Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman (45 page)

Even before she was married, Ethel was tight-lipped about her love life; "Her
Life Is Private," ran one interview,59 which seemed to ignite speculation all
the more. In 1940, a palm reader forecast Ethel's future for readers:
"DuBarry's to Marry, the Fates Indicate," predicting that Ethel was going to
be mother to three kids.60

Ethel probably tossed off various remarks about men to the press, and she
was at least partly responsible for some of the contradictions attributed to her.
She gave conflicting lines according to the different moods she was in or depending on the activities she needed to promote at the time. In the mid1950s, for instance, Ethel wrote a guest column, "Actress Dreams of Laws for
a'Perfect Husband'".

Husbands should never be allowed to overwork and talk themselves out during their business day, so they're good for nothing but a grunt of greeting and
a short goodnight when they get home.... Men [must] wear blinders at the
beach.... Husbands [should] be forced to stay at home with the kids at least
once a week ... to take their wives out on a dress up date once a week....
Husbands [should] be forced to submit to a "perfume" detector test when they
come home from "working late at the office."61

Although some of the lines attributed to Ethel on love, romance, and family
life were heartfelt beliefs, most were not, and nearly all were heavily edited or
outright inventions of writers and publicists going for an extra edge. In all, the
press did not handle the issue of Merman and marriage with any consistency,
again, unsurprising given that her celebrity depended less on her relations with
men than on the powerhouse voice.

Managing Contradictions

Whether over the span of their careers or in a particular moment, public figures always generate different responses from different groups, audiences, and
contexts. A star's image will inevitably produce a certain amount of contradiction; the question is how to manage it. Consistency on the part of the star
is imperative, something needed to fulfill a kind of contract with his or her
consuming public. For instance, it's comforting for audiences to believe that
Ethel Merman had the same tough gusto offstage as on or that Bing Crosby
was as easygoing at home as he seemed when he sang. When stars' inconsistencies or incongruous associations go too far, they risk imploding, and the
industry, press, and fans will often try to come up with ways to absorb the
contradictions or explain them away (a momentary indiscretion, an error in
casting). But there's another way for fans to manage inconsistencies, and that
is to highlight them, to turn odd juxtapositions into playful jokes. Twentyfirst-century performers such as Jeffery Roberson have done just that with
Merman; his stage name is Varla Jean Merman, a character who claims to be
the "love child" from Ethel's brief union with Ernest Borgnine in the r96os.
Often, celebrities are little more than beloved source material that fans use
for their own purposes, becoming part of a creative recycling process. This is
especially common in camp, which thrives on unexpected juxtapositions and
new contexts.

It's rare, however, for that kind of playful, inventive understanding of inconsistencies to win out, particularly in conservative periods or when entertainment industries stand to gain or lose considerable capital on their clients.
And that accurately describes the business climate in which Merman moved
at this midcareer point. As noted, the postwar period saw producers start to
move away from "risky" ventures, a trend necessitated in part by economic
constraints (it cost close to a quarter of a million dollars to mount a musical
in the early '5os) and also ideological imperatives (with officials keeping
watch for "un-American" signs in the entertainment world).

American entertainment was also changing and, as we've seen, comedy no
less so than other forms. With every show, Ethel garnered more recognition for
her comedic talents, and she had quickly joined the ranks of other "mouthy
broads" of the '3os, '4os, and early '5os. "There are quite a few female comics,
most of them very good," begins theater critic Burton Rascoe in 1943, "Ethel
Merman, ZaSu Pitts, Gracie Fields, Una Merkel, Patsy Kelly and Eve Arden
[who] get their effects by grotesquerie, contortions or horseplay. The comedienne, on the other hand, gets her effects largely by ... a sense which involves an intelligent, critical response to almost any given situation, with ... very subtle contortions of the facial muscles, in the glance and in involuntary movements of the body."62 Into the latter group Rascoe puts Fannie Brice, Beatrice
Lillie, Celeste Holm, Tallulah Bankhead, and others. The first group are
comics, not witty romantic partners, not beauties. They don't exemplify glamour or display proper behavior; instead, it's "horseplay" and unelevated gags.
The social and class connotations of Rascoe's remarks are painfully clear: unlike the "intelligent, critical ... subtle" behavior of the second, gentrified,
group of women, Ethel's comedy, according to him, anchored her in the lower
depths. For people like Rascoe, Merman would never make it out of that comic
group, despite her own razor-sharp wit and instinctive timing with zingers, on
or off the boards.

