Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman (28 page)

Hattie is nervous about getting on the good side of the upscale Jerry, a
well-founded fear. Her sartorial excesses form a substantial part of the play's
laughs and are essential to the class antagonism between Hattie and Nick's
high-society family. The book's description of Hattie reads like a catty cliche
of Merman: "a good looking young woman who is not too well bred, having been educated mainly in the school of life. She is rowdy and jolly...
[Her] taste in dress is furious. She can't wear all her clothes at once, but she'd
like to ... she usually rattles from inexpensive jewelry." In a pivotal scene
in the first act, young Jerry removes the gaudy excesses of Hattie's outfit bit
by bit-ruffles, accessories, bows-simplicity being the hallmark of social
and sartorial propriety. Once Hattie is literally dressed down, the two sing
"Let's Be Buddies," a duet that secures their new bond. Leila, however,
schemes to sabotage Hattie's reputation and gets Admiral Randolph to turn
against her on a false charge, putting Hattie's engagement with Nick on ice
along with his chances for promotion. Elsewhere in the zone, several spies
are lurking, and they hide a bomb in a shack. In twists that get incrementally more outlandish, Jerry unknowingly carries the bomb to Nick, thinking it's a picnic lunch, but Hattie inadvertently averts disaster, saving Nick,
Jerry, and the entire Canal. Nick's superior, the admiral, decides Hattie is
okay and promotes Nick. Hattie has become acceptable marriage material
for all concerned.

The show was a classic piece of lowbrow fare. Not addressing the war per
se, it acknowledged the political situation by using America's interests in the
Canal as narrative pretext. (Using politics as jokes and ruses would often be
harder to pull off during the Cold War.) Still, like other musical comedies of
the time, Hattie offered rumblings of darker things to come, even in casual
references, such as when Woozy, the lusty, goofball sailor (Rags Ragland),
who, after failing to get the admiral's daughter to go out with him and the
sailors, accuses her of being on a communist list.

The role of Hattie was no stretch for Ethel; that was a done deal. But who
was going to play Jerry, the daughter? Over the summer, entertainment journalists speculated: "Musical Comedy Is Written to Feature Shirley Temple." 10
Given Temple's star power of the period, it's unlikely that producers weren't
hoping to land the curly-haired superstar. But it's equally unlikely the show
would have gone forward as a Merman vehicle had Miss Temple taken the
part. True, Ethel liked surrounding herselfwith professionals and was not the
jealous monster many make her out to be. At the same time, she scarcely relished playing second fiddle to anyone on the boards, especially not an adorable
child. In Hollywood, she was willing to put up with it as she tried to establish
a career there, but on her home turf, where she'd worked hard for top billing,
she was not going to be upstaged by Little Miss Temple. (A staged publicity
photograph of the two gives a glimpse of how Ethel might really have felt about
the child star.)

Temple's people were quick to squelch rumors that the motion picture
princess would appear in the show; speculation then fell to the young Jane
Withers, with Joan Carroll eventually landing the part. Like Miss Withers,
Carroll had been in a number of second-tier films that were cashing in on the
popularity of Temple, and she complained to the press how tired she was of
always being compared with her. During Hattie, she and Ethel got along famously: Ethel gave Joan a watch and kept the childish drawing of herself that
Joan sent with her thank-you note.

The show also featured Arthur Treacher, who had had a small part in the
film of Anything Goes. Treacher was known for playing English butlers and
played that role here as well; Betty Hutton, who had stayed in DuBarry until
summer, was also featured. DeSylva cast Jimmy Dunn, a friend of his (and,
as it happened, known for playing Shirley Temple's father in the pictures)
as Nick Bullet, in a decision that set the pattern of many shows to come:
Merman's leading man could not be too charismatic or too big a star. Dunn
was selected for being able to portray a regular, pleasant, guy, which guaranteed that the audience's attention would go to Merman-as if it wouldn't
to begin with. At the same time, that kind of casting made it hard for a credible relationship between real equals to form, something that would affect
the way people responded to Ethel as a public icon and, privately, as a
woman.

