Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman (63 page)

"Little Lamb" caused more tension: Robbins didn't like it, saying it didn't
have much to do with the show (and it didn't, in terms of pure story line), and then announced that he was planning to excise it. The next day at rehearsal, Jule Styne took charge; he went onstage and, facing front, said, "Mr.
Robbins ... I have informed the Dramatists Guild and my lawyers. Unless
`Little Lamb' is back in the show, tonight, I am withdrawing my entire
score.' He bowed and walked off"36 It was restored. Some of the show's
songs came out of the Jule Styne trunk. One had been written for an unfinished movie called Pink Tights, "Why Did You Have to Wait So Long?"
for which Sammy Cahn had not finished the lyrics; Styne revisited it as
"You'll Never Get Away from Me." ("What Jule had not told me," recalls
Sondheim, "was that Leo Robin had subsequently written a set of lyrics to
it for aTV musical, Ruggles ofRed Gap, with the title `I'm in Pursuit of Hap-
piness."'37 Sondheim was understandably displeased, but apparently nothing came of it.)

It's hard to believe, but the melody of "Everything's Coming Up Roses"
also came out of Styne's trunk. Initially, it was going to appear as "In Betwixt
and Between," with lyrics again by Cahn, for High Button Shoes, but was put
in the trunk. It ended up being the perfect vehicle for Merman: upbeat and
brimming with high-octane optimism, showcasing one of Merman's distinguishing vocal techniques, coming at notes from above. As singer Klea Blackhurst says, "Ethel Merman's notes just land from above, and it's a clear
bing."38 She starts "Coming Up Roses" this way, and the effect is even more
striking, since she doesn't even hit the title lyrics until the end of the first
quatrain. Robbins didn't see the innovativeness of the song and was even
puzzled by the title. Recalls Sondheim, "And Jerry says, `I just don't understand that title.' I say, `Why not, Jerry?' And he says, `Everything's coming up
Rose's what?"139

Previews and Premiere

Gypsy previewed at the Shubert Theatre in Philadelphia from April 13 to
May 16. The sold-out run brought in $65,916 the first week alone.40 About
Ethel critics raved ("She is close to brilliant in an assignment that demands
as much of her dramatically as it does vocally!"),41 but reviews said that the
show needed trimming, especially the first act, asymmetrically heavy compared with the second one. Forty-five minutes were cut, a solo by Merman
("Smile Girls") and one by Klugman ("Nice She Ain't") along with children's numbers such as "Mama's Talking Soft." (This is when Robbins
tried to excise "Little Lamb.") Styne also had to fight Robbins to retain the overture, and happily he won; Gypsy's score would not have been the same
without it.

When the show was in previews, Dorothy Kilgallen was dishing dirt that
Robbins and Merman were "at odds" over last-minute changes, saying, "The
smart money, as usual, is betting on Merman."42 It's hard to imagine that
Merman and Robbins would agree on every detail, and given Robbins's mercurial behavior, it seems a logical enough report, but whatever Kilgallen
might have been referring to didn't amount to anything. Most of Robbins's
battles were with Styne and Laurents, not Ethel Merman.

Did the press want Ethel to be difficult? Kilgallen, her friend, was probably going for something else, lauding Ethel for her tough professionalism,
but other reports were aiming to ramp up the rough, brassy image. Of course,
Ethel could be difficult, often displaying a harsh perfectionism when she
worked on shows ("not to get her way, but to get the best show," Levitt
notes).43 A notorious Merman chapter from Gypsy was her reported dislike
of Sandra Church (Gypsy) and her pleasure when Church was replaced later
in the run. Church has publicly affirmed how unpleasant Merman eventually made things for her, but for a time at least, their relationship was cordial.
Ethel saved over half a dozen cards from the young star, who thanked her for
various gifts and expressed her love for the Broadway icon. Merman had no
reason not to support Church, and even when she believed that the young
woman was having an affair with Jule Styne-a much older, married manEthel kept still.

Gypsy was scarcely helped by David Merrick's obstreperous pessimism.
During the previews, he kept saying that if the show didn't start generating
better buzz, Gypsy wouldn't last a month on Broadway. Although this was
hardly strange behavior, it hurt the morale of the group, and, Laurents recalled, the show "came into New York facing death."44 Perhaps Merrick
didn't want to treat the show as his own, or maybe he didn't think Gypsy was
under his control as much as he wanted, so why stick his neck out for it? At
the same time, Merrick thrived on stirring things up. Whatever his motives,
matters peaked when a frustrated Hayward, almost on a dare, offered to buy
out Merrick's portion of what Merrick was calling "this bomb." Merrick
backed off.