The Merman Look

Because Ethel did not have exceedingly good looks and never aspired to
WASPy glamour, reviewers were all over the place when they described her
appearance. As a singer, she was expected to be attractive, but less so than
women working in more visual media, such as movies. And because Ethel
sang in a markedly animated style, the press seemed uncommonly interested
in finding unusual features of her appearance. "Nature," wrote Gibbs in his
Life article, "obviously intended her to have a rather inexpressive face, and the
look of intense vivacity that usually adorns it is as comic and unnatural as the
look of glassy distinction worn by the odd celebrities in those whisky adver-
tisements."63 A male fan at the time of Something for the Boys said, "She is
funny looking-certainly not a pretty girl-but she makes all pretty girls of
the stuck-up kind look like dehydrated potatoes.... There is a natural, uninhibited lustiness about her, something healthy in her brazen sureness of
herself. "64

To say that women's looks are under the microscope is not news, and the
gaze on female entertainers is particularly intense. Young beauties are described in terms of otherworldly features or transcendent glamour, but as
divas age, critics use new words to describe them, focusing on their suddenly
fleshy, gravity-influenced bodies. (There are reasons why icons like Garbo
and Dietrich refused to be photographed after a certain age.) American attitudes toward aging are famously harsh, portraying the sexuality of middleaged and older women as desperate, ridiculous, or grotesque; their emotional
lives as embittered, shrill, or destructive.

Even if Ethel never fell from the position of ethereal star to that of the
somatically encumbered old woman, she was not immune from the attitudes that lurked behind these cliches. People who had reasons to resent her
power and success probably felt some cheap delight in making pejorative
remarks about her appearance when the star hit middle age. The undercurrents of the New Yorker's rave comments about Ethel in Annie Get Your
Gun convey that changing response to her: "As everyone knows, Miss Merman has a particularly charming and humorous appearance. Her face is
large and her features seem somehow to be closely grouped down toward
the bottom of it; her shoulders are square and wide, so that her arms hang
away from her sides [not taking into account she might have been directed
to swagger for the role]; her hips and legs, tho agreeable, were apparently
designed for a much smaller woman; the whole effect, indeed, is queerly
fore-shortened, as if you were looking directly down on her from a lad-
der."65 (One wonders where this critic's seat was.) For the press, Merman's
voice was still a natural phenomenon, but they were moving her looks and
behavior away from naturalness. The icon that was Ethel Merman was
moving into glitzier, professional terrain, mimicking the path of Merman's
own career.

When she first started out, Ethel's weight was given as 115 pounds, but by
the time she reached her late thirties, at around the time of Something for the
Boys, critics felt free to say, "Now 130 seems more probable," and to refer to
her as buxom or plump.66 The tone is not always harsh but shows a turn
nonetheless. A mid-1930s piece called "A Weighty Problem" reads, "On the
same day that it was announced that Ethel Merman would play opposite
Eddie Cantor in his next picture, the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore
announced a new diet and somehow I cannot untangle the two dispatches in
my mind. Patients reduce from to to zo pounds in two weeks on a diet of bananas and milk. Ohoo, Miss Merman could you spare a couple of weeks before you go to Hollywood!!"67 In 1940, Dale Carnegie snidely reported that
Merman was an alumna of a "health and weight farm for women."68 (Likely
untrue. According to Dorothy Fields and Merman's own granddaughter,
Ethel did struggle to keep her weight down, but desperate measures never interested her. "I don't believe in exercise," was her motto. "I believe it's unhealthy. In fact, I think having yourself massaged is too strenuous. It's liable
to soften up your muscles.")69

Ethel always had an ample chest, narrow hips, and shapely legs, and when
Pete Martin interviewed her for her first autobiography he asked her what she
thought her better physical features were. It is hard not to be delighted by her response: Well, she said, her top teeth were absolutely straight. Pause. On to
sexier things. When Martin asked about her legs, she said,

"This is putting me on the spot, Pete, because most people think I've got pretty
nice legs."

