Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman (39 page)

After the long run of Annie, Ethel was tired but did not slow down. For a year
and a half, she continued her guest spots on radio and television. Her very first
TV appearance was likely to have been on March 22, 1949, on Milton Berle's
Texaco Star Theater' She was back on radio three months later on The Ford
Radio Show with Berle. For the event, CBS president Frank Stanton sent her
a telegram welcoming her to the CBS family.' Typically Ethel, like most guest
singers on these shows, engaged in some repartee or brief comic skits with
hosts or costars before singing a few numbers. During this time, she also continued her recording career; in 195o and 1951, she and Ray Bolger went into
the Decca studios to cut duets such as "If I Knew You Were Coming, I'd Have
Baked a Cake" and "Dearie." She also recorded "If You Catch a Little Cold
I'll Sneeze for You" and other novelty songs with old friend Jimmy Durante.

World War II was over, but the Cold War was revving up, and certain offstage appearances were expected now more than ever from America's celebrities. On April 29, 1950, Merman participated in a Fifth Avenue march as the
"queen of the Loyalty Day Parade." In its third year, the march was held to
defy the "reds" on the upcoming May Day, and that year, Ethel used the occasion to pay her personal respects to William Randolph Hearst, who was
celebrating his eighty-seventh birthday. Ethel was now a full-fledged Republican, but she took part in these conservative events not out of a newly defined political allegiance but, once again, because of her belief that it was the
right thing to do.

If her own political convictions were getting stronger, however, they were
scarcely reflected in press reports. For it was the ideological leanings of their
writers that seemed more in evidence than what the stories were reporting.
As red-baiter Leonard Lyons wrote, "Ethel Merman, who will star in the
show [Call Me Madam], once appeared in a musical where a Red chorus-man said: `Comes the revolution, I'll play the lead opposite Merman.' Miss Merman told him: `If you get the talent, that'll be the revolution.' "I

In her personal life there was little turmoil. Ethel had found domestic
stability with Levitt, a sensible, strong-willed, unpretentious man, who,
however troubled by his demons, was more or less able to stand up to her
strong personality and her set ways. Most important, especially in light of
their different personalities, he was as committed to the success of their
marriage and the happiness of their children as she was. In a celebrity marriage in which he "was used to being called Mr. Merman," that was no
small thing. Although it wouldn't take long for the realities to prove harder
to manage than the image of a happy home, for now, domestic life was not
a source of emotional trouble for Ethel. Little Bit and Bob Jr. were the
apples of their mom's eye. "Ethel was always proud of whatever the kids
would do. She never-like some people who show them off-she never did
that. She's a very, very, very good mother.... she [just] doesn't have the
chance to hover over them too much," said Dorothy Fields.4

Like many kids with preoccupied, loving parents, Bobby and Ethel played
together constantly. They took refuge in their pets (fish, turtles, birds, a small
dog) and complemented their Gorilla Club with two organizations,
"E.A.U.N." and "B.A.U.N." (Ethel's Animals' United Nations and Bobby's
Animals' United Nations). When the children weren't engaged in other activities, their two UNs were often "in session." In attendance were Ethel and
Bobby's collection of toy animal delegates. (Levitt remains a passionate supporter of animal rights to this day, and Ethel remained deeply connected to
animals all of her life.) The sessions, however, would be brought to an abrupt
halt when they heard the chilling "Yoo-Hoo!" of Miss Kopeman. When the
children heard the call, no matter where they were, "We knew too well what
would happen if we didn't respond, pronto."5

Already young Ethel resembled her mother. Her face was slightly narrower
and less oval, with beautiful, soft features. She shared Big Ethel's creative and
outgoing nature, but she was a sensitive and emotionally delicate child.
Bobby, also creative, was a more suspicious type. Like his mom, he was stubborn, and like both parents, he didn't go for pretense and airs. And although
he would correct reporters interviewing Merman at home, the boy never felt
like he was able to speak his mind. "Being without any sustained nurturing
attention from my mother and father and being constantly constrained by
the emotional and physical violence of a sadistic nurse, I hardly developed the
balance and confidence a child needs to speak the truth to power," he says
today. 6 And, as photos make clear, Bobby seldom smiled. But he got along well with his sister. "Ethel and I just tried to avoid getting in trouble for doing
what kids do. It was later, when I became a young teenager, that I became the
brat brother." 7

Call Me Madam

Ethel's next hit on Broadway was Call Me Madam, written by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, with Irving Berlin again composing the songs. Merman was cast as Sally Adams, a wealthy oil widow known for her popular
parties in Washington, D.C., the "hostess with the mostes'." When the president appoints Mrs. Adams to be ambassador to the small, fairy-tale-like
country of Lichtenburg, Sally eagerly sets out to perform her civic duty in
a country she can't even locate. Before Sally departs, Kenny Gibson, fresh
out of college, talks his way into joining her as her attache. In Lichtenburg,
Sally immediately falls for the dapper prime minister, Cosmo Constantine.
Cosmo is the only member of his government not interested in the money
that others expect Mrs. Adams to give the struggling nation. But she assumes he is, and after several misunderstandings and Sally's glum return to
Washington, everything gets straightened out. In the end, two couples are
formed: Cosmo and Sally, and the younger Kenny and Lichtenburg's young
princess Maria.