Variety was of a different opinion, predicting in a headline, "Gypsy Could
Do $8i,ooo a Week."45 And now, after the Philadelphia previews, Gypsy was
rehearsing at Broadway's Winter Garden one week before the premiere. Variety was right: tickets, priced between $2.5o and $9.40, were moving like
hotcakes.

And so, on the evening of May 2I, as New York geared up, Gypsy's cast,
crew, and producers were trying to calm their jitters. Ethel had been flooded
with notes from figures as diverse as Bill Fields, Mary Martin, Johnnie Ray,
Gertrude Berg, Meredith Willson, and Oscar and Dorothy Hammerstein.
Among the sweetest is a greeting card with roses all over it: "With Love to
Mother on Mother's Day" and a handwritten note inside: ". . . and tonight
it is!" Under a sketch of an arrow-pierced heart, it is signed "Teach." From
Mitzi Gaynor: "Dear Mom, we are thinking of you and already sharing your
great success in Gypsy." Ethel's scrapbooks also have pages of spirited notes
from fans who took in Gypsy in the months to come, such as an office worker
from South Bend, Indiana, and a woman who worked on an ocean liner
who said she was moved by Ethel's hard work and the show's message that
stage moms shouldn't push too hard. Not every viewer saw the monster in
Rose.

Just hours before the curtain went up, what was Ethel Merman doing? Polishing her jewelry. "She's got no nerves," said an amazed Benay Venuta.46 In
retrospect, there was little to worry about. As Arthur Laurents said later, "In
theatre paradise, every opening night would be like the New York opening
night of Gypsy. From overture to curtain calls, the audience was madly in
love-with every word, every note, every player, every moment. They roared
their love."47

Other legends were made that night, including one that took place in the
audience. As Laurents tells it:

At the end of Gypsy's strip, Walter and Jean Kerr came up the aisle, clearly on
their way out because there was no place to stand in back. Everyone feared
Walter Kerr [New York Times drama critic]; even Jule had begged me to cut a
joke about the Vatican because Kerr was a Catholic. I wouldn't, and I wouldn't
let him out of the theatre until he had seen the whole show. I blocked the Kerrs
at the head of the aisle: "Go back to your seats," I ordered. "It isn't over."
Startled, they dutifully turned around.48

Robert Serling, biographer of Robert Six (who was still married to Ethel,
though barely), gives another version: "Six was present on opening night, occupying an aisle seat just behind a prominent New York theater critic. After
the curtain came down on a particularly effective and climactic scene, the
critic rose and started to leave. Standing in the aisle, blocking his path and
with arms folded across his broad chest, was Six. `Where the hell do you think
you're going?' he growled. `The show's over,' the critic insisted. `The hell it is. Ethel's best scene is coming up. Sit down!' The critic did. 1149 The next day,
Kerr's review ran in the Times: "I'm not sure whether Gypsy is new fashioned,
or old fashioned, or integrated, or non-integrated. The only thing I'm sure
of is that it's the best damn musical I've seen in years."50

New York was enthralled. For Kenneth Tynan: "The first act is perfection.
The second mere brilliance."51 For Winchell, "Ethel Merman, who rockets
songs and roman candles, demonstrates her explosive radiance in the grandest musical since My Fair Lady. Everything about the show is fodder for superlatives . . . the bright satellites revolving around the star are Jack Klugman,
Sandra Church and Lane Bradbury. As for Queen Ethel, this show is the
brightest gem in a career crowned with hits."52

Gypsy in Perspective

Gypsy is a musical lover's musical. The title alone, in addition to referencing
Gypsy Rose Lee, pays tribute to the hardworking dancers and singers who
move from show to show. What distinguishes it from other musicals about
show business (such as Annie Get Your Gun) is that Gypsy wasn't out to celebrate that world so much as use it for story material, casting a reflexive look
at show biz that captures it not in its glory days but in a difficult transition.
In a way, the show provided an emotionally layered rendering of what
There's No Business Like Show Business tried to capture in "going on with the
show."

