Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman (64 page)

For one Broadway historian, the Tony Awards that year were "a decision that
clarified mainstream cultural values by rewarding a nun-turned wife over a relentlessly ambitious stage mother."61 Stephen Sondheim was philosophical:

What makes smash-hit musicals are stories that audiences want to hear-and
it's always the same story. How everything turns out terrific in the end and the
audience goes out thinking, that's what life is all about.... The Sound of
Music says you can eat your cake and have it-you can get away from the
Nazis, marry the man of your choice, without compromising your religious
goodness....

Gypsy says something fairly hard to take: that every child eventually has to
become responsible for his parents.... It's something that everybody knows
but no one likes to think about a lot. And that's why Gypsy, at base, in spite of
the terrific reviews, wasn't a smash hit.62

Rosalind Russell: The Anti-Merm

Worse for Ethel was what happened when Hollywood decided to adapt Gypsy
for the screen. Sol Siegel had expressed interest, as had MGM's Arthur Freed.
Warner Bros.' Mervyn LeRoy saw the Broadway show numerous times and
was in discussions with Ethel about resuming her role on the screen, and, indeed, it was Warner Bros. who picked up the film, paying $650,000 against
to percent of the picture's gross. But Ethel was not part of the deal. In early
December 1960, writer George Oppenheimer was in the room when Merman learned that LeRoy had given the part of Rose to Rosalind Russell: "I
happened to be in Jule Styne's office that day and Jule came in and the phone
started to ring.... he answered it and his face turned white. It was Ethel, who
had just found out that Rosalind Russell's husband, Freddie Brisson ... had
somehow gotten his wife signed for Ethel's part in the movie. Ethel was
screaming at poor Jule over the phone."63 Jack Klugman says, "[LeRoy] really screwed Ethel. He was constantly with her and promised that he wouldn't
do the picture without her. Then he went and signed Roz Russell for the role.
Mr. LeRoy is not a very nice person."64 After learning that she'd been passed
over, Ethel fired her agent, replacing him with Milton Pickman, who remained with her for the rest of her career. And she quickly went into negotiations with Merrick about doing a tour with the show, "to show how it
oughtta be done," as legend has her saying. (Her actual public words were
more subdued: "It's my favorite role and I want people to see me do it. My
two kids are grown, I'm not married and have no ties right now." )65

Russell's and Merman's careers had circled each other's-almost like distant relatives-for over twenty years. Both women were known for playing
strong, independent, colorful characters. Russell was gifted with a sparkling
presence and great comic timing (His Girl Friday), but her being an established screen star didn't endear her to Broadway critics, especially when she
appeared in adaptations of plays that other women had introduced onstage,
"taking" Gertrude Berg's role in A Majority of One for Warner and Jessica
Tandy's in Five Finger Exercise for Columbia. "Roz's next `exercise' in versatility is still an official secret," speculated Radie Harris. "But I suspect it's
Gypsy, which I know will break Ethel Merman's heart just as it broke Gertrude
Berg's heart to lose Majority of One.... Roz's screen name is considered more
potent box office to the Hollywood top brass, who make the decisions."66

Up to this point, Ethel and Russell had enjoyed a cordial relationship, exchanging congratulatory gifts and telegrams on opening nights, greetings at
Christmastime, and so on. A reading of Russell's notes in hindsight, though, suffuses them with bitchy irony. For Gypsy: "Dearest Ethel, A wee note to tell
you how fantastic you were on opening night. Freddie and I were heartbroken we didn't get to see you at the Stein's [sic] to tell you in person how terrific you were. "67 Today, Merman lovers delight in taking potshots at Russell.
It's become a way to show their loyalty to Queen Ethel and to celebrate her
misunderstood power. Forty years later, Elaine Stritch relayed in her onewoman show that Merman privately referred to Freddie Brisson as "the
Lizard of Roz."

Pop saved reviews not only of his daughter's performances on the Gypsy
tour but also of Russell's performance when the movie was released in November 1962. After all, his daughter was mentioned in most of them-and
usually fared better than Miss Russell. From the Toronto Globe and Mail:
"The chief fault for the debacle must rest on Miss Russell ... and the result
is, in a word, disastrous.... [Miss Merman had] stopped the show, and
rightly so. What can Miss Russell do with this part? She can only pick up the
crumbs that her limited talents in this area allow her. She plays Rose at a mile
a minute."68 To reporters Ethel was acidly diplomatic. "I haven't seen it," she
told one who dared to ask her. "But I'd like to say that ... it was a great personal tribute to have my name mentioned by nearly all the movie critics."69
Other stock answers were: "Why didn't I? I wasn't asked"-"If the movie
didn't do as well as the stage version, I would have taken the rap"-"No
comment"-and (a favorite of fans, though only attributed to Ethel), "I hear
it's being done more as a play rather than a musical."

