Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman (56 page)

While his mother was working on the film, Bobby was often on the No
Business set or, more frequently, playing on the studio's Prince Valiant set, replete with an old castle, where he enjoyed brandishing his cherished sword
about. But another place on the Fox lot left memories infused with the realities of an adult world. The studio's barbershop was where men gathered,
watched TV, chatted, and hung out. This was all happening in a period Lillian Hellman later immortalized as "scoundrel time," during which Senator
Joseph McCarthy was hunting down Communists in Hollywood, the military, and finally, the U.S. Congress. Levitt recalls that whenever the HUAC
proceedings appeared on the black-and-white screen in that barbershop, the room would go deadly quiet. "I was too young to know what was going on,
but I sensed a chill in the air that was palpable."44

The film brought out a cool competitiveness between Merman and Monroe behind and in front of the cameras. Merman's scrupulous attention to
billing had been in place before Monroe came onboard, but once she was
signed, Merman's vigilance was sharpened by the competition Monroe
posed; audiences were crazy for the blond bombshell, and everybody knew
it, including Ethel's friends. When There's No Business Like Show Business
was in release, a friend jokingly sent Ethel a snapshot of a billboard ad for it
in Madrid, where Monroe's large face was dead center; Merman's, but one
of the floating satellites off to her side. Stateside, Ethel's attorneys stayed on
high alert, looking for breaches of contract; in one ad, they complained,
"The name of Marilyn Monroe precedes the name of Ethel Merman," and
Berlin's font is bigger than hers, registering their protest to the studio.45

"Heat Wave"

Merman and Monroe's onstage antagonism was propelled by several plot
contrivances, which had Molly "losing" her son to Vicky and also had Merman losing her big act, "Heat Wave," to Monroe. That number is what best
encapsulates the gulf between the two divas.

Sol Siegel boasted that "Heat Wave" was the "hottest thing that Berlin has
written in exotic music." Initially Siegel wanted to use it in a dance sequence
with Tim, O'Connor's character, and in the first draft continuity, Tim was
to perform it with Gaynor's character, but no sooner had Siegel proposed
O'Connor than he took him off. "Let Merman do `Heat Wave,' which is a
perfect song for her."46 Indeed it was, as people had noted with her performance of it in Alexander's Ragtime Band fifteen years earlier.

In There's No Business Like Show Business, "Heat Wave" was still supposed
to be her number, a chance for Molly to solo in the family act. When the
Donahues are booked at the Tropical Room in a Florida nightclub, Molly
hums the song while unpacking what the script calls her "brilliantly colored
Cuban costume" and taking a couple of spirited rumba steps with the dress
as her partner. 47 (Tim quips: "If the number doesn't go, we can always eat the
act.") We hear "Heat Wave" from a second source in the background, and as
Tim leaves, we learn quickly that the band playing the number was rehears ing it not for the Donahues but for Vicky, who is rehearsing with them in the
room. Alarmed, Tim tells her that that's his family's big number, and she
pouts, "But Heat Wave's my big number too, I have boys working for me and
everything. [sullen, softer] But of course, you're the headliner." And so Tim
gives it to Vicky/Marilyn.

Siegel's remarks about the exoticism of "Heat Wave" are hardly confined
to the song. Before we even hear it, it's aligned with the Tropical Room, with
colorful, edible costumes, and the like. And in her rendition of it, Marilyn,
who may have been the whitest and blondest bombshell ever, carries on as if
she were tropical heat itself. Overall, the sensuality here is painted in wild, almost comic ethnic strokes. Monroe performs on a darkened set that's illuminated by hot pink and red colors, and several abstract forms suggest burning tree trunks in a steamy, primitive environment that seems to be partly in
flames. Vicky/Marilyn arrives onstage in a Flintstone-like vehicle carried by
four shirtless, sweating men of color. When the Angle, goddess steps out, she
calls out, "Pablo, Chico," before launching into the number.

Her costume is pure sex: a two-piece outfit consisting of a black bra and a ruffled black, white, and hot pink skirt, which is split up the middle to expose the
full length of Monroe's legs, much like a two-piece sun or bathing suit with skirt
panels attached. She is also wearing a big tropical hat and large droop earrings.

Said Merman later of the choreography, "Alton had had her whole number laid out.... he had ... four guys slappin' the tom-toms for Marilyn, but
she didn't like it.... she `wanted more movement in it.' " And so in came
Jack Cole, who knew how to mix exotic styles and jazzy, sensual movement.

Storywise, Alton didn't want her dancing to be that broad.... if her dancing
got a little too sexy with the bumps and grinds the audience would think (and
it would be natural for Dan and me as Donald's parent to think it too), This
is not thegirl for our boy. After all, Dan and Donald and I were supposed to be
a real, down-to-earth, good American vaudeville family, so for the picture's
sake Alton didn't want her dance to be too sultry. But Marilyn wanted it the
other way, and at that point the studio was doing its goldarnedest to keep her
happy. Oh well48

Merman is not off the mark. Cole's erotic, jazz choreography makes the
number seem to emerge from a completely different world from the rest of
the picture.

