Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman (
January 16,
1908 â€"
February 15,
1984) was a star of
stage and
film musicals, well known for her powerful voice and vocal range.
She was born
Ethel Agnes Zimmermann, in
Astoria,
Queens, New York, of a
German Lutheran father and
Scottish Presbyterian mother, although many people long assumed she was
Jewish because of her pre-stage last name (which is common among non-Jewish Germans as well, particularly when there are two "n"s at the end of the name) along with the fact that she was from
New York City. She was baptized
Episcopalian. She used to stand outside the Famous Players-Lasky Studios and wait to see her favorite Broadway star,
Alice Brady. Ethel loved to sing songs like "By the Light of the Silv'ry Moon" and "Alexander's Ragtime Band" while her adoring father accompanied her on the piano.
Merman was married and divorced four times:
*Bill Smith, theatrical agent.
*Robert Levitt, newspaper executive. The couple had two children; divorced in 1952
*Robert Six, airline executive, 1953-1960.
*
Ernest Borgnine, actor, 1964. They announced the impending nuptials at
P.J. Clarke's, a legendary night spot in New York, but Merman filed for divorce after just 32 days.
She was known for her powerful,
belting alto voice, precise
enunciation, and accurate pitch. Because stage singers performed without microphones when she began singing professionally, she had great advantages in show business, despite the fact that she never received any singing lessons. In fact, Broadway lore holds that
George Gershwin warned her never to take a singing lesson after seeing her opening reviews for
Girl Crazy.
She began singing while working as a secretary for the B-K Booster Vacuum Brake Company in Queens. She eventually became a full time
vaudeville performer, and played the pinnacle of vaudeville, the
Palace Theatre in
New York City. She had already been engaged for
Girl Crazy, a musical with songs by
George and
Ira Gershwin, which also starred a very young
Ginger Rogers (19 years old) in 1930. Although third billed, her rendition of "
I Got Rhythm" in the show was popular, and by the late 1930s she had become the first lady of the
Broadway musical stage. Many consider her the leading Broadway musical performer of the
twentieth century with her signature song being "
There's No Business Like Show Business".
Merman starred in five
Cole Porter musicals, among them
Anything Goes in 1934 where she introduced "
I Get a Kick Out of You", "Blow Gabriel Blow", and the title song. Her next musical with Porter was
Red, Hot and Blue in which she co-starred with
Bob Hope and
Jimmy Durante and introduced "It's Delovely" and "
Down in the Depths (on the 90th floor)." In 1939's
DuBarry Was A Lady, Porter provided Merman with a "can you top this" duet with
Bert Lahr, "
Friendship". Like "You're the Top" in
Anything Goes, this kind of duet became one of her signatures. Porter's lyrics also helped showcase her comic talents in duets in
Panama Hattie ("Let's Be Buddies", "I've Still Got My Health"), and
Something for the Boys, ("By the Mississinewah", "Hey Good Lookin'").
Irving Berlin supplied Merman with equally memorable duets, including counterpoint songs "
Anything You Can Do" with
Ray Middleton in
Annie Get Your Gun and "
You're Just in Love" with
Russell Nype in
Call Me Madam.
Merman won the 1951
Tony Award for Best Actress for her performance as
Sally Adams in
Call Me Madam. She reprised her role in the lively
Walter Lang film version.
Perhaps Merman's most revered performance was in
Gypsy as
Gypsy Rose Lee's mother Rose. Merman introduced "
Everything's Coming Up Roses", "
Some People", and ended the show with the wrenching "
Rose's Turn". Critics and audiences saw her creation of Mama Rose as the performance of her career. She did not get the role in the movie version, however, which went to movie actress
Rosalind Russell, and an infuriated Merman was quoted as saying: "There's a name for women like her but it's seldom used in society outside [of] a kennel". (Since this is a line from the film
The Women, in which Russell appeared, the story may be apocryphal.) She also insulted Russell's husband, Freddie Brisson, by calling him the "Lizard of Roz". Merman decided to take
Gypsy on the road and trumped the motion picture as a result.
Merman lost the
Tony Award to
Mary Martin, who was playing Maria in
The Sound of Music. "How can you buck a nun?", mused Merman. The competitiveness notwithstanding, Merman and Martin were friends off stage and starred in a legendary musical special on television (unfortunately the two shared something else in common â€" they would both die of cancer-related illnesses at the age of 76).
Merman retired from
Broadway in 1970 when she appeared as the last Dolly Levi in
Hello Dolly, a show initially written for her. No longer willing to "take the veil" as she described being in a
Broadway role, Merman preferred to act in television specials and movies. Despite having a reputation for a salty tongue, and having introduced ribald
Cole Porter lyrics, Merman was known to dislike theatre fare in the 1970s like
Oh Calcutta for being lewd.
