Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman (46 page)

The most famous Merman hair story happened during the production of
Call Me Madam. Mainbocher, pleased with his work on her outfits, turned to
his star and said, "And now, Ethel, what do you plan to do with your hair?"
"I plan to wash it," she said. That dialogue has been repeated without end, and
Merman kept versions of it-along with other references to her hair-in her scrapbooks: "Other ladies fuss with their hair and change the mode of their
coiffure from season to season. Ethel Merman has found nothing suits her
apple cheeks and cheerful jowls except the hair-do of a golliwog. When she
went to Hollywood to make the film Call Me Madam an esthetic [sic] hairdresser asked her what she intended to do about her hair. `I intend to wash it,'
said Ethel Merman, and went out looking like ..."75 Here, the clipping was
abruptly cut off.

Interviewers' fascination with Ethel's pompadour lasted through the '50s
and '6os. Was she planning to change it? No, she'd say, it is my trademark.
"She's kind of a hair die-hard," said Dorothy Fields. "She won't change it unless it's absolutely necessary."76 Aware of the scrutiny, Ethel said, "People criticize my hair. They say it's too thick. Well they can't say that now 'cause I
wear it up. They criticize my pompadour. They say it's freakish looking. I told
you that yesterday. I like it, so I wear it.... it's done all right by me so I'm
going to keep it." Later: "I've been criticized for it, people have written it up
in the columns here. What did they say? `When will Ethel Merman ever get
rid of that horrible hair?' . . . It doesn't make any difference but so-pooh!
I don't care. It's all right for me and I'm going to stick with it.... And it's
becoming. I ... get some height in the front." 77

Throughout most of the '6os, Ethel sported a lightly shellacked bubble,
more demure than her pompadour but also more age appropriate. For a
while, she wore a short, modest flip. (See her appearances on That Girl, with
Marlo Thomas, queen of the flip.) By the time she retired from the boards in
the '7os, Ethel turned to the big hair that ruled the day, teasing her hair in
bold new directions. Every Friday, she maintained a standing appointment
with her hairdresser.

Despite her personal distaste for hats, Ethel's work frequently required
them, often in the form of very elaborate headpieces. DuBarry, Annie, Hattie (the name alone ... ) all used headpieces for comic effect. Something for
the Boys featured one with an oversized dark bronze plume that was erect as
a chainsaw, "creat[ing] the effect of an exclamation point" whenever Merman
bobbed her head.78 Offstage, Ethel participated in the "wild hat" craze in
vogue in the '30s and early'40s. Photo shoots reveal that the hats Ethel wore
were no more outrageous than those of other women of the time; this was a
period of especially zany fashion in women's millinery. In New York's 1940
Easter Parade, Ethel wore "an inverted straw cashet [sic] with a 'handle' under
the chin with two large pink camellias tucked under each ear."79 But that was
no match for another woman's clear cellophane pillbox hat with live ducklings munching on carnations inside it that Easter Day.80 As the years pressed on, women's hats did finally tone down and eventually came off altogether,
and offstage, Ethel's headwear followed suit.

Fashion excess and the Ethel Merman "image" go as far back as the luxurious costumes of DuBarry, a show whose sartorial opulence made sense for
its story line; they also conveyed the impression of bounty when most audience members were experiencing scarcity and struggle. Clothes helped fulfill
that show's fantasies of upward mobility or, by contrast, of ridiculing the
wealthy. DuBarry's fashion excesses were thus not revealing any particular
character trait of May Daly, much less anything about Ethel herself, so much
as establishing social and historical place. In the next show, Panama Hattie,
costumes functioned very differently. There, Ethel's sartorial extravagances
conveyed her character's "unrefinement" and transformed the character into
a source of gags rather than envy. As the star depicting her, Ethel risked offstage ridicule, but those onstage excesses were not yet carrying over to
people's perception of her own image; for instance, "Panama Hattie Puts It
On! What Not to Wear at One Time in Accessories-a Shining Example
by Ethel Merman" ran alongside a photo with the caption "For your
entertainment-consider here Miss Merman-huge lacy parasol; birdtrimmed hat with twin hatpins and veil; enormous lace collar; massive jangling necklace; two pairs of matching bracelets; ruffles on the sleeves; earrings; knotted ankle ties with jeweled ornaments."81 Clearly, Hattie's
flamboyance was part of the show, not part of Ethel, who, it spelled out, knew
better. Ethel was still offering fans a critical link between glamorous appeal
and day-to-day practicality. Earlier that summer, she'd modeled a Wilma
gown that was used as a door prize for a publicity event; "chosen because it
will be becoming to the average woman, the gown gives lovely slim lines and
is perfect for a first Fall dress."82 Merman's ability to convey celebrity and ordinary life was at work, here and in other product endorsements. During
Annie Get Your Gun's run, she did ads for Piel's Light beer, Chesterfield cigarettes, Arrid deodorant, and the "ultra-glamorous" Lux soap.

