Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman (31 page)

Hassard Short directed Something for the Boys; Billy Livingstone did costumes; and Jack Cole choreographed. But it was Ethel Merman's show all the
way, even if it was the first time she'd been given the star's dressing room.
"They might very well toss-or even heave-most of the book of For the Boys
into the Charles River," wrote the Boston critics of previews there. "It
wouldn't raise a riple [sic] ... and [would still] emerge then as one of the
most successful musical shows of the season."51 It was Merman that was surefire. "An announcement that Miss Merman is to appear in a new musical
seems to be sufficient guarantee that this will be a show to see, come gasoline
rationing or higher taxes."52 In Boston, the Fieldses tightened the book
slightly to prepare for the New York opening.

Total production costs exceeded $175,000, high for Broadway at the time
and Todd's most lavish show to date. "If you're going to produce a big
musical, you've got to give the public its money's worth," he said. "When
people put down good money [in wartime] to see a show they're not interested in excuses [about the unavailability of items due to shortages] ."53 One
set, for instance, included a bomber plane coming nose-forward toward the
audience. Todd's approach to theater brokered in a new way of doing business and presaged the blockbuster mentality that took shape on Broadway after
the war and would saturate it completely by the end of the twentieth
century.

For the Boys opened January 7, 1943, at the Alvin Theatre and ran for 422
performances. Although the show didn't garnish the highest accolades, viewers solidly cheered its production values. The consensus on Porter's score was
that it was diminished but serviceable, with the usual objections raised: "As
is frequently the case, Mr. Porter is guilty again of offending good taste in his
lyrics";54 or he was exhausted or a byproduct of "wartime ambience."55 Nevertheless, Porter, even after his riding accident, was still on top. In its January issue, Time's "New Musical in Manhattan" focuses exclusively on the
composer, giving Ethel only a nod as his "Songblitzer."

The score includes an example of what has come to be known as one of
Cole's "list songs," "Hey, Good Lookin'," the kind of tune he'd given to musical history with "You're the Top." The list in the lyrics of "Good Lookin' "
includes an uncharacteristic reference to Ethel Merman as "the missing link
between Lily Pons and Mae West." Porter normally avoided references to his
singers in his work so as to discourage competition among them, but that obviously didn't stop him here-or earlier, when he declared that Ethel Merman was the singer he preferred to write for.

It was "By the Mississinewa," though, that was the show's hit, and it has
gone down in Merman folklore for behind-the-scenes reasons. A second-act
comic number, Ethel performs it in American Indian costume (more ethnic
drag for laughs) in duet with Laurence, similarly attired. Its place in the Book
of Merm came from a widely reported spat between the two. Initially, Ethel
and Paula got along beautifully, but problems arose. "I had found some business swinging my braids that got a laugh," said Ethel. "The first thing I knew,
Paula was swinging her braids. Then one night I accidentally lost a moccasin.
It fell off and went into the orchestra pit. That got a yak and I kept the business in. Then Paula began losing her moccasins."56 Laurence claimed that
Merman was peeved about the response that she was getting, and, although
Merman later denied having gotten her fired, she registered a complaint
about the young player, and the producers took it seriously. It was crucial for
the show's health to keep its star happy. And so Laurence left to take a role
in One Touch of Venus.

As with Panama Hattie, Ethel depicts a woman who shows up the pretensions and hypocrisy of upper-crust society. American comedy of the 1930s
and early '40s was filled with this sort of thing, and it remains a comic staple
today. It is equally a trademark of Merman's own work and style. Something for the Boys also showcased Ethel's skill with the quick retort and her ability
to deliver lines loaded with double entendre.

SOLDIER [LOOKING AT HER LEGS : Boy, look at those drumsticks.

MERMAN: How would you like a kick in the teeth from one of those
drumsticks?

s: How do you like that? And this is the womanhood I'm fighting to protect?

M: This is the womanhood I'm fighting to protect!

Reviewers continued to praise Ethel's comedic delivery as well as her vocal
power. The show's nuttiness ensured that it would not be taken too seriously,
and there were enough references to the war to shield it from critical arrows:
it was lighthearted but not actually disrespectful; improbable, yes, but goodhearted and easy to follow. That formula, topped by Merman's energetic performance, provided another way to protect musicals like this from critique
in a country at war and a musical theater tradition in transition. If the show's
makers kept their sights low, they could offer theatergoers and critics a combination of zany fantasy and relief over political matters. Only Porter's lyrics
attracted accusations of being inappropriate, too sexually overt or "blue."

Porter had five hit shows during World War II, and Ethel Merman was in
three of them: DuBarry Was a Lady, Panama Hattie, and Something for the
Boys. (The others were Lets Face It, the Danny Kaye vehicle, and Mexican
Hayride, with June Havoc, the very talented sister of Gypsy Rose Lee.) When
most people think about patriotic American composers, Irving Berlin comes
to mind before Porter. And while Porter had his more personal obsessions
about the "boys in uniform," he was happy to lend his work to the needs of
a country at war. Audiences, moreover, flocked to his work at this time every
bit as much as they had during the Depression. Biographer William McBrien
describes Porter's "patriotism [to be] mixed with the epicureanism and wit
that audiences continue to find so entertaining."57 (Noel Coward's "Don't
Let's Be Beastly to the Germans" offers another example.) Rather than reflecting social conditions overtly (as wartime songs that are about war do),
some of pop culture's most effective work acknowledges such matters while
not bowing down to them.

