Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman (15 page)

Others found New York embodied in Ethel Merman. After their work together in the 1950s, Mitzi Gaynor said, "Ethel Merman is New Yorkers'
dream of what a woman should be: brassy, proud, with a wonderful sense of
humor and survival."2 That New Yorkification was already at work in the
early 1930S when the press wrote, "More than being a vibrant person, she is
the embodiment of the whole of Broadway, Show Biz, and Tin-Pan Alley...
Present-day America has long since taken her to its heart. She is the epitome
of its sense of rhythm and the perfect expression of its high spirits and its energy. Her blood stream is a combination of plasma and mazda. Everything
Miss Merman touches leaps into life. Every line she reads, every song she
sings, is as illuminated as the most dazzling ofTimes Square's electric signs."3
And "Ethel Merman's pronunciation of Show-Business English brands her
unmistakably as a native of parts not far from Times Square.`

It was, in fact, usually the voice that secured the connection with the city:
John Chapman wrote, "As an interpeter [sic] of Gershwin, Porter and the
others she has been, with her physical style and her absolutely sure delivery,
,the to.' Hers is not a beautiful voice, nor a haunting one; it has no more subtlety than Bob Feller's fireball-but Miss Merman can put it right smack over
every time. Her enuciation [sic] has not the softness of a stylish accent, but
is what it always was-plain Queens County, Long Island; yet it is perfect."5
For Wolcott Gibbs, her voice "is simply the pleasant speech of Astoria, the
L. I. accent somewhat overlaid with grace notes she has picked up in the wider world."6 (Significantly, Merman never covered her accent in speech,
even when working in Hollywood, where region-neutral voices were preferred.) But it was New York Times critic Bosley Crowther who produced one
of the most famous New Yorkifications: "She has a lusty voice which can hold
onto and play around with a note as long as the Chase National Bank." 7

Ethel in Los Angeles

Late in December 1933, Ethel and her mother took a train from Manhattan
to Los Angeles, where Ethel was going to work on another picture for Paramount Studios. After finding an apartment, Ethel and Agnes spent their first
Christmas apart from Pop, who was still in New York. The move had gone
smoothly, although a couple of weeks after arriving, a flood damaged some
of their items in storage. "Much to the disgust of Ethel Merman ... her
wardrobe trunks, valued at $300, are a total loss, she learned from the insurance company today. It seems that during the New Year flood her all-metal
trunks, stored in the basement of her apartment house, `floated' out into the
basement garage and were crushed between the cars of Mae West and George
Raft [neighbors in the building]. The insurance company, when asked to take
care of the damage, said it was `sorry."'8

Ethel had moved to LA to shoot Cruise to Nowhere, a shipwreck comedy
eventually retitled We're Not Dressing. Based on J. M. Barrie's The Admirable
Crichton, the story starts aboard a luxury yacht owned by heiress Doris Worthington (Carole Lombard). Stephen Jones (Bing Crosby) is a sailor who has
caught the heiress's eye, just as she's caught the eye of two faux "princes," gold
diggers played by Jay Henry and a young Ray Milland. Stephen keeps his distance, tending to his duties (one is taking care of Droopy, the heiress's pet
bear, who responds well to his crooning), and is soon fired for his inattentions
and "impertinence." Doris's uncle Hubert (Leon Errol, in a part intended for
W. C. Fields) spends most of his time drinking and is the generationally mismatched romantic partner of Doris's friend Edith (Merman). Once at sea,
the charts fly out the window, and Uncle Hubert takes the helm, promptly
running the ship into a reef. In various twosomes, the crew pours into lifeboats
or facsimiles thereof-a bicycle mounted on two planks, for the comic relief
team of Edith and Hubert. Stephen, who has given his life vest to an unconscious Doris, floats on a barrel with Droopy, who swims them to shore.