But rumblings questioning the star's personal fashion sense were beginning. "Merman loves fur and jewelry, lots and lots of jewelry" wrote columnist Amy Porter.83 In that sense, Merman seemed to embrace part of her
onstage image. In actuality, her personal clothing remained relatively conservative and she was always impeccably groomed, but her choice in jewelry
did prompt a few people to question her taste: "In addition to the star sapphires, aquamarines, etc.," wrote one writer, "she has a bracelet ... which
spells out Ethel A. Merman, the letters in baguette diamonds, the period after
the A-for-Agnes in rubies. All it needs is to flicker on and of£"84

None of this bothered Merman, who took real pride in her jewels. As
friend and accompanist Lew Kessler said, Ethel "loved [her jewelry] because
she worked like a dog to get it, and she'd make fun of it if she got it."85
Among her most prized jewels was a broach from her mother and, more famously, her charm bracelet, on which she added a new charm for every show.
(It also had one of a typewriter.) With each success, the bracelet grew
clunkier, as if her mounting celebrity were slowly making her noisier and
brassier. By the time of Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
in the early '6os, Merman was playing up that garishness, wearing a clunky
bracelet that was so heavily miked that its jingles can be heard every time she
belts or shakes her hands at someone.

"She has a childish love for dressy clothes.... her favorite evening gown
has an enormous black taffeta underskirt that swishes when she walks. Her
idea of a simple street outfit consists of a black satin dress, short sleeved, with
a gold kid belt, gold beads and gold bracelets, a satin off-the-face hat with a
long veil, black suede slippers with French heels, a pair of long black suede
gloves, a black broadtail coat, wl the full sleeves pushed over her wrists. She
uses perfume liberally."86 Why were critics like Amy Porter here making Merman into a fashion monster, and a cheap one at that? Wolcott Gibbs quotes
a "fashion expert" (conveniently unidentified) who says that Ethel had few
made-to-order dresses. (True-Ethel did buy most things off the rack.) But
the unnamed source goes further, complaining, " `She is not really a very lucrative customer. She likes dresses to cost $39.95, $49.95, or $60 or $7o at the
most, getting wary if they cost over $roo.... She tends to stick with `black
and navy, but goes nuts with wild hats, jewelry and fussy shoes.' "87 Another
writer ventured, even more cruelly, "When she tries to say she likes conservative clothes, the folks that know her burst out laughing."88

Such reports don't put Merman's tastes into any context; plenty of women
enjoyed going nuts with wild jewelry and hats, and Ethel's preference for
ready-to-wear clothing could have been a holdover from growing up and a
way of refusing celebrity excess or a desire not to match the flash of her accessories. In all, however, the effect of these comments was to shift Ethel's
image away from the natural girl she had been in the early to mid-'30s to
something rather more caricatured. Sure, she was still appearing in fashion
shows, such as one for Eddie Cantor's March of Dimes benefit in 1947, but
at the same time, even Dorothy Kilgallen described her in an appearance at
the elite r 2-3 Club as resembling a "mermaid, her chassis wrapped in a gown
of green sequin scales."89 Ethel probably got a laugh out of it, but underneath
a friendly and playful description, some serious shifts were under way.

Merman's evolution from a "natural" icon to one of artifice carried certain
economic and symbolic repercussions. On the one hand, it impeded her success on TV and film, where she was deemed "too much," but on the other,
it helped Ethel move into new and evolving fan bases. This ostensibly
"made-up" look after the war helped set the stage for some of Ethel's subsequent transformations, not the least of which were her ever-expanding roles
as queen of musical theater and, especially, gay camp icon. Most camp practices celebrate artifice over authenticity, the performance of intense feelings
over their realistic expression, excess and fantasy over conformity and restraint. These features help explain not only Ethel Merman's importance as
a camp figure but also how the often extravagant forms of musicals, opera,
and other fantasy-driven forms of mass culture appeal to so many of us.

It was her forthright charm, and native common sense,
that made her Washington's number one hostess.

Narrator in Call Me Madam

It was in January 1952 that Ethel and Bob Levitt ended their marriage after
their half-year separation. As the marriage started to shipwreck, tongues
wagged, yet once again Ethel received little vitriol from the columnists, and
her cordial relationships with them, and with Sullivan and Kilgallen in particular, paid off. Kilgallen referred to the newly single Ethel as "Broadway's
most enthusiastic mother" and described her running, one Saturday morning at nine o'clock in "casual dress, bandana'd and bobby pinned," across
Grand Central to meet Bobby and Little Ethel on the train, returning from
a vacation with their father in Colorado.' Both parents were doing their best
to shepherd the children through a difficult period.

Though at heart a homebody, Ethel was free to enjoy Manhattan's social
scene now that she and Levitt had split, and that she did. The recent success
of Madam had widened her social circle, and new friends joined old friends
and family to look after the newly solo Ethel; "love to one and all," critic Robert Garland wrote in a note subtly acknowledging the transition.'

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were especially intent on keeping
Merman occupied; they'd always adored her company. It was the Windsors
who introduced Ethel to investment banker Charlie Cushing, whom she
dated-uncharacteristically acknowledging that relationship in her second
autobiography. The two were spotted at El Morocco and other hot nightclubs. The millionaire Cushing hosted big parties for Ethel and her friends,
whether to fete Celeste Holm's birthday, honor the Duke and Duchess, or
mark other events. Guests included future Gypsy figures Rosalind Russell,
Freddie Brisson, and Gypsy Rose Lee, along with Sid Caesar and Ethel's frequent party companion, protege Russell Nype. Sparing no expense, Cushing provided hundred-dollar bottles of perfume as party favors at one bon
voyage party for the Windsors in May 1951.3