Sally Adams was inspired by the real-life U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg,
Perle Mesta, who was also renowned for her great parties. (She had none of
Sally Adams's backward naivete.) Lindsay claims that he got the idea for the
show in the summer of 1948, during a vacation he and his wife, Dorothy
(Stickney), were taking in Glenwood Springs, a spot Ethel had recommended. One morning, he was reading about Mesta in Time and, when
glimpsing a sunbathing Ethel, made the connection.' Merman says that inspiration struck the moment he saw her, a bandanna'd sunbather, with a copy
of the magazine at her side that had that picture of Perle Mesta. "He'd said
to himself, `Ethel as an ambassadress' . . . [and] he suddenly yelled out the
window `Hey, I've got a wonderful idea for a show for you!' `What is it?' I
yelled back. `Perle Mesta!' he yelled. `Who's Perle Mesta?' I shouted. `Tell you
later,' he said."9

Lindsay called up Buck Crouse, and the two worked out the basics over
long-distance calls. Lining up talented, savvy producer Leland Hayward was
a good start, and Hayward persuaded NBC to underwrite the show, putting
up $zSo,ooo, all of the show's initial costs.10 Radio had never before backed a Broadway show, and the deal gave NBC first call on important, lucrative
television rights and, as the parent company of RCA, on recording rights as
well. Berlin, onboard for the music, had committed recording rights to the
RCA/Victor label prior to the brokering of the deal, and the arrangement
caused Ethel problems. (In May 1950, she had renewed her contract with
Decca for three years, and Decca would not release her for the original cast
recording of Madam, replacing her with Dinah Shore.) Not to be outdone,
Decca released its own studio cast album with Dick Haymes singing "You're
in Love" in duet with Merman in Russell Nype's place. i i

Ethel was an enterprising businesswoman and negotiated 8 percent of the
gross; she'd received to percent for Annie Get Your Gun. is On top of that, she
owned to percent of the entire property, earning royalties whenever the show
was mounted, whether she was in it or not. Hayward, Lindsay, Crouse, and
Berlin also owned shares, but it was less common at the time for stars to
maintain partial ownership, particularly if they had not been investors. And
Ethel didn't "believe in investing in shows."13

Hungarian actor Paul Lukas played the Lichtenburg envoy Cosmo, Sally's
romantic interest; Illinois-born Russell Nype, who had just played in the musical Regina, was hired as young Kenneth Gibson and brought to the role a
fresh new look of short crew cut and spectacles, which young men soon emulated. Directing was the legendary (and legendarily strict) George Abbott,
whom everyone, Ethel included, called Mr. Abbott. The team approached
Robert Alton to choreograph but, when they couldn't agree on terms, hired
wunderkind Jerome Robbins, who had been in the chorus of Stars in Your Eyes.

Rehearsals began August 14, 1950, and tryouts were scheduled in New
Haven and Boston for the following month. Advance sales sizzled: the entire
New Haven run was sold out before the show even began. Opening night
there was set back several days, to September it, because Lukas, insecure
about his singing role from the start, claimed to have throat problems. When
the show opened, audiences enjoyed Berlin's score, which included "The
Hostess with the Mostes' on the Ball," "Can You Use Any Money Today?"
and "It's a Lovely DayToday," but act two dragged and generated only a lukewarm response.

The team took to endless revisions, excising two second-act numbers. One,
"Mr. Monotony," was a tune Berlin had been trying to put into his shows for
ages. According to Lindsay and Crouse, Ethel didn't like it from the start, predicting that it wouldn't go over, and, as usual, she was right. (The second was
a tune called "Free.") But with two songs gone, the second act needed another
tune, and what Berlin produced would go on to be Madam's show-stopper. Accounts differ on exactly what happened. In her 1955 autobiography, Ethel
said that the new song Berlin wrote was performed for the first time in New
Haven, on the third night. In her second, she says it was on opening night in
Boston.14 Accounts also vary on what kind of song Berlin was instructed to
write. The act needed something upbeat, that much was sure. But who would
perform it? Some say that because Ethel was down two numbers, it had to be
for her; others claim that Berlin was directed to compose one for Russell Nype
on the basis of the enthusiastic response he was getting for "It's a Lovely Day
Today" at the end of act one. Some say that Ethel herself pushed for a song her
young colleague could perform. Cole Porter recalled that he'd heard that
Berlin was told to write a comic number but simply didn't produce one.15
Others said Berlin was instructed to write a duet so that Merman wouldn't get
peeved over a new song being given to someone else, even Nype. Whatever the
case, history was made when Irving Berlin knocked off the duet "You're Just
in Love," which Ethel's Sally Adams sings in counterpoint with Nype's character during a lovesick moment of the latter. Beautifully exploiting their different vocal talents, the duet sets Ethel's rhythmic part against Nype's melodically driven one. Her voice moves energetically with the rhythms; he croons.
We might not know what night they first performed it, but when they did,
they brought the house down. Poor Paul Lukas had trouble making his entrance in the next scene-and would for as long as he stayed in the show.

The buzz on Madam was such that a half-hour preview was planned to air
on NBC TV in September, but a series of fiascoes involving theater locations
and degrees of readiness forced them to scrap it. In the Boston tryout, the
Ritz Carleton there feted the crew with a "Call Me Madam" dinner menu
that offered Ethel as the "Baby Steak Saute" and Irving Berlin as the "Vienna
Schnitzel." Ethel's family sent a telegram in time for the show, penned in
characteristic Levitt wit: "Because you're the hostess with the mostess on the
ball and a beauty with a cutey and a five alarmer charmer and a mudder with
an udder for us all. We're not sick we're in love with you. Little Ethel. Little
Bob. Big Bob.""