson was Norma Desmond.

Doesn't she seem like an odd omission, r543?

They should have featured the three FOLLIES females, Alexis, Dorothy and Yvonne.

They did feature Ruby Keeler when she was starring in No, No, Nanette around the same time.

R540 Jenny with her story point the way to glory...

Ehhhh, r548. Add Julie's overblown STAR version and I still did more with less.

Valley Music Theater (Woodland Hills, CA) advertisement for CALL ME MADAM with Merman, Russell Nype, and Richard Eastham, summer 1965

Merman with cast of CALL ME MADAM, Valley Music Theater, July 1965 (click on link, it should yield a clearer picture). Is that Donna McKechnie in the front row, with the high hair?

The best of them all

[quote]She never had stage fright.

Pity.

"She never had stage fright."

She was a donor.

r550 They couldn't get any stars for "Camelot?"

R355, or an albatross.

We just noticed the Judy photo seems to be back-lit?

Always flattering to those 'of a certain age'

Not as flattering as the Vaseline on the lens and the gauze between the subject and the camera

or the spotlight aimed at her face...

Molly Bee! There's a name you don't hear any more.

And Gig Young as Harold Hill? Probably the most depressing Music Man ever.

R555 They must mot have known who was going to be in CAMELOT when they printed the brochure, but they ended up with Michael Evans as Arthur and hunky Harve Presnell as Lancelot.

Valley Music Theater had some major talent in its brief history: Shirley Booth in COME BACK LITTLE SHEBA, Maurice Evans in DIAL M FOR MURDER, Eve Arden in WONDERFUL TOWN, Anna Maria Alberghetti in CARNIVAL, Pat Suzuki in FLOWER DRUM SONG, and what must've been a hoot, Jerry Van Dyke and Rose Marie in BYE BYE BIRDIE.

I guess the stars based in LA liked the fact that they could pick up some extra money over the summer without having to leave town

R559

I think he was doing Primal Scream therapy then - Dominick Dunne's "The Way We Lived Then" book had something about it; that they were friends and were both fucked up at the same time or with the same shrink or with the same problem - something.

Would PST enhance or detract from his role as Harold Hill?

I'd give a month's salary to see Eve Arden do WONDERFUL TOWN. Or DOLLY. Or HEDDA GABLER.

I thought Donna McKechnie played the Princess (or whatever that ingenue role is in Call Me Madam) but that doesn't look like her in the middle of the photograph, wearing the royal sash and standing with Merman and Nype. The girl down front with the big hair looks sort of like Donna but I'm not convinced.

It was 1965. Could Donna have left the CMM tour to return to her Hullabaloo duties by the fall?

What's fascinating about this thread is it encompasses over 50 years of A List show business all touched in some way by Ethel Merman.

[quote] How many times would you guess Ethel rode Ernie Borgnine's cock?

The real question is: how many times would you guess that Ernie rode Ethel's?

R562, or AUNTIE MAME.

Yes! Even if she played Vera.

R563 yes, you are correct. McKechnie played the Princess, and from what I can gather, it was later, summer 1968, not when the show played the Valley Music Theater in 1965

Ernest in the tub...

MERM!