Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman (68 page)

What Gypsy finally reveals is the emergence of Ethel as a more malleable
icon than ever before, something that would only intensify in the remaining
two decades of her life. "When Merman made her entrance as Dolly Levi [on
Broadway in 1970], the ovation was thunderous, not only from homosexuals who saw her as a kind of superwoman, but from Broadway theater fans who considered her an icon. Predictably, their outpourings irritated the critics." This discussion, from biographer Bob Thomas, then goes on to quote
Walter Kerr about the same audience: "They stand up and scream on the first
number, they stand up and scream louder on the second and by the time she
gets to the `Hello Dolly!' number they don't bother to sit down between
notes. I'd like to make a deal with them. Equal time for Miss Merman."148
Merman had moved into the rich emotional lives of people's fantasies; all of
her fans wanted to own her, to lay claim to "their" Ethel, their personal and
collective icon. Ethel Merman was now being received with many of the same
complex, competing, and intense reactions as Madame Rose.

On October 27, 1963, Ethel appeared on the TV quiz show What's My Line?
as its mystery guest, whose identity panelists Dorothy Kilgallen, Bennett
Cerf, Allen Ludden, and Arlene Francis, sporting his-and-her blinders, tried
to ascertain through a series of yes/no questions. To disguise the famous
voice, Ethel lowered it and answered questions with husky, monosyllabic ouis
or nons. The panelists didn't understand that the guest wasn't male until
Ludden asked the question outright, and Merman, with her shoulders rising
up to her ears and eyes widening in feigned shock, boomed a "non!" with girlish delight. When friend Kilgallen asked with a grin, "Are you in the upcoming Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World?" the panelists zeroed in and quickly
named her.

Such was the buzz on the movie. Ethel was telling reporters, "I've got no
regrets about not doing Gypsy. If I'd had to make the film, I wouldn't have
been free to do A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," and she wasn't the only one
talking it up.' United Artists was boasting it would be "the biggest grossing
film ever,"' the biggest, best comedy ever made. It was the first time that
Stanley Kramer, the independent producer known for message pictures like
Inherit the Wind and judgment at Nuremberg, ventured into comedy, and he
was determined to do it with gusto. Kramer stuffed the picture with rambunctious physical comedy, which was pay dirt for Universal executives, because the less dialogue in a film, the greater its chance for success abroad.

The huge, star-studded cast included, among others, Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner (who also cowrote), Jonathan Winters, Phil
Silvers, Terry-Thomas, Dick Shawn, Mickey Rooney, and Buddy Hackett,
with cameos from Jack Benny, Buster Keaton, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson,
Jim Backus, Edward Everett Horton, and Jimmy Durante. So filled with
comic talent was it that comedians who were not asked to take part felt left out; Groucho Marx said that since the role he'd been promised in It's a Mad,
Mad, Mad, Mad World went to Ethel, he planned on taking her role in the
upcoming tour of Gypsy.3

The story is simple. After a road accident, Durante lies on a hillside, mortally
wounded. Before literally kicking a bucket (what do you expect from an old
vaudevillian?), his last words impel a group of greedy travelers to race to uncover
a buried treasure. The movie is largely a series of madcap antics with characters
trying to outwit or sabotage one another in order to be the first to find the loot,
but the second they do, cop Spencer Tracy swoops in, confiscating the treasure
so that he can retire early from the force. Another chaotic chase ensues, now with
the travelers pursuing him. In the process, the money flies off to the winds, chaos
ensues, and nearly everybody lands in the hospital, groaning in traction.

Ethel played the "distastefully shrewish mother-in-law" of Milton Berle,
who was actually a mere seven months younger than she.4 Merman was a
good sport about the role, cracking jokes with the same big heart she had
when she was the butt of them. Describing her work to the press, she said,

It is also the first time I ever played a role 50% bottom-side up. There was
nothing in the script about this southern exposure. I got my first inkling when
I reported for work and found little interest in my facial makeup but great concern about fitting me for thigh-length drawers. I began to understand after
shooting started and I was:

i. Tossed into a top-down convertible and left standing on my head;

2. Picked up by the feet by Berle and Terry-Thomas and shaken like a pair
of dice until a key they were seeking fell from the hiding place in my
dress-front;

3. Pulled feet first, head down, from a tow truck by Jonathan Winters;

4. Skidded on a banana peel in a jail hospital corridor and landed head down,
feet up;

5. Tossed into a trash can head first, legs up, by Spencer Tracy.

This is the way you become a great dramatic actress, that fellow (Kramer) said.5

The working title was Something a Little Less Serious. Kramer began by
shooting scenes that didn't require the featured players, such as stunts, long
shots, and masters, bringing the stars to the California desert only after preliminary shooting was done. Cast members said that with all the footage he'd
filmed, Kramer had almost a complete picture on his hands before they ever
arrived and remarked how impressively sequenced, paced, and designed it was. Shooting with the featured players, however, was grueling during the hot
months between April and December 1962, when desert temperatures were
often upward of a hundred degrees.