Hattie's script and staging offered a sparkling showcase for Merman's
talents. As usual, her entrance was carefully crafted: sailors in the crowd
yell up into Hattie's house, pleading with her to sing, so all that audiences
first get of her is her distinctive voice. The show is stuffed with smart Merman-friendly retorts: when a character announces, "Four guys here to
see you!" Hattie responds, "Only four? I must be slipping!" Sexual jokes and
double entendres abounded from other characters as well: a woman flirting
with a reluctant Treacher plans out their married life together, and when she
announces she wants "ten or twenty children," he sighs, "Oh, the fertility
of it all."

DeSylva had first approached Cole Porter about doing a new Merman
show in which, he said, she would play a character based on "Katie Went to
Haiti," one of his songs from DuBarry. Porter suggested that DeSylva set the
new piece in Panama or Cuba instead, since, he said, few white people lived
in Haiti. (Americans were likely to be more familiar with the Panama Canal,
too.) Either way, the locale gave Porter the chance to borrow from Caribbean, Latin, and North African influences, which often marked his work. Those
influences are there from the start in an opening number that also showcases
Porter's trademark racy lyrics:

A New Haven preview of a Cole Porter vehicle was always a special occasion, since he was an alumnus of Yale there. But any out-of-town tryout
of an Ethel Merman show was an event in itself, since it gave out-of-town
theatergoers not just a sneak preview of the newest show of Broadway's
reigning star but one that she would not be taking on the road after its run.
And so Hattie opened there on October 3 to a completely sold-out house.
Reviews were positive, and basically there was no stopping Panama Hattie
from becoming a hit. This was the case even in Boston, the next preview
town, and the October 7 preview at the Shubert Theatre had to be delayed
twenty-four hours to give the crew time to pack and set up the heavy treadmills used in the show. (Jerry walks on them while carrying her father's
lunch/bomb to give the impression of much distance being covered.) At an
astronomical twelve thousand dollars to build and twenty-five hundred
to install, the treadmills cost the company five hundred dollars per week to
operate. 11

At the Boston Shubert, tickets had gone on sale two days earlier than
usual, and mail orders on the first day broke records, exceeding five thousand
dollars.12 To accommodate the demand, Panama Hattie ended up staying
there a week longer than scheduled, closing on the 26th. Audiences and
(most) critics loved it and truly loved the woman who led it: for the last few
years, began one, Ethel Merman had been proving herself "something more
than a blues singer"; now she was a "great comedienne" who "mows them
down," words that would have been reserved strictly for her voice earlier.13
Other critics in Boston complained that Ethel was being worked too hard to
carry the show, that there was insufficient support from the cast, that the talents of Arthur Treacher weren't being exploited, et cetera. (This complaint
could and did accompany most every Merman musical, since she did carry
entire shows on her shoulders.) A few Boston critics, like their New Haven
counterparts before them, were irritated by the show's DuBarry-esque crudeness, finding it inappropriate in a show that had the "dignity ofTreacher" or
Joan Carroll's "innocence."

A Broadway myth is that Boston openings bring good luck to shows. Another one is: don't open in New York with too strong an advance showing; it
will draw out the vultures. Hattie was pushing both superstitions to the limits: it had received Boston's blessing, had good advances, but still no vultures.
It received another blessing two days before the Broadway opening, when
Time magazine put Ethel Merman on its cover.

When Hattie opened in New York that Wednesday, October 30, 1940,
Ethel got telegrams of best wishes from Ida and Eddie Cantor ("Marilyn inherits her liking for you from us"); Al Jolson, Helen Hayes, Bob Hope, Marie
DeSylva, John Ford, Joe E. Lewis, Joan Crawford ("Ethel dear-I hope it's
all you dream"), William Gaxton, and Victor Moore (who sent three, signing them "Padre," referring to his Anything Goes role). A happy DeSylva
wrote, "I'm glad I'm the first producer to star you alone. I think you deserve
it. Love, Buddy."14 New York reviews were positive, with much less griping
about the show's vulgarity; some, in fact, applauded the show's ability to
combine children and a sentimental streak with bawdy burlesque-Gypsy,
anyone? Merman was the perfect "hussy without a smirk" and exuded rowdy
innocence. Said Brooks Atkinson, "No one else could do it with so much
forthright vigor and at the same time keep it sanitary. For Miss Merman is
an honest ballad singer who plays no tricks on the customers and does not
truckle for guffaws. She can make a song seem like a spontaneous expression
of her personality, which may be regarded as the ultimate skill in the art of
singing songs. Only Ethel Waters is Miss Merman's equal in this respect."15

