Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman (19 page)

Throughout her life, Merman and Jewishness had a conflicted, contradictory relationship; "Jewish jokes" may have been a staple in her repertoire
of off-color jokes. Merman was a product of an era that used ethnic, regional,
and national orientation as the butt of gags that ranged from immigrant and
"country rube" jokes to blackface, with white (and occasionally Jewish and
other white ethnic) entertainers performing in guises, in part to "Americanize" their diverse audiences. American culture put up few obstacles for Anglos who did this kind of humor in the 193os and'40s, but Merman's uneasy
relationship with Jewishness endured decades after the culture had changed
and these jokes had become passe.

Movies with Eddie Cantor

One of Hollywood's imports from New York in the 1930s was Eddie Cantor
(1892-1966), the enormously talented Jewish singer and comic personality
known as Banjo Eyes. Like other future Merman costars such as the Ritz
Brothers, Cantor came from New York's immigrant lower East Side, and like them he was schooled in physical humor and bad puns. But Cantor enjoyed
wider crossover success in film than these other costars did (as well as on Sunday evenings, on radio's Chase and Sanborn Hour). His yearly films, contracted with Sam Goldwyn, were big-budget, highly anticipated affairs.
Ethel starred in two of them. The first, Kid Millions (1934, initial title: Treasure Hunt), featured Cantor as an orphan who inherits twenty-seven million
dollars from a fortune his father discovered in Egypt. Other parties quickly
plot to contest the claim; Ethel's character, Dot, is paired with a thug who
plans to "knock off" Eddie; Dot must pretend to be his long-lost mother.
(Cantor was Merman's senior by more than fifteen years. In a wise comic decision, the film did nothing to make her appear old enough to pass.)

Its gags trade on the worst of puns: "Okay, toots!" he tells a girl who then
pulls a chain on a boat to make it toot. "Show him you're not yellow!" he says
in a roomful of people of color. The film is saturated with ethnic "color": the
African-American duo the Nicholas Brothers give an amazing performance;
Cantor performs Irving Berlin's "Mandy" in blackface and in Egyptian garb;
"sultanlike," as he says, he rides camels, sings "Let My People Go," deals with
a sheikh who's enraged with Eddie's father, who, the sheikh says, "ravaged the
heritage of my ancestors." Eddie also has to get out of marrying the sheikh's
daughter, and after his escape (with fortune intact), the film concludes with
him and Dot, back in the West, driving through a huge, fairy-tale ice cream
factory for kids in a color sequence that shows off the picture's big budget.
(Ethel's future friend Lucille Ball had a small role as one of the glamorous
"Goldwyn Girls.")

Kid Millions is pure Cantor, with hammy, ethnic comedy, "laughs
aplenty,"63 and spirited musical numbers. Merman's role was based on alreadyestablished character traits: an ethnically unspecified moll with chutzpah who
schemes but deep down is of good heart. It was a good-natured, physical, fun
image palatable for kids (it's reasonable for Ethel to ride with Cantor in the
ice cream factory) yet naughty enough to be of little interest to them (affecting her impact in Happy Landing, her film with Sonja Henie). Kid Millions
also knew to bank on the Merman voice; before it even shows her, we hear
her singing lines from "An Earful of Music," which the Hollywood Reporter
called "a peach of a song number."64

Kid Millions was written by Arthur Sheekman, Nat Perrin, and Nunnally
Johnson. In the mid-'30s, Johnson was one of three Hollywood writers able
to get solo credit on a picture. (Dudley Nichols and Robert Riskin were the
other two.) He didn't for this film, simply because he didn't finish it. "I got
a huge sum, because I was giving up a six week vacation to do it," he recalled.65 The film's songs were by various writers, including Burton Lane and Harold
Adamson; Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn wrote "Earful of Music," and
"Mandy" was the blackface classic of Irving Berlin.

Kid Millions was shown widely around New York in arrangements that
again spoke to the city's diverse population and interest in worldwide events.
In Brooklyn, it shared billing with Three Songs about Lenin, "a fine tribute to
Lenin on the 17th anniversary of the Revolution," in a curious mix of political activism and orientalist comedy.66