In her column, Dorothy Kilgallen reported that someone had given Ethel
a tape of Miss Russell's attempts to sing as Mama Rose (in the end, Russell
was dubbed by Lisa Kirk), a story that has had the half-life of a nuclear ex-
plosion.70 In 1998, a Broadway historian wrote, "After Merman's death, her
knickknacks closet gave up discs of the Gypsy movie's prerecorded vocal
tapes-not the improved Lisa Kirk tracks dubbing for an overparted Russell,
but Russell's inadequate originals. Party records at Merman's je men fiche
soirees?"71 Tony Cointreau, who helped settle Ethel's belongings after her
death, said he never encountered those recordings.

Three months into the run, Merman had throat trouble, missing seven performances. On the first night that understudy Jane Romano took over,
she got a standing ovation-for her bravura if nothing else-but within
a week, house receipts went from $82,900 to $71,800. Mary Martin wrote Ethel
a handwritten note to say how glum her producers were looking.72

Dear Queen!

We heard you were "out"-! This is like hearing that Gabriel has stopped
blowing you know what! ... Take it easy "boy" (as our darling Doctor Craig
would say) "try not to worry" and know that you truly are "The One and
Only" Merman, horn or no horn!!

Love always, Mary and Richard73

The ailing voice made for much, much bigger news than her tonsillectomy
had in 1929. Speculations abounded about whether Ethel had laryngitis or
had burst a blood vessel. (The latter was the case.) Everyone in the show sent
get-well notes, and while Ethel was recovering at home at the Park Lane,
Benay Venuta presented her with the oil portrait she'd done of the star as
Mama Rose. In it, Ethel/Rose is wearing her makeshift plaid coat, big bow
in hair, holding her small dog. Tony Cointreau was there when the gift was
presented and remembers that "even when she was unable to speak, [Ethel's]
energy took over the room." (He recalls Little Ethel once telling him, "Even
when Mom is sick, she's not like everyone else.")74 When Ethel and her
slightly altered voice returned to the show, Styne sent a note, "Welcome back
in any key."75

Gypsy was now grossing over $80,000 per week, breaking records at
$86,472.26 in January 1960. The big take was facilitated by the 1,765-seat capacity of the Broadway, the largest theater in town (and originally a movie
theater palace). At an initial cost of about $420,000 to produce, Gypsy was
able to distribute a profit of $285,864 by April 23, r96o. Individuals such as
Gypsy Rose Lee owned about 23 percent; Merman and Six, 15 percent; Robbins, 5 percent; and so on down the line.

Ethel left the show for three performances to attend Ethel Jr.'s commencement at Cherry Creek High School in Colorado on June 3. She graduated a year early and then stayed in Colorado, where her sense of independence was greater. Merman had negotiated the time off in her contract, and
when she left, papers rumored that David Merrick had purchased a threemillion-dollar insurance policy on Merman's flight. A syndicated photo from
Colorado showed the beaming star next to her daughter, now a beautiful
young woman. Her brother, meanwhile, had been unhappily shuffled off to
the Hackley School, a boarding school in Tarrytown, New York.

Ethel may have felt tired from performing each night in Gypsy, but she
kept a level of activity of someone half her age. While Gypsy was running, she
recorded "An Evening with Ethel Merman"-later changed to "Merman on
Broadway"-which NBC broadcast on television on November 24, 1959, as part of its Startime series. Roger Edens, now working at Columbia Studios
in Hollywood, returned to New York to produce it at Ethel's request and
opened it with Merman singing "Lady with a Song," which he had composed
for her in 1953 when Ethel appeared at the Texas State Fair. Her costars on the
show were Fess Parker, Tab Hunter, and Tom Poston; Ethel and Hunter sang
"You're Just in Love" in a skit in which Hunter played a psychiatrist and she
the patient who ends up dispensing her advice to him.