Although Gypsy was a product of the moment, integrating song and dance
in a sophisticated story of complex characters and issues, as most '50s musicals did, it was at the same time a step apart from musical theater of the
time. Its protagonists were atypical-a pushy stage mother and stripper
daughter-and it boasted only the most perfunctory of heterosexual romances. Historians have subjected the show to a number of assessments,
placing it against different backdrops. For Mark Steyn, "It's the most Broadway of Broadway musicals, fusing the two strains of American musical theater, seizing the principles of the R&H [Rodgers and Hammerstein] musical
play and setting them to gorgeous, vulgar rhythms of musical comedy-the
dramatic ambitions of the former, the sass of the latter."53 For Ethan Mordden,
Gypsy and West Side Story weren't so much "climaxes of the R and H era as
much as the first strikes in the next era, one in which the musical finally gives
up its membership in the popular arts to confront its audience."54 Yet even
while it followed Broadway's move from diversionary spectacle to "integrated" musical, Gypsy was savvy enough not to leave the razzle-dazzle world of old
entertainment behind.

Merman fans usually turn to either Gypsy or Annie Get Your Gun for the
"best" Ethel Merman role. In some ways, Gypsy repeated what Annie Get Your
Gun had done nearly fifteen years earlier: it reestablished Merman as Broadway's most vital star. Yet Gypsy achieved this not only in a completely new era
of musical theater but also on completely different terms. For Rose is a demanding role in a demanding, innovative musical. She may have some of the
same toughness as Nails Duquesne and others, but she is a character, not
a caricature. Unlike Annie Oakley-who is not a caricature either, to be
sure-Rose is psychologically complex and attracts (or repels) people for a variety of reasons. People are drawn to Rose not out of likability but, depending on whom you talk to, out of her defiance toward tradition, her chutzpah,
her dedication, even, for some, her delusion. Especially in Merman's hands,
Rose bristles with energy, and if Ethel's performance as Madame Rose is not
every fan's favorite, it is certainly her most accomplished.

Reviewer Tom Donnelly agreed: "As far as I'm concerned, Ethel Merman
playing Ethel Merman has been the ultimate peak in Show Business. Now,
in Gypsy, a `musical fable' based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, Miss
Merman not only blows her glorious bugle as of yore but also offers a characterization that is better than three-dimensional. It's 4-dimensional. Lynn
Fontanne, Helen Hayes, Judith and Dame Edith Evans will have to move
over."55 Newsweek, the national weekly, made much the same point, reporting that while Merman's voice had been great in previous scores, when her
librettists seemed most interested in her vocal dynamics, now, "the voice is
still here, as commanding as Gabriel's horn, but this time, Miss Merman can
make you weep between cheers."56

Encouraged by such raves, producers rushed out the cast recording earlier
than planned, and it was well received. (With "Rose's Turn," wrote one reviewer, Ethel "rises to such heights of intensity that the record machine seems
in danger of splitting.")57 In June, Variety's 21st Annual Critics Poll for best
woman lead in a musical gave Merman more votes than Gwen Verdon in
Redhead or Lotte Lenya in Seven Deadly Sins combined. And she was also
nominated for the Tonys. (Curiously, three of the nominees that yearMerman, Mary Martin, and Dolores Gray-had all starred in Annie Get Your
Gun at one point.) Justifiably proud of her work, Ethel was confident that
this would be her year; her only other previous win had been for Call Me
Madam. As the city geared up for the awards, Sherman Billingsley planned
to host a Stork Club party for more than two hundred Tony nominees and former recipients, but a boycott organized by Angus Duncan, the director of
the Theatre Wing, hurt the event. Citing labor problems at the Stork Club,
Duncan urged those on the huge guest list to boycott the event. Ethel sent
her close friend her regrets, something few others bothered to do. Fifteen
people showed up.

In the end, there was not much to celebrate. Just as West Side Story had lost
out to the more commercial Music Man two years earlier, Gypsy lost to The
Sound ofMusic, also coproduced by Leland Hayward. Merman lost to Mary
Martin, and when she heard the news, her now-fabled response was a supposed shrug of the shoulders and, "Well, how do ya buck a nun?"58 When it
learned that Gypsy had been shut out of the awards, the show's contingent,
including Hayward, stayed away from the awards, and Leonard Lyons noted
the irony that the ceremony that year opened and closed on the strains of
"Everything's Coming Up Roses."

Fans lodged an official protest with the American Theatre Wing. Critic
John Chapman wrote that when he voted for Merman, he wasn't voting
against Mary Martin. What influenced his vote, he said, was that Martin
wasn't doing anything new, whereas Merman was performing a new kind of
role for Broadway and a new one for her.59 (A Chicago fan sent his copy of
that article to Ethel, writing under the photo of Martin as Maria von Trapp,
"good," and under Ethel's as Rose, "excellent.") Much of the East Coast entertainment world found it perplexing that Martin and Merman weren't at
least given a joint award, especially since The Sound of Music shared its best
musical award with Fiorello! and, as one columnist wrote, "Mary ... would
have loved sharing the glory."60