Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman (57 page)

Viewers in the know can appreciate There's No Business Like Show Business's
many in-jokes and references concerning most of the players. Richard Eastham, who portrays Vicky's manager and producer, replaced Paul Lukas as
Merman's costar in Broadway's Call Me Madam. Donald O'Connor plays a
character with a drinking problem and would himself come out