Merman was invited to be in Cantor's feature the following year, Strike Me
Pink, his first female costar to be asked back. She was delighted; she liked
working with Cantor and singled him out for praise in her mixed experiences
on the West Coast: "Eddie Cantor ... was swell to me. He's funny off the
screen, too."67 Her costars were comedian Harry Parke (also known as Harry
Einstein), as the character Parkyakarkus, from Cantor's radio show; his principal female sidekick was Sally Eilers, playing Claribel, the secretary to the
timid pants presser depicted by Cantor. The story follows "Eddie" when,
after taking a correspondence course in courage, he opens the Dreamland
Amusement Park (shades of Kid Millions) but runs into problems when gangsters want to install rigged gambling machines there. Merman plays Joyce, a
nightclub singer whom he falls for. Directing the picture, budgeted at one
million dollars, was Norman Taurog, who had done Ethel's short pictures; its
cinematographer was the legendary Gregg Toland (Citizen Kane). Ethel performed "Shake It Off with Rhythm," "Calabash Pipe," "First You Have Me
High, Then You Have Me Low."68

At this point, Merman was relatively untried as a movie actress, but she
impressed Samuel Goldwyn with her professionalism. She also impressed
Cantor. According to his daughter Marilyn, he knew she was a hard worker,
and he liked her reliability and lack of pretension. Ethel showed up on time,
knew her lines, and took direction well. "With Merman," says Marilyn,
"Daddy knew that he'd get a scene done in just one or two takes. Daddy liked
that." Another reason he enjoyed working with her, according to Marilyn,
was that he simply appreciated her gifts as an entertainer, and he loved being
surrounded by strong talent. For her father, Marilyn said, it "raised the bar
for everyone. And Daddy knew Merman felt the same way."69

The two loved to kid around, and Kid Millions gave them their lifelong
nicknames for each other: to Ethel, Cantor would always be "Junior"; and
she, his "Mother." Marilyn recalls going backstage with her dad at one of
Merman's later Broadway shows. Winding his way to her dressing room, he
yelled, "Mother, Mother," and Ethel was screaming back, "Junior!" Merman's role as Cantor's mom was the first in a long series of mothers, and colleagues
from Mitzi Gaynor to Jerome Robbins would address cards, telegrams, and
letters to Miss Merman as "Mom."

Marilyn Cantor and Other Fans

Of Eddie and Ida Cantor's five daughters, Marilyn was the second youngest,
born in 1924. She wasn't even a teenager when she became one of Ethel Merman's biggest fans. The first show she ever saw was Anything Goes. Merman
wowed her. Seventy years later, she recalled, "I went insane!" She immediately
called her dad in Los Angeles. "Daddy," she said, "I just saw the best singer.
You have to work with Ethel Merman, Daddy, she's the greatest there is!"
Well, Cantor said, it just so happens I'm in the room with Samuel Goldwyn.
Why don't you tell him about her? So the child gets on the phone: "Mr.
Goldwyn, you've got to get Ethel Merman to come work for you. She'll be a
hit, and you'll be sorry if you miss out." The pitch apparently worked; Goldwyn arranged for Merman to come out for a screen test, and she would appear in his next two Eddie Cantor spectacles. Marilyn said, "As I girl I felt
completely responsible for starting Ethel's film career."

One day, Marilyn skipped school in order to attend one of Merman's fourshow performances in Brooklyn, probably at the Paramount (this is where she
was too bored to sit through Marlene Dietrich), and her father found out. Furious, Cantor sent his assistant Maurice down to the theater. The moment Marilyn saw him, she knew she'd been caught. The punishment? Maurice quietly
handed her a glass of milk and a sandwich so that the truant girl didn't miss
lunch. And then they stayed for the rest of the show. Marilyn saw every one of
Merman's shows after that. "I tried to watch Annie Get Your Gun once every
week in 1946. 1 saw her in everything after that, including the 1966 revival."

Marilyn saved everything she could on Ethel, neatly and chronologically arranging ticket stubs, photos, and news items in her scrapbook. Small wonder
that she got along well with Edward Zimmermann, since he was essentially
doing the same thing. Her memories of him are warm, but of Ethel, she says
their encounters were mixed. "She was kind to me when I was little and when
she was working with Dad," she says. The most exciting moment was when
Ethel took note that Marilyn was surrounding herself with Merman souvenirs
and clippings and said, "Looks like you're the Ethel Merman fan club!" and
from then on forwarded some of her fan mail to Marilyn. Marilyn then became president of the Ethel Merman Fan Club and enrolled the fans who wrote letters to Ethel. ("They were mostly girls like me, from different states.")
Her most successful accomplishment as president involved a write-in radio
contest, sponsored to determine the audience's favorite singer at the time.
Marilyn recalls that Ethel's name was up against bigger, more established
singers. Pressing the fan club into action, she persuaded everyone to vote: "We
made Merman a winner! She wasn't the best known of the group, but we all
voted. Oh, I was so surprised to find out that those contests were real!"