Predictably, they have landed on an isolated jungle island, and Stephen is
the only group member with survival skills to cook and build shelter, so the others are forced to help him (as Doris pouts on the sidelines). Elsewhere on
the island are lions and other animals, which Droopy has now joined, as well
as two naturalists, played by Gracie Allen and George Burns, who are pursuing some harebrained research. They learn of the crew's fate through a
radio, one of Gracie's many contraptions that she places all over the island.
When Doris realizes that their rescue is assured, she befriends Gracie and
George and borrows some clothes and building supplies from them, which
she then arranges to float to the crew's area of the island in an attempt to
catch Stephen's eye. She and Stephen talk, discussing The Admiral Crichton,
the story on which Dressing is based, and its romance between a sailor and a
spoiled "little prig"-and Stephen finally admits his love for Doris. When he
learns of the ruse she set up with the help of the naturalists, however, he
quickly retracts his admission. Feeling ridiculed and angry, he chains Doris
up in Droopy's irons but tells her he will refrain from other, presumably violent punishment in a scene that is a little creepy. Finally, as the various couples are rescued from the island, Doris pleads her case to the sailor, assuring
him that her love is true. Elsewhere, Edith has to reassure Hubert that she is
interested in him and him only, and the picture concludes with Bing singing
his love to Droopy's owner.

The comedy reunited Ethel with director Norman Taurog, whom columnist Sidney Skolsky described as "a blimp-like person who issues orders
kindly. "9 Top billing went to Crosby, whom Paramount promoted as "singing
more songs in one movie than ever before!" and to Carole Lombard. Ethel's
second-string credit comes after Burns and Allen's but before Leon Errol's.
Throughout the movie, she is set off visually from Lombard, wearing her very
dark hair in a short bob in contrast to Lombard's loose, platinum hair.
Ethel/Edith is clad in dark-colored clothes, whereas Carole/Doris wears pale
satin. Lombard's character is an uptight, spoiled heiress, whereas Merman's,
although wealthy, is "of the people," first shown playing cards with the ship's
group as Lombard gazes dreamily off the deck.

The movie is Crosby's all the way. He dominates most every scene as the
young, dreamy, principled sailor; he is shot with a soft, romantic look, wearing eye shadow that gives him the allure popular with leading men of the late
19zos. The real Crosby, however, was somewhat less dreamy. On more than
one occasion, studio gofers had to hunt him down when he didn't show up,
finding him eating out or, more often, playing at local golf courses.

Songs were written by Harry Revel and Mack Gordon, and Crosby sings
more than seven of them, several, such as "May I?" and "Love Thy Neighbor," more than once. (Droopy the bear can only be tamed when he croons "Goodnight, Lovely Little Lady.") Ethel has two numbers, "It's Just a New
Spanish Custom" and "Let's Be Domestic," and a quick phrase of a third,
"It's the Animal in Me." To promote her, Paramount told the press, "Special
guards were placed at the doors of the `We're not Dressing' sound stage at
Paramount when Ethel Merman, singing actress, recorded her new songs in
the picture" to deter rival "spies."10 Other reports state that Merman was
mobbed by visitors, and once again, "special guards were called to clear the
set ... Hollywood rarely gets excited about performers [anymore]!"

"It's Just a New Spanish Custom" is heard at the beginning of the picture.
It is sung for humor, after Edith imbibes part of Uncle Hubert's potent bartending concoctions. When Hubert joins her in dance, goofy sound effects
(kazoolike whistles, etc.) accompany them as one kicks the other in the derriere or when the couple makes a dramatic tangolike turn. It's hardly an "ethnic" performance like the one in Be Like Me, but "Custom," a song littered
with references to Spanish novelties, nonetheless relies on non-Anglo cultures
for its laughs.

"Let's Be Domestic" is another comic number, and its humor stems from
the very undomestic setting of its background; Ethel/Edith sings it as she and
Leon Errol/Hubert dash in and out of their new, poorly constructed island
huts. In Ethel's other song, the quick refrain of "It's the Animal in Me,"
she/Edith tries to assure Errol/Hubert that he is the sole recipient of her passions. Crosby sings countless song pieces and refrains, but unlike his, "Animal" doesn't refer to any songs that Ethel has sung earlier. Why? Paramount
cut "Animal" from the film and shelved it. Extant records don't fully indicate why. Evidence indicates that censors were concerned with its lyrics' overtones; lines such as "rabbits have habits and so have I," wrote Joseph Breen,
were "vulgarly suggestive."" Producers may have felt the song would have
added too much to the picture's seventy-four minutes or perhaps that it detracted from Crosby, their main attraction. All Ethel knew was that two
weeks of recording had gone down the drain.