As usual, critics enjoyed finding words to do justice to the Merman voice and
her daunting presence: "She has that thing in her voice that enables her to
build a fire under any song she sings."16 "Miss Merman ... blows through
the script like a cyclone.... Broadway, not Park Avenue, finds its voice in her,
and every one listens to her enraptured."17

At the time Panama Hattie was running, Broadway audiences could also
take in Romeo and julietwith Olivier and Vivien Leigh, Lady in the Dark, and
Pal Joey. But Atkinson was right to note that, along with Ethel in Hattie, the
other hot ticket in town was Ethel Waters as Petunia in Cabin in the Sky, the
all-black musical. Between them, these two all-American Ethels had Broadway in the palm of their hands.

Hattie's songs include Porter classics such as "My Mother Would Love
You," "I've Still Got My Health," and "Make It Another Old Fashioned,
Please." The Moroccan influence is evident in this last, bluesy number, its beguine tempo reminiscent of "Begin the Beguine." What audiences ate up
night after night was once again a duet, one that Hattie shares with young
Jerry, "Let's Be Buddies," a charming, sentimental ballad that is suggestive of
a lullaby." It was a softer Merman voice and image at work here, something
Irving Berlin would develop in his score for Annie Get Your Gun. Critics were
unanimous in their enthusiasm for both the song and its two singers. Louis
Kronenberger praised the "remarkable eight-year-old named Joan Carroll,"
adding, "Probably that's the only age a girl could be to make any headway in
the same show as Ethel Merman."19 "Buddies" would remain a lifelong favorite of many Merman fans, especially those who appreciate Ethel's abilities
with ballads and quieter songs. Today, her granddaughter Barbara Geary
counts it among her favorites.

The Hattie-Jerry relationship was pivotal to Hattie's appeal, and emotionally it outstripped Hattie's relationship with the leading man by a long
shot. As Boston critics noted, Jerry's young character helped turn an otherwise risque play into family-friendly fare, widening its potential appeal; it
never hurt a show to lure more families into matinees. In times of war, the
innocence and promise children represent become treasured symbolic goods,
used as powerful ideological weapons and, if the timing is right, a way to pull
in strong profits. Hollywood was reaping a fortune off Temple, Elizabeth
Taylor, Mickey Rooney, and Judy Garland; even Lassie, the family dog, had
her own feature film. Yet child labor laws presented production obstacles, especially in New York. Recalls Porter, "I wrote [Hattie] in a rhythm that can
be walked to, in order to compensate for Joan having been prevented by law
from dancing, and with a patter in between so that Joan could recite instead of courting jail by singing."20 (In a few years, Equity actors would rally to
have child labor laws relaxed.)

Ethel was now in her midthirties, and, while hardly unusual for a woman
that age to be cast as a mother or maternal figure, her case proved curious.
"Now we have the lusty and likable Ethel Merman ... with a throat bursting with romantic and comical songs and a heart bursting with motherly
love."21 Critics note the "instinct of motherhood" Ethel had begun to exhibit
in current roles over previous ones,22 an emphasis that made Ethel's stage
image more domestic, but ironically it also conspired to keep her from being
fully adult, at least at this moment in her career. Ten years down the road
would produce a mature "maternal" side to Merman's public persona, but for
now, Ethel/Hattie was as much mothered by the young girl as she was mother
to her. It is the socially precocious Jerry, after all, who teaches working-class
Hattie how to "tone down" her appearance and adopt proper dress and social behavior.23 (Ethel's character would undergo similar domestication in
Annie Get Your Gun.) Not romantic, not adult, and with a frankness about
sex, Ethel's image had something perennially childlike about it, something
that would shape perceptions of her offstage, whether the facts were there to
substantiate them or not.