Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman (32 page)

Reports indicate that Levitt wrote articles under a pseudonym for Cosmopolitan, something his son believes but cannot corroborate. Ethel was less
bookish, and when she told Pete Martin, "I tried to read a book once, but I
fell asleep," 2 she was only half joking. "She never read a book," Levitt Sr. told
an interviewer. "But I read the books, and she'd take my word for it."3 Despite his more intellectual proclivities, Levitt shared Merman's well-honed
radar for b.s. and her disrespect for forced, haughty airs and misplaced authority. At the same time, they both respected institutions and authority they
found legitimate, such as political leadership, the army, et cetera. And both
had a great sense of humor and a special appreciation of impish, "naughty"
jokes. While courting, Bob penned Ethel a number of X-rated limericks
("love letters," as she called them in her memoirs) that pleased her enormously. One that their son recalls-searching for an example that would not
melt the page-was "The punk between your toes tastes fine l Won't you be
my valentine?"4

And so Ethel and Levitt began their affair. "The more I saw of Bob the better I liked him. He wasn't just handsome and broad-shouldered. He was a
darling guy with a wonderful sense of humor. His lack of interest in the theater didn't arise from the fact that he was unintelligent.... He just didn't
care for actors." The journalist had never seen an Ethel Merman show: "Musical comedies bored the hell out of him and always made him sleepy," she
wrote.5 When Levitt and a pal went to see Ethel in Panama Hattie, they
couldn't stay awake, their slumber having been facilitated by drink beforehand.

The first reference to Levitt in Ethel's scrapbooks is a September z6, 1941,
published photo of the couple one evening after Hattie at La Martinique. The
press describes him as "her constant companion these midnights," and in early
reports like this, the poor man's name appears variously as Levitt, Leavett, Levabitt, and Lovett. 6 They were very much enjoying their time together, but
there was a problem. Technically, Levitt told Pete Martin, "Ethel was married,
and I was married-a marriage that I just never bothered doing anything
about, and finally I had to get an annulment." William Smith was in the process of getting a divorce in California, but, as Levitt noted, "that takes a hell
of a while. A year for an interlocutory.... I think he got it but there was a year gap." They ended up getting a Mexican divorce, but the divorce and Levitt
and Merman's marriage were "all screwed up as to the dates." 7

Fourteen years later, when Ethel's first autobiography was serialized in a
magazine weekly, she offered a vague marriage date: October 1940, in Connecticut. Ethel kept the exact date (which was later) under wraps, not just
because of the complicated divorce proceedings on both sides, but also because she was pregnant. Her baby would be born in July 1941, less than nine
months after she and Levitt signed the papers, and she didn't want nosy
journalists doing the math. After the wedding, Danton Walker and other
columnists obligingly reported that Ethel's child was due in August. (Always
one to push it, Winchell wrote, "sometime in July.") That spring, in 1941,
Dorothy Fields threw a baby shower for Ethel, inviting Broadway gal pals
such as Madeline Gaxton, Dorothy Kilgallen, Eleanor Holm, and Sylvia
Fine.8

Little Bit

It was a girl. Following her mom Agnes's tradition, Ethel gave her daughter
her first name, but for a first, not a middle, name. Little Ethel Merman Levitt
was born on 5:32, p.m., July 20, 1941, in a difficult Cesarean birth. Her birth
certificate lists her father as age thirty-two; occupation, "Captain, U.S.
Army" (Levitt had signed up in May). Mother, "Ethel Agnes Merman," was
thirty-one. Ethel seldom used "Merman" in her personal life, and, like many
women of the time preferred being identified by her married name, Mrs.
Robert Levitt. (Or, when making a point like "I haven't changed" to the
press, she would say, "I'm just Ethel Agnes Zimmermann.") More surprising
than the "Merman" on the certificate is that the mother's occupation is listed
simply as "Housewife, at home," evidence, perhaps, of Ethel's desire to take
part in a typical marriage and family life. And once Little Ethel was born, all
of Merman's close professional acquaintances, from Cole Porter to Dorothy
Fields, remarked on what a proud mom she was. And she was. She happily
shared Ethel Jr.'s birth date with the press, although, as the Levitt interview
suggests, that meant keeping the date of her marriage shrouded.