She may not have had been given star treatment, but Ethel's character is
handled with a dignity that motion pictures would not always give her. Her
wealthy-but-not-stuck-up character conveys elegance, humor, and humanity. There is nothing caricatured about Edith/Ethel, who is dressed in very
attractive dark gowns and evening wear throughout. Her voice, the gags,
even the pratfalls-nothing is demeaning to her. (Carole Lombard underwent just as many indignities in her role.) The only anticipation of a bawdy
comic Merman occurs when Edith and Hubert, digging for clams, try to
start a fire by rubbing some rocks together. He tells her to "hit it harder." "I was only trying to act like a lady," she responds. To which he says, "Why?
With all your talents?"

Were Not Dressing was released at the end of April 1934. Once again Paramount distributed enormous amounts of promotional material and tie-ins.
Given the title, most had to do with clothing: hats promoted by Burns and
Allen; "the Bing Crosby Shirt"; and a clothing store promotion by George
Burns, who was photographed in a barrel, urging newspaper readers, "Come
Down in a barrel, for a complete head-to-toe Spring Outfit, only $49.75 at
Wertheimers."12

Back in New York for the premiere, Ethel gave the usual round of interviews. Focusing on her singing, one of the resulting articles (titled "'Forget
Your Diaphragm!' Say Crosby and Merman, `Just Go Ahead and Sing!"')
quotes her as saying, "I went to a music teacher, but the first thing he did was
to tell me I wasn't contracting on my diaphragm, and that I probably would
never get anywhere unless I watched those breathing muscles. The minute I
did so I found I couldn't breathe naturally. That one interview was enough.
I went ahead trying to put feeling into my songs, rather than keeping tab on
my diaphragm."13 In addition to never having had singing lessons, Ethel and
Bing had another thing in common: both liked to chew gum while they sang,
a game they played during production to keep things interesting.

In general, the movie was well received. But Ethel was delighted to be back
in New York, even if she remained guarded about her criticism of life in Los
Angeles: "Hollywood is a 9 o'clock town with a marvelous climate that affords a wider variety of outdoor diversions than any place in the world."14 (In
reality, Ethel was not a big fan of the great outdoors.) But there was little time
for reflection. By fall, she would be in rehearsals for her next Broadway show,
Anything Goes.

An American Genre

Ethel's stage career took off nearly a year to the day of the stock market crash
of 1929. Although it's hard to tell from her own career trajectory, Broadway in
the 193os never recovered to reclaim the widespread cultural power it had in
the 'zos. By now, it was losing impact and influence to new, mass-transmitted
forms, such as radio and film. Indeed, Broadway suffered more than Hollywood and lost many of its talents during the Depression to the deeper pockets of the sunny West Coast: Jimmy McHugh, Roger Edens, Rouben Mamoulian, Fred Astaire, Katharine Hepburn, Eddie Cantor, Bob Hope. The number of Broadway shows opening each season was steadily dropping, especially musicals and revues-a trend that was evident as early as Girl Crazy.

The 1930s saw the musical theater undergo considerable change and development. It welcomed the opening of landmark works such as Porgy and
Bess; more generally, the decade saw a movement away from revues and
toward book musicals, those musical comedies with light story lines that enabled easy, if not fully credible, transitions from one number to the next via
thinly developed characters and situations-musicals like Girl Crazy. An even
more important change-and change for the better-involved who was
working on the Broadway musicals of the '30s. This was the period in which
Rodgers and Hart, the Gershwins, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin did some
of their best work. And people like Merman were there to sing that work for
audiences.

Thus, even if Hollywood was beginning to cast long shadows, Broadway
was into its golden age. (This was also the golden age of popular music, doubling the impact of the musicians in these overlapping worlds.) Plenty of stars
kept New York as home; along with Merman were Lunt and Fontanne, Durante, Berlin, Jerome Kern, and audiences continued to turn out for the
songs, dances, jokes, costumes, and sets that dazzled the Great White Way.
Shows extended promises of hope, potential, fairness, and success; in short,
they offered possibilities, fantasies of alternative worlds and feelings to theatergoers (and still do). Even those with serious themes, such as The Cradle
Will Rock, played out that social hope of how life might be different. (The
show's opening night was a fantasy of disenfranchised people overcoming the
odds; after composer Marc Blitzstein, producer John Houseman, and others
were locked out of their theater as the result of a storm of political censorship, they walked downtown to perform the show with a skeletal cast, a crew,
and no more music than Blitzstein's piano onstage.)