Merman's film career was not as distinguished as her stage roles. Though she reprised her roles in
Anything Goes and
Call Me Madam, film executives would not select her for
Annie Get Your Gun or
Gypsy. Some critics state the reason for losing the roles was her outsized stage persona did not fit well on the screen. Others have said after her behavior on the set of
Twentieth-Century Fox's
There's No Business Like Show Business, Jack Warner refused to have her in any of his motion pictures, thereby causing her to lose the role of Rose in
Gypsy. Nonetheless, Stanley Kramer decided to cast her as the battle-axe Mrs. Marcus, mother-in-law of Milton Berle, in the madcap
It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
Merman's last movie role was a self-parody in the film
Airplane!, appearing as a figment of a soldier suffering from
shell shock who thought he was Ethel Merman. Merman sang "Everything's Coming Up Roses" while the nurses drag her back to bed and give her a sedative.
She was predeceased by one of her two children, her daughter, Ethel Levitt (known as "Ethel, Jr." and "Little Bit").
After Merman was diagnosed with
brain cancer in 1983, she collapsed and died several weeks following surgery at the age of 76 in 1984; she had been planning to go to Los Angeles to appear at the Oscars that year.
On
February 20,
1984, Ethel's son, Robert Levitt Jr., held his mother's ashes as he rode down Broadway. He passed the Imperial, the Broadway and the Majestic theatres where Merman had performed all her life. Then, a minute before curtain up, all the marquees dimmed their lights in remembrance of her.
Merman co-wrote two volumes of memoirs,
Who Could Ask for Anything More in 1952 and
Merman in 1978. In the latter book, the chapter entitled "My Marriage to Ernest Borgnine" consists of one blank page.
Girl Crazy (
1930)
George White's Scandals of 1931 (
1931)
Take a Chance (
1932)
Anything Goes (
1934)
Red, Hot and Blue (
1936)
Stars In Your Eyes (
1939)
DuBarry Was a Lady (
1939)
Panama Hattie (
1940)
Something for the Boys (
1943)
Sadie Thompson (
1944) (was replaced in previews)
Annie Get Your Gun (
1946)
Call Me Madam (
1950)
Happy Hunting (
1956)
Gypsy (
1959)
Annie Get Your Gun (
1966) (revival)
Hello, Dolly! (
1970) (replacement)
Mary Martin & Ethel Merman: Together On Broadway (
1977)
The Cave Club (
1930) (short subject)
Follow the Leader (
1930)
The Devil Sea (
1931) (short subject)
Roaming (
1931) (short subject)
Old Man Blues (
1932) (short subject)
Ireno (
1932) (short subject)
Let Me Call You Sweetheart (
1932) (short subject)
You Try Somebody Else (
1932) (short subject)
Time On My Hands (
1932) (short subject)
Be Like Me (
1933) (short subject)
Song Shopping (
1933) (short subject)
We're Not Dressing (
1934)
Kid Millions (
1934)
The Big Broadcast of 1936 (
1935)
Strike Me Pink (
1936)
Anything Goes (
1936)
Happy Landing (
1938)
Alexander's Ragtime Band (
1938)
Straight Place and Show (
1938)
Stage Door Canteen (
1943)
Call Me Madam (
1953)
There's No Business Like Show Business (
1954)
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (
1963)
The Art of Love (
1965)
Around the World of Mike Todd (
1968) (documentary)
Journey Back to Oz (
1974) (voice)
Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (
1976)
Airplane! (
1980)
The Ford 50th Anniversary Show (
1953)
Panama Hattie (
1954)
Merman On Broadway (
1961)
Maggie Brown (
1963) (unsold pilot)
An Evening with Ethel Merman (
1965)
Annie Get Your Gun (
1967)
Tarzan and the Mountains of the Moon (
1967)
Batman "The Sport of Penguins," as the evil Lola Lasagne (1967)
*'S Wonderful, 'S Marvelous, 'S Gershwin
(1972)
*Ed Sullivan's Broadway
(1973)
*The Muppet Show (1976)
*Match Game PM (1976), (1978)
*A Salute to American Imagination
(1978)
*A Special Sesame Street Christmas (1978)
*Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July
(1979) (voice)
*Night of 100 Stars'' (
1982)
*
List of notable brain tumor patientsI Got Rhythm: The Ethel Merman Story by Bob Thomas, 1985.
In Mel Brooks' hit musical, 'The Producers,' the character of Hitler in 'Springtime for Hitler' refers to himself as the 'German Ethel Merman.'
* http://www.musicals101.com/mermbio.htm
*
Ethel Merman at
TV.com*
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