All that appears by way of announcement of this personal event in the
scrapbooks is a brief reference from the Washington Herald, which announced
on July 25 that Ethel Merman had a daughter, Ethel "Jr." Little Ethel was
christened in October at St. Thomas Church in New York, with Eleanor
Holm present as godmother and William Gaxton as godfather. At home, the baby was quickly dubbed "Little Bit," because Levitt, "who had never been
around a new baby, thought she was so small,"9 and the name also made her
a bit off the old block. Little Ethel had her mom's wavy brown hair, soft pale
skin, and beautiful brown eyes; as she grew up, remembers Tony Cointreau,
"she looked just like her mother."

Big Ethel's first public appearance after giving birth was at an Army Emergency Relief show at Madison Square Garden, September 30, 1941. It was a
long evening; a six-and-a-half-hour, sold-out extravaganza called "We're All
in It Show," named after a song written by serviceman Kurt Kasner. A photo
was taken of Ethel rehearsing with him: Kasner is in military uniform, and
Ethel is wearing a frock dress with a girlish bow atop her head. Later, she
would (understandably) complain about the horrible outfits pregnant
women and new mothers had to wear back when maternity fashions often
infantilized the mother as if she were the one being brought into the world.

All performers who become mothers have to endure predictable lines
about now performing "her favorite or most challenging role yet!" and Ethel
Merman was no exception.10 In March 1942, the press announced that Ethel
was "playing housewife since her memorable portrayal of Panama Hattie."11
"Ethel Merman Scores as Always in New York ... But Likes Most of All to
Talk of Her Best Production-a Baby."12 This last piece, from December
1942, is the first scrapbook item in which Ethel talks extensively about her
daughter, showing a rather successful degree of keeping the press at bay.

When he and Ethel married, Bob Levitt was making about two hundred
dollars a week, high pay for a journalist but peanuts to a Broadway star.13 At
home, he said, "She'd pay everything and I'd get an accounting and split it
in half, when I could afford it. When I couldn't I'd give her all my money,
less what I needed.... We had a cook, an upstairs maid, a downstairs
maid.... I don't mean to imply that she was by any means profligate, but
we did live on a scale that was excessive, for me."14 The lifestyle was bumpy
not only for Levitt. Ethel's relationship with domestic help was not smooth.
Dorothy Fields thought that Ethel gave her maids and governesses too little
to do, or kept them on too short a leash, or both. "She would out-talk the
governess, or she would take the authority away from the governess, and
barge in and do it herself, which is not good for the kids because they have
an insecurity-they don't know where to go and who's the boss." 15

In the early 1940s, the press continued to spike reports on Ethel's professional activities with details from her family life, some of them quite intimate.
When Ethel left Hattie on January 3, 1942, for instance, Louella Parsons said
it was because she was pregnant. When she left For the Boys on February 12, 1944, she actually was. Two months later: "Tragedy has changed Ethel Merman's nursery plans."" Wrote her pal Dorothy Kilgallen: "Ethel Merman is
in a local hospital. The Stork cancelled its scheduled visit." 17

Ethel's contract for For the Boys stipulated that after the New York run, she
had to perform two weeks in Philadelphia. Ethel extended it to five, reportedly
as a favor to Todd. Medical problems ranging from the miscarriage to the bout
with laryngitis had kept Ethel from her usual "miss no show" record, and at one
point Todd wrote urging her to stay home rather than jeopardize her health.
Reports are mixed on how well he and Ethel actually got along, and she might
have given him the "favor" of extending the Philadelphia run simply because
he never docked her for performances missed in New York. When Ethel finally
left the show, she was replaced by another brassy woman with moxie, Joan
Blondell-Todd's wife at the time.

Reports soon circulated that Billy Rose was courting Ethel for his "Seven
Lively Arts" revue, with music by Stravinsky (who would prove a devoted fan
of Merman). But Danton Walker announced that she was going to take the role
"to take her mind off her domestic differences."" Although Walker was wrong
on the first point (Ethel never took the show), he was right on the latter. The
Merman-Levitt marriage was already in trouble, and by June 1944, Ed Sullivan
reported that Levitt and Merman were experimenting with a "very friendly"
separation, language that Ethel probably fed him.19 Gossipers said they were
spotting Levitt alone, drinking. Ethel, for her part, avoided the nightclubs.