The telegrams Ethel received for this appearance provide an informative
look into the entertainment scene of the day, one that, like everything else,
seemed to be growing ever more corporate and professionalized. More than
ever, notes and telegrams were coming from TV executives such as the president of NBC and the director of special programs at MCA, and fewer-or
fewer that she saved-came from colleagues and fans. It was a different world
from the one of even ten years earlier, part of the shift away from Broadway's
intimate, if squabbling, family. One colleague from the old days who remained true throughout, however, was Cole Porter, who sent a wire the day
after "Merman on Broadway" aired: "I saw your television show last night
you were stupendous all my congratulations and love."76

For her mother's TV special, Little Ethel sent a very long piece of tissuepossibly toilet paper, it is hard to tell-on which "Congratulations" was written in red, with a return address announcing, "From Ethel's classmates in
Colorado College." Big Ethel's peers and colleagues may have been writing
a little less, but her kids were writing more; during this same time, Bobby sent
a number of (usually humorous) cards for her openings, birthdays, and
Mother's Day, signing them with affection in a childish scrawl.

Nineteen fifty-nine saw Kay Kendall, Mario Lanza, and Maxwell Anderson
pass away and Brooks Atkinson announcing his retirement. Some Like It Hot,
Exodus, and Suddenly Last Summer lit up the screen; A Majority of One, Raisin
in the Sun, and The Miracle Worker opened on Broadway, along with the musicals Sound of Music, Fiorello! and Once upon a Mattress. Ground in Manhattan was broken for Lincoln Center. Liz Taylor married Eddie Fisher, and
at the end of the year Ethel and Bob Six finally made their "amicable" split
public. "New Yorkers," said an unsurprised Kilgallen, "had often observed
her paying more than just polite attention to another chap while Mr. Six sat
at the same table, apparently not minding a bit." 77 Ethel was not romantically close with anyone, but journalists continued to identify partners, often
the escorts filed under "dates" in her address book: Charles Wacker, Spencer Martin, Peter Arnell, designer Donald Brooks, and songwriter Jimmy van
Heusen (a frequent companion). Ethel still resided at Park Lane, where Judy
Garland and Sid Luft were neighbors; Six was in Los Angeles in Bel Air. Six
Acres was gone, having been purchased by an oilman whom the neighbors
okayed. Whenever the press mentioned Bob Six with a date, it was Audrey
Meadows.

By this time, Ethel's manager, William Fields, was sending her most of the
clippings she passed along to Pop for the scrapbooks. One was to "have appeared on Friday, Dec. 18 [1959] which is the day the separation story broke
in this and other newspapers." It was called "What Christmas Means to Me,"
by Ethel Merman, in which she says how much she loves "the bustle and the
crowds and the happy preparations," adding, "Christmas carols cause me to
cry like a fool." She wonders about what children think when they see all of
Santa's different "understudies" at every street corner and tells readers that
this year "this `Gypsy,' her husband and two children will be having a green
Christmas, in Jamaica. It's my week off from work, but I'll be thinking of
New York, its glitter, glamour and happy faces."78

Christmas was Ethel's favorite holiday, but in 1959 it could hardly have
been a joyous one. During her break (Gypsy closed for a week for the holiday,
as did The Sound ofMusic), she and Six went through the motions of that trip
they'd planned to the Caribbean for the kids. The new year would see her lose
the Tony, lose the film part of Mama Rose, and see the divorce from Six finalized. But at the same time, with Gypsy Ethel's career was reinvigorated,
and it was on her terms now, not Six's.

She stayed busy. That same Christmas break, she took part in a city charity drive and recorded the 1960 American Red Cross theme song, "Good
Things Happen When You Give." On January 16, the cast and crew of Gypsy
gave Ethel an oversized birthday card, and Gypsy Rose Lee sent a card with
"a toast to you and the cast with love and gratitude from Gypsy." (On the
back, over Lee's name, Ethel notes for the scrapbooks, "She sent over a chilled
bottle of champagne-a Jeribom, which is six % quarts. We served it in paper
cups when the curtain went down Saturday night.")79 The show was still
going strong, and now some of the child extras had to be replaced because
they were outgrowing their roles.

Less than two weeks later, on the z9th, Ethel appeared on TV on NBC's
Bell Telephone Hour with Beatrice Lillie, Benny Goodman, and Ray Bolger,
all show biz veterans, in a special called "The Four of Us." The gimmick was
to give each performer a chance to do something new and different; as was
said on the show, "Why should we do what the public expects of us?" (Benny Goodman, for instance, performed a piece by Carl Maria von Weber.) But
Ethel didn't behave and sang "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "When My Sugar
Walks Down the Street," "Sweet Georgia Brown," and "After You've Gone,"
all of which she had recorded earlier. To be sure, given the short memory of
young TV audiences, perhaps she was showing viewers an unfamiliar, new
(i.e., non-Gypsy) Ethel Merman, but the effect is odd nonetheless.