Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman (11 page)

One of the ways that Broadway shows of the time generated publicity was
through photo-comic strips that ran in newspapers. Stars were photographed,
and their faces were placed in animated situations. Typically two or three actors would appear chatting, and the strip would culminate in a hokey gag.
Olive Brady (Tess Parker in Girl Crazy) and Merman were featured in one:

As by-the-numbers as the gag is, the press was already at work on Ethel's
image: a woman for whom romance was something to joke about; marriage,
a goofy tough-luck story. That aspect of Merman's persona would be fed by
future roles and fortified toward the end of her real life, when, after four failed
marriages, she told interviewers she was better off single and was definitely
not on the market, laughing it off with, "What, with my track record?" That
casualness didn't reflect Ethel's actual feelings about marriage or her respect
for it as an institution, but even the 1930s comic shows the production of the
Merman public persona-ironically, at a point when Ethel was still very
much an eligible bachelorette.

Ethel was actively enjoying her new social life. She enjoyed the company
of successful New York businessmen, wisely eschewing men in show business.
To the press Ethel was discreet and deliberately sketchy about her romantic
entanglements, although some of them, such as the one with Stork Club proprietor Sherman Billingsley, soon became a well-known secret. For now,
though, Ethel was playing the field, simply enjoying the new world with men
newly available to her.

Merman's career began in an era when stars could, in a sense, emerge organically, free of prefabrication and hype. This is not to say, however, that the
media were anything but fully involved in transforming the young woman
into a certain type of woman, a certain type of star. We read over and over
that Ethel wanted to be a singer from the get-go (which is true) but never
dreamed of becoming a Broadway musical star (probably also true). But from the start, there was already a blurry boundary between Merman and the
media. A year after her big break in Girl Crazy, Merman told an interviewer,
in a characteristic mix of pride, modesty, and frankness:

The more I talk to stage stars about their early beginnings the more I realize
how lucky I have been. Perhaps the fight to get on top eluded me because I
had no burning ambition for the stage. I did feel that I would love to loll in
the spotlight of stage popularity, but I made no definite move for a stage career. As a matter of fact, I did not consider myself possessed of the necessary
qualifications for success and, therefore, kept from looking for a theatrical engagement. I imagine there must be any number of girls like myself who can
sing or dance or act, but somehow they haven't the courage to forsake what
they're doing for a try at the stage. And, in a way, they cannot be blamed. I
heard so much of the hardships of the theatre that I was honestly scared off 34

As Mermanesque as this might appear, the heavy hand of an editor is in evidence. What high school kid tosses out lines such as "forsake what they're
doing" or "I did not consider myself possessed of the necessary qualifications
for success and, therefore, kept from looking for a theatrical engagement"?
The revised speech shows that the press was casting Ethel in the mold of a
well-raised young lady, one with properly reined-in ambitions.

Equally appropriate to the image the media was cultivating was Ethel's enthusiasm for the leading female entertainers of the day, especially singers.
Today, of course, it's hard to find an entertainer in North America who doesn't
report having been starstruck as a child or having entertained fantasies of becoming one herself, whatever her origins. But when Ethel was coming into her
own, the machinery of the star system was relatively unestablished, and her
open admission to being both fan and prospective star was nowhere near
as commonplace as it is now. Indeed, Ethel's remarks seem closer to what
working-class women would admit to gossiping about around the water
cooler; few successful grandes dames of theater or opera would publicly announce such enthusiasm for other entertainers and potential competitors.

George White's Scandals of,-p31

During the 19zos, audiences had flocked to revues, especially those put on by
leading impresarios Florenz Ziegfeld, Earl Carroll, and George White. White
had been producing his huge Scandals revue on Broadway almost every year since 1920 (he skipped 1930). By the early '30s, the heyday of the revue had
run its course, but for some reason, during the 1931-32 season, all three of the
top producers released shows-and George White's Scandals of 1931 was one
of two biggest he'd ever put on.35

Knowing that Merman would give the show the adrenaline it needed,
White paid a reported twenty-five thousand dollars to buy her out from her
contract with Aarons and Freedley, and in August, she signed up and joined
the Scandals, already in tryouts in Newark. Scandals opened on September 14,
1931, at the Apollo Theatre, at 219 West 42nd Street. Lew Brown and Ray
Henderson wrote the songs (partner DeSylva had recently left for Hollywood). Ethel introduced the show's hit, "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries," a
song that offered a palliative to Depression-era America. Act i began with
"The Marvelous Empire State," a skit with Ray Bolger (the "extraordinary
toe and heel clown") and "The Most Beautiful Show Girls on the Stage";36
it closed with Everett Marshall performing "That's Why Darkies Were Born"
in blackface. This was not a typical closing number or a typical blackface.
Brown's lyrics showed both compassion and complacency regarding the
racism that forced a people to "laugh at trouble" and "be contented with any
old thing." It was a sign of a subtle shift. Though Broadway was still a largely
segregated, white-dominated affair at the time, that same season saw all-black
shows such as Fast and Furious and Singin'the Blues opening, and two years
later, Ethel Waters would be performing as the only black headliner in Irving Berlin's revue As Thousands Cheer, singing the plaintive "Suppertime," a
story of a woman preparing dinner knowing that her husband, a lynching
victim, will not be returning home for it.

Merman's other numbers in Scandals included "Ladies and Gentlemen,
That's Love" and "My Song" in a duet with "Vagabond Lover" Rudy Vallee,
the radio and club star making his Broadway debut. (Writing in openly gay
codes, critic Brooks Atkinson said that the appearance transformed Vallee
"from a lavender myth to a likable reality.")37 Lavender or not, Merman later
couldn't recall even shaking hands with her big costar. Al Goodman conducted, and every night Ethel sang the show's penultimate number, and the
finale, "The Wonder Bar," with the entire company.

For the Scandals, reviews were good, and for Merman, they were remarkable. The New Yorker wrote, "There is nothing startling about [the show],
but, while it is going on, you get the feeling of having a good time, which is,
I suppose, practically the same thing as having a good time.... [Merman is
there] with a new set of gestures and a voice which excites without embar-
rassing."38 "Ethel Merman has been called in to croon things in her lusty way, whereby she seems to take all Newark and Nebraska into her confidence in
one fell whoop. '139

A New Jersey man who had seen the show sent Ethel a letter: "I saw 'Scandals' last Monday night and I applauded your singing so energetically and
with such enthusiasm that when I stopped I discovered that my wrist watch
had also stopped. Since it was you that made me applaud so much, thereby
causing my watch to go out of order, I am looking to you for a new one. Its
value is $iz and I thank you in advance."40 There's no indication how Ethel
responded.

Walter Winchell reckoned that in a twenty-two-month career, the young
singing star had taken in a hundred thousand dollars-an impressive figure,
but then Winchell always obsessed over salaries." Although Ethel's going rate
was half of Ruth Etting's, the figures are nonetheless staggering, given that
this was taking place in a city reeling from the Depression. (Just seven
months before the Scandals of r93z opened, the sixty-branch Bank of the
United States tanked, affecting four hundred thousand depositors. With over
a third of New York's residents affected, it became the worst bank failure in
American history.)