Sadie Thompson

Ethel was now pondering an upcoming role in a musical version of Somerset Maugham's classic story "Rain," about a hypocritical preacher trying to
convert an exiled prostitute. The story had been done twice before on Broadway, in 1922 with Jeanne Eagles and in 1935 with Tallulah Bankhead; Gloria
Swanson and Joan Crawford had starred in film versions. It was a role familiar to many. Should she do it? In June 1944, producer A. P. Waxman sent
Ethel a personal note along with the script, buttering her up, writing that no
less an authority than Moss Hart had proclaimed about her, "That girl really
is a great actress!" and that Ethel Merman would be "perfect casting."20
Columnists openly speculated about the show and the challenge of making
a lighthearted musical out of such a tragic story. Ethel took it on.

And so on September i8, 1944, Ethel began rehearsals for Sadie Thompson.
The book and lyrics were by Howard Dietz and music by Vernon Duke. Rouben Mamoulian directed (and helped with the book), and Edward
Caton choreographed. Rehearsals did not go smoothly. As Ethel tells it, she
was asked to sing a song with a reference to "Mal Maison," and she asked
Dietz to explain it. A kind of lipstick, he answered. Ethel had never heard of
it, and, after polling some of her girlfriends, returned with the news that no
one else had either, telling him, "Either that line goes or I do." Dietz
wouldn't budge, and by the end of the month, after only five rehearsals, Merman withdrew from the show. (According to musical historian Gerald Bordman, Ethel demanded that they hire her estranged husband, Levitt, to repair
the lyrics, but that is unlikely.)21 Nor is it likely that a tube of lipstick broke
the deal, especially in light of all the Cole Porter songs Ethel performed with
references to all sorts of things most Americans-Merman probably among
them-might not know. Given her good instincts about material, Ethel most
likely didn't fight to stay on because she knew the show wasn't going to work.
The story of Sadie Thompson was familiar, true, but so was its shock value.
The music was an even bigger issue. "She feels she's a very good judge of a
song," said a colleague at zoth Century-Fox. "She's not apt to pick a song
that won't go over. "22 Recalled close friend Roger Edens, "After she did Red,
Hot and Blue! [and] Stars in Your Eyes, she had this wonderful Sadie Thompson [show, but] the songs were wrong for her. When she said it was wrong,
there was no possibility; she was so right."23 Sadie Thompson would be the
only show Ethel backed out of, and her lipstick defense has become a standard in her hall of legends. Later, Ethel maintained that the role of Sadie belonged to earlier dramatic heavyweights Gloria Swanson and Joan Crawford
and that she didn't want to infringe on their territory.

We'll never know what Merman as Sadie Thompson would have been like
(June Havoc took the part). Although the role seems an incongruous fit, aspects of the famous temptress lined up with the Merman persona. Who else
could expose the pretensions of hypocrites or the upper crust with such
gusto? In a way, Sadie would have been another in the series of earthy, goodhearted independent gals who had glommed onto Ethel's stage persona and
to some people's perception of her offstage. Their very names-Hattie, Blossom, Flo, Nails-helped load it on thick.

Stage Door Canteen

In 1943, Merman made another appearance on the silver screen. With producers Sol Lesser and the American Theatre Wing War Service behind them, United Artists gave director Frank Borzage "more stars than shine in the
heavens of a clear, California night ... an embarrassment of riches" to make
Stage Door Canteen.24 Proceeds were earmarked for the ATW's Stage Door
Canteen and the Hollywood Canteen. Ethel was one of over seventy stage
and screen stars who appear for a number or a quick cameo. Written by
Delmer Daves, the movie's slight story follows a young soldier, Dakota, in
New York City on a pass. He spends it with friends at the Canteen, where he
meets a young woman and takes in the stars that movie audiences on both
coasts would be happy to see: Lunt and Fontanne, Judith Anderson, Harpo
Marx, Yehudi Menuhin, Vin Freedley, Ethel Waters, Ray Bolger, Peggy Lee,
Marian Moore, Edgar Bergen, Katharine Hepburn, and the bands of Benny
Goodman, Guy Lombardo, and Count Basie. Shot in New York, Stage Door
Canteen made it easy for Broadway stars to put in their appearances without
having to take time off from their shows; Ethel recorded her number,
"Marching thru Berlin," in just one day at the Movietone Studios on West
53rd Street while she was in Something for the Boys.25 With so many big performers coming together to help the war effort, the finished product was virtually critic-proof, and its success was enough that the following year, Elmer
Fudd and Bugs Bunny sent it up in "Stage Door Cartoon," with Elmer chasing the famous rabbit into a vaudeville house.