Monroe's "Heat Wave" retains and exaggerates the calypso rhythms the song
always had, highlighting them through conga drums marking the beat. The song's performance history had always given it additional "Caribbean" overtones, starting with Ethel Waters, who was outfitted in bright "island" colors.
But she sang the song without any attempt to exoticize it, and her voice-with
its putatively "Anglo" enunciation-helped strip the number of the cliches of
color. Fast-forward to the Ethel Merman version in Alexander's Ragtime Band,
a performance that seemed to rise only then to efface any Caribbean or AfricanAmerican component of the song. In There's No Business Like Show Business,
however, "Heat Wave" morphs into something new altogether. In contrast to
the earlier versions, Monroe sings in the first person, referring to "I," not "she,"
as the woman who started a heat wave, as if Marilyn were singing about the effects of her own star power. The song was made all the hotter when, astonishingly, the censors allowed Berlin to restore the "seat waving" line (from the 1933
version), rather than substituting "feet waving," as he'd had to do in 1938. Fox
hired Hal Schaefer on special assignment to arrange (he also did "Lazy" and
"After You Get What You WantYou Don't Want It" for Marilyn), and he slowed
the tempo of "Heat Wave" considerably, transforming it into a steamy jazz number that was most unlike the upbeat swing rendition Merman performed.

Gone also is the playfulness Ethels Merman and Waters brought to the
piece. The focus is strictly sensual and placed squarely on the singer's bodysomething that a pronoun change alone wouldn't accomplish. Monroe
throws her entire body, pelvis most conspicuously, to accentuate rhythmic
breaks, gyrating at her waist left to right, back and froth. At one point she
bumps and grinds against a pillar, and at another, when she coos that the heat
wave comes from the "deep south," she pulls up her split skirt to uncover her
crotch. The performance turns a lightly suggestive and comic song about the
weather into a steamy discourse about her own body.

"You haven't heard `Heat Wave,' " wrote Hedda Hopper, "until you watch
Marilyn sing it.... I counted 52 people on the set of There's No Business Like
Show Business watching her rehearse her `Heat Wave' number. Some were on
business, but most of the visitors come to ogle Marilyn." 49 The audience
within the film seems to invite that very reaction. While Vicky performs, the
Donahues observe from the wings. A fuming Molly watches as her husband
and son are enjoying it, a bit too much:

"Heat Wave" would be the one scene that reviewers always mentioned, the
one that often made or broke personal responses to There's No Business Like
Show Business, especially for those coming into it with little knowledge about
Merman, Broadway, or vaudeville. Critics were rather amazed by Monroe's
openly seductive performance-the New York Herald Tribune called her "animated cheesecake";50 others deemed it obscene. No one commented on its
racism.

In the story line, Molly's grudge intensifies against Vicky after "Heat Wave."
In one scene, Molly takes a phone call from Vicky in a way described in the
script as "an iceberg is a lot warmer than her tone of voice."51 Throughout
the picture, Molly is deeply suspicious of Vicky's interest in her son. After
Tim has run off and Katy puts the two women in the same dressing room for
a show, a press photographer says, "I think a picture of you [together] at your
dressing room tables would be [significant pause] noteworthy." Molly responds, "Wouldn't it be more newsworthy if we pulled each other's hair out?"
perhaps a line that gave Ethel secret pleasure.

Given the trouble Ethel had had being photographed with Shirley Temple
fifteen years earlier, how could she have enjoyed sharing the screen with Marilyn Monroe, a woman who was whipping an entire nation into a frenzy? It
was not that Merman couldn't handle young beauties-consider her rapport
with Gaynor-but given her instincts of self-preservation and her vigilance
about professional behavior, it would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible, for her to enjoy her experience with Monroe. Over half a century
later, the rivalry has become interesting in another way, as two divas who have
become important icons for men all over the world, straight and gay.

Mitzi and The Merm

If Merman had trouble with Monroe, her relationship with Gaynor was terrific. Both were unpretentious women with plenty of talent and spirit. Gaynor
recalls meeting Ethel for the first time: "She walked into the room ... and
proceeded to tell me the dirtiest story I ever heard.... I fell on the floor, and
we became fast friends."52 Merm would call her "Mitzallah," playing a faux
Jewish mother. Their on-screen affection is evident in their cross-dressed duo,
"A Sailor's Not a Sailor." (Merm gets the butch sideburns and tattoos; Mitzi
is the femme.) Their friendship lasted over twenty years, documented in
Merman's scrapbooks through dozens of affectionate notes and telegrams,
many addressed to her as "Mom." Mitzi hosted dozens of parties for "Mom" whenever Ethel came to Hollywood, and Ethel in turn sent telegrams congratulating Mitzi on her own shows and various successes.

Marilyn Monroe's odd behavior only fortified Ethel and Mitzi's bond.
"Ethel and I would go to lunch and dish dirt about everybody," said Gaynor.
"We'd cut everybody up and put'em back together again." "One day," writes
an interviewer, "Mitzi, a gifted mimic, couldn't resist doing an impression of
Marilyn Monroe, chest thrust forward and mouth open, as she walked into
the studio commissary. Ethel Merman then did an impression of Mitzi doing
an impression of Marilyn."53 Forty years later, Gaynor reprised her impression for A&E's biography of Merman, amusingly mimicking Monroe's
breathy, soft, feminine voice and joking about her behavior. Apparently Marilyn would hide in her dressing room or go off the set, and when she finally
returned, she'd say, "'And I was so confused,' and she was all dewy eyed....
and Ethel just looked at me, as if to say, `What was this routine?!"154