"Merman for the Boys" ran countless review titles. Not only did they aptly
describe Ethel's activities to support the troops; they also shed light on her
popularity with young male fans and, particularly, urban gay men. While it
may seem easy to "queer" this commentary from today's perspective, it's important to acknowledge that it would have been read this way even at the time; the term gay, for instance, already had homosexual connotations, even
beyond gay communities. (Walter Winchell, for instance, punningly called
Red, Hot and Blue! "risgay.")58 And other terms, from queer to violet or lavender, circulated widely, particularly in cities like New York and San Francisco
with their vibrant gay cultures. Popular gay icons were well established, from
individual stars (Mae West, Ethel Merman, Noel Coward) to fantasy figures
of social groups ("men in uniform"), and all of this could be evident in the
straightest of shows. As one gay historian writes of Irving Berlin's This Is the
Army, for instance, it "did much to promote the wartime image ofArmy and
Navy drag performers as normal, masculine, combat-ready soldiers.... But
a gay spectator or actor ... could read these same drag performances for their
more implicit homosexual meanings."59 Ethel's popularity with gay men is
evident in numerous articles of the time, again, even those culled from mainstream sources. In 1935, she was photographed in the dressing room of a drag
queen from Columbia University, and there was the reviewer who wrote that
"from 30-110, the male gender is mostly nuts about her," maintaining that
the male fans of Ethel and Mae West liked them for "different reasons; Ethel
hasn't any of Mae West's direct and open appeal to the purely physical desires
of men."60

Michael Todd's genius as a producer had a chance to shine during the run
of Something for the Boys. One evening, when Ethel was not able to perform,
ill with laryngitis, Todd wanted to avoid canceling the show but was aware
that using her understudy (Betty Garrett) might cause a mass exodus. So he

had leading man Bill Johnson come out in his U.S. Army uniform/costume
right before the curtain and read a speech that said Merman was unfortunately
ill; after the groans faded, he went on, "There's a little girl who has been waiting in the wings since the show opened.... Tonight that little girl, Betty Garrett, will have her chance. Perhaps you'll see a new star find her place in the
Broadway galaxy." Then, before anyone could leave, Todd had the orchestra
play "The Star-Spangled Banner," upon which (especially it being wartime)
everyone stood at attention. Practically on the final note he ran up the curtain.
Anyone heel enough to thwart the man in uniform announcing the Cinderella
understudy story, and willing to barrel up the aisle during the national
anthem-well, he was welcome to his refund.61

Over the course of the show, Ethel received countless personal accolades
and sweet notes. During previews, producer Todd sent his star a gift, "To
Miss Show Business-the best performer and the best trouper of my time. I
love you. Mike Todd." (Ever the secretary, Ethel writes "opening in Boston, December i8, 1942.") Cole sent his usual gifts with cards, lovingly signed in
his inky scrawl. But the best message Ethel received during the entire run was
a telegram on opening night: "Dear Mommy I am thinking of you tonight
and wish you every success Grandma and Grandpa send their love told me
you would be a sensation in your new show Love and Lots of Kisses Your
Loving daughter Ethel." Because, after Hattie and before For the Boys, Merman was married for the second time and had become a mother for the first.

I met her in Dinty Moore's. I was in there having dinner with a guy and I ran
into Walter Young, an associate publisher of the journal American.... Walter
and his wife, Ella, and some other people, very close friends of Ethel's ... invited me to join them; they said they were waiting for her. I had never seen her
before, even on the stage.

So recalls Robert Daniels Levitt, Ethel's second husband, about that night in
April 1940. There was a terrible, late-season snowstorm that evening, and in
general, the night was not filled with romance and roses. Levitt remembered
keeping quiet in the company of Miss Merman and Young, his business associate. It didn't help that Ethel's friends were there and that everyone seemed
to know the big star except him.

We went to some nightclub somewhere, and as I recall it, she had to go home
early because she had a matinee the next day. And Young asked me to take her
home ... it was a snow storm. We got to her house and we came to get out of
the car ... and there was a great big pile of snow. So I thought, this is friendship, not love, and made her plow through the snow herself.'

Bob Levitt was the promotion director of the journal American, the
Hearst-owned paper, at which he also worked as a staff writer-he had a column called "Cabbage and Kings." Levitt would go on to be associate publisher of the journal-American Weekly and then its publisher. When he met
Ethel, Levitt was in his early thirties, two years younger than she, and he was
graced with a quick wit with sardonic edges. Bob Levitt came from a New
York family that produced a number of successful financiers: his brother,
Arthur Levitt, was a four-time state comptroller of New York, and his son Arthur Jr. (b. 1930 was appointed chairman of the SEC in 1993 under President Clinton, a position he held until zoo,. Bob graduated from Rollins College, in Florida, in the class of 1931. The family, according to Bob Jr., was not
especially close-his father had had a break with brother Arthur-and he
does not recall interacting with the Levitts while growing up.