Martin: "Well all right. Why don't you say, `Most people think I've got
pretty nice legs'? That's being honest about it."

"Well I don't like to say those things. 1170

So much for the boisterous braggart Ethel. Not only would Martin omit her
line about not liking to boast, but also, in her reference to her legs, he substituted gams.

Vogue noted, "Her pretty legs are rarely noticed in high-flown reviews." 71
It was true: Ethel's roles seldom showed off her legs or accentuated her figure, and not until the shorter dresses of the early '6os did TV audiences get
to see her legs. To the public, Merman's body was neither erotic nor clumsy
and was seldom the source of much attention either way; it was just there, in
its vibrant earthy presence. Curiously, though, for female stars, that lack of
fascination could produce a degree of desexualization, which might be linked
to their comedic personae. Thus "desexed," was Merman less of a threat to
men or to other women? Was she bucking gender roles onstage? (She certainly wasn't in her private life.) And do either of these things explain Ethel's
appeal to gay and lesbian cultures then and now?

By the 1940s the press was commenting endlessly on Merman's makeup
and features, giving special focus to her dark, round, twinkling eyes that "give
her a perpetually astounded air," part of the faux innocence she put over so
well onstage.72 All Ethel had to do was roll her eyes and she had the audience
in her hands. Josh Logan was not the only one who raved about the goo-goo
eyes she made in Annie Get Your Gun. Ethel certainly knew what she was
showing off; after all, she'd been placing small jeweled clips at the end of her
sleeves since the late 'zos, guiding the audience's attention to her twinkling
eyes as she gestured. Her eyes, in fact, are one of the few aspects of the Merman vitality that come through on electronic media.

To accentuate her round "saucers," Ethel penciled in long, thin, raised eyebrows, a popular practice among women, especially those pursuing a glamorous look from the early '3os to the late '40s (think Lombard, Dietrich,
Garbo). Ethel also beaded her lashes, applying small balls of melted black wax
to the tips, a makeup practice that was popular in the late 192-os and '30s. In
1948, she said, "I'm probably the only person in the theater who still beads her eyelashes. I can't wear false lashes because they make me look droopy."73
She was still beading her lashes into the 196os, sticking with something she
knew flattered her, well after that cosmetic trend had come and gone.

Merman's wide eyes weren't the only obsession of the press. It was also
captivated by her mouth-hardly an unusual focus for a singer. For that was
the mouth that gave voice to her clear, powerful energy onstage and to the
offstage personality with a penchant for speaking her mind-all in a strong
Queens accent. In many ways, the media used Merman's mouth not only to
telegraph her force as a singer but also to point visually to the "mouthy"
woman she was assumed to be.

Merman's shows, movies, and concerts were almost always promoted by
a picture of her with her mouth wide open, be this from Alexander's Ragtime
Band or most shows through Gypsy; the same was true of many of her appearances on magazine covers. Among the most famous of the promotional
images is the one from Call Me Madam. Peter Arno's animated portrait of
Merman's head highlights her high-piled curls, the beaded lashes, and, of
course, the mouth agape. Gypsy's Playbill features a three-quarter photographic portrait with mouth open and a wide-eyed, upward gaze. It's almost
like the rest of Merman's body didn't matter-she was all eyes, mouth, and
spirit. One stunningly effective portrait of her was by legendary photographer Irving Penn during the run of Happy Hunting. Penn captured her
mouth open in a perfect oval and visually echoed its shape by seating her behind the rounded curve of a French horn.74

The 194os and early '50s also saw the press entranced by Merman's hair.
The bobs of the late'zos and early'3os were long out of fashion, and all that
she retained from the time was the auburn dye Hollywood had introduced
her to. By the late '3os and '40s, shoulder-length coiffures were popular, and
Ethel adopted the look, her thick, wavy hair well-suited for the trend. It was
by the time of Call Me Madam, though, that Ethel settled on her signature
"do": short on the sides with a mop of curls on top that bounced whenever
she moved. Al Hirschfeld enshrined it in many of his sketches of her, and
Ethel retained it through Gypsy. She wore it well; it gave her height, as she
noted. And in 1957, Ethel was among the runners-up in the press's "Best
Tressed Awards," after Mamie Eisenhower, for her bangs.