The famous daughter's fascination with the rising star made good press.
One article reported that Eddie Cantor's daughter Marilyn was such an Ethel
Merman fan that she refused to go to school in Los Angeles until her father,
who was preparing a trip to New York, took her along so she could see Red,
HotandBluej70 (Not true, says Marilyn, although it reminded her of the day
she skipped school.) Another of Pop's scrapbook clippings mentions an anniversary party that Eddie and Ida threw, where Marilyn impersonated Merman; it notes that the young girl "knew all her songs, her motions, how she
breathed." Mouthing the lyrics along with a record on a hidden phonograph,
the early karaoke star was a hit.

Marilyn wasn't the only dedicated girl fan. One whose enthusiasm rivaled
hers was Esther Hader of Brooklyn. Esther kept a handmade Ethel Merman
scrapbook that included autographed pictures of Ethel (including one in
color), pictures of Ethel from magazines and newspapers, and memorabilia,
from Anything Goes to Ethel's 1938 motion pictures with Fox. Sometimes she
cut out only the pictures of Merman, sometimes just her heads. She kept tickets to shows, programs, and notes from Ethel herself. There is the Christmas
telegram Ethel sent one year; Esther also saved a ticket to a CBS radio show
captioned, "Ethel sent it." 71 Esther's devotion shows the obsessive, sweet passion of young fans. But Merman's responsiveness and care are just as touching; how many stars send special Christmas telegrams to ordinary fans?

Other fans sent Ethel published reviews of her shows that they hand typed
for pages and pages, sometimes making corrections to typos or, better, making changes to offer their own judgment calls. And not all of the young star's
fans were girls. Carl Fleming Jr. of Brookline, Massachusetts, wrote a poem
with each line beginning with the letters from Ethel's vertically spelled-out
name; he sent her "A scrapbook made especially for you [with `Ethel Metman' written in a stunning imitation of her own autograph] in appreciation
of the lovely photography you sent to me."

The press took note of Ethel's prodigious fan base among grown-ups. In January 1943, New York columnist Burton Rascoe approached people he didn't
know to ask, "Do you like Ethel Merman, and if so why?" "My findings were positive but various. Among males between the ages of 17 and 30 ... they are
hog-wild about her; however, from 30-110 years of age the male gender is
mostly nearly nuts about her." Women from seventeen to thirty, he said, were
9o percent for her and io percent "dead set" against her. Women between thirty
and forty (Merman's own age) were 70 percent for and 3o against. When asked
why they liked her, he reports, most men said, "She is the only woman I know
who can sing without having a voice."

Other responses: "She is funny looking-certainly not a pretty girl-but
she makes all pretty girls of the stuck-up kind look like dehydrated potatoes."
"She is natural ... nothing fazes her.... I bet she could spot a phony on
sight and never have any hesitancy about telling him off." "She's like EvaTan-
guay was in the old days. There is a natural, uninhibited lustiness about her,
something healthy in her brazen sureness of herself." Rascoe speculates, "The
reason men like Ethel is that she is the exact opposite of their sisters.... You
feel that she's the sort of girl you could pal around with and she'd never get
you wrong." 72

Ethel may have had different attractions for different fans, but most appreciations can be summed up thus: Ethel Merman had a lusty, honest-togoodness love for life. Her ability to divert and entertain endeared her to the
"tired executive," that archetypal theatergoer who takes in a show after a
hard day at the office. In the mid-'3os, one columnist wrote, "Ethel is the
idol of the Tired Business Man in all his phases, including Park Ave. execs
and Washington Senators and financial big-shots. Many a disgruntled wife,
following her husband down the aisle of the Alvin Theatre, where Red, Hot
and Blue! is the current Merman Magnet, murmurs: `What's she got, anyway ... Y "73

It's hard to imagine Merman actually pitting men against women, but such
is the work of the press. In a piece called "Why Men Adore Ethel Merman," in
Romantic Stories (its readership pitched mainly to women and girls), we read:

Ethel herself doesn't take her torch songs seriously. For that matter, her impish, mirth-provoking grin sets her down as one unhandicapped by too serious
an outlook on life in general. "They're gag songs-all gags," she chuckles.
"They haven't a thing to do with real life." But when she sings, try to convince
a man in her audience that she doesn't mean it, that her passionate overflow
of love isn't secretly intended for him alone! It's what they have wanted to hear
all their lives, a fundamental need of the male ego unsatisfied until Ethel Merman came along. No wonder they call her the First Lady of the Torch. No one
can dispute her right to the title, unless it be the Statue of Liberty.74