Kramer shot in Cinerama, Universal's widescreen format, which enabled
the picture to be projected by one projector, replacing the previous threeprojector system with panels. The new system, he said, would save exhibitors
and producers money, even though the up-front cost was considerable: theaters had to be modified, their screens curved. In anticipation of the success
of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, a "specially built geodesic dome theater for Cinerama attractions" went up on Sunset Boulevard, and in New
York the Stanley Warner Theatre was refurbished on Broadway.

Kramer spared no expense promoting the picture, mounting a recordbreaking, 21o-foot billboard that covered nearly a full block on Sunset Boulevard, and United Artists spent over four hundred thousand dollars to bring
in 250 foreign correspondents for a five-day visit for the premiere.' Its entire
budget was six and a half million dollars-an enormous amount.

On the last day of filming, Ethel, following a tradition she had always kept
on Broadway, gave jewelry to crew members, and to celebrate the wrap, Milton Berle, Phil Silvers, and their wives hosted a huge party in September at
the Beverly Hills Hotel, with Ethel as the guest of honor. (Ethel kept the invitation and typed up a report of the food that was served.)? All of the stars
from the film were there, in addition to Warren Beatty, Natalie Wood,
Sammy Cahn, Gladys Cooper, Fred DeCordova, Buster Edens, James
Garner, Gene Kelly, Walter Lang, Vincente Minnelli, Mitzi Gaynor, Cyd
Charisse, and many others. The hotel's patio, decorated to resemble an oversized dressing room door, featured "a giant enlargement of the still picture of
the guest of honor's backside after being dumped in a trash can by Spencer."
Under the photo was the caption: "The First Lady of Broadway-Merman
Flops." Ethel roared.'

In spite of its up-to-date technology and high-end promotion, It's a Mad,
Mad, Mad, Mad World was at heart quite old-fashioned, "a throwback to the
wild, wacky and wondrous time of the silent screen comedy, a kind of Keystone
Kop Kaper with modern conveniences."9 Kramer said he intended the picture
as an homage to silent film comedy, and Ethel, for her part, described it as being
"like one of the old Marx Brothers pictures."" Many of its characters were built
on shopworn figures, such as the "repulsive old battle-ax" mother-in-law and
her son (Dick Shawn), a newer cliche, the California "beatnik."11

The picture premiered at a whopping 19o minutes, opening to great fanfare in Los Angeles on November 7, 1963.12 Although It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World was ultimately not the earthshaking hit Kramer was hoping for,
it did well and remained a cultural reference point through much of the '6os
and, after that, was shown frequently on late-night television for decades.

Ethel had a blast making the movie, delighted to be in the company of so
many skilled comedians and to be given the opportunity to appear in such a
high-profile project. It gave her another chance of trying her hand at new
things and reinventing herself. And after It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,
Dick Shawn and Milton Berle joined Mitzi Gaynor, Eddie Cantor, Johnnie
Ray, and others in calling Ethel "Mom." Berle sent a note signed "your almost loving illegitimate son, Berle";13 Shawn shouted, "That's my mother!"
seeing Merman later at a nightclub. After Gypsy, it seemed her "momifica-
tion" was never going to unravel, and by all accounts, she loved it.

Off-camera Merman was as much of a practical joker as any of the movie's
comic stars, and she used a still from the movie for her Christmas cards that
year. She was upside down, stuck in a trash can in a Long Beach alley. Friends
loved it. Wrote Stanley Kramer,

... Your Christmas card was a panic.

"Gypsy" as a movie, is a disaster. Miss Russell flounders around like a gym
teacher. You would have been so great. I suspect they won't make a penny on
the film. I did think Betty Bruce gave the picture its only bright moment.
Mervyn's direction was calamitous.... I lunched with Roger Edens yesterday ... and we spoke fondly of you. All my love for my favorite star, S.14

One ofA Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World's running gags involved the heavy
handbag Ethel carried and frequently used as a weapon, primarily against
son-in-law Berle. One day, she filled the purse with some of her heavy jewelry and swung it into Berle as the script required, but with an unexpectedly
big punch. For years, when they ran into each other, Ethel inquired about the
bump on Berle's head.

Bob Levitt recalls that it was Jonathan Winters's comedy that really tickled his mother. Winters did impromptu routines in the cast trailer between
takes, leaving the cast in stitches and Ethel raving about his work. Berle, for
his part, was a bit of a ham who made a point of lingering in shots to squeeze
in extra moments of screen time. Kramer seemed to relish challenging the
rather sizable ego of "Mr. Television" and chuckled that "Ethel Merman was
a powerful woman, a worthy antagonist for Berle. It was the Big Mouth
against the Big Ego. And to see Berle henpecked by his mother-in-law was a pleasure I never ceased to enjoy. Merman managed to hold her own and then
some, not only with Berle but with the others as well, despite the fact that
her role subjected her to endless indignities ... she never complained about
the way the script or her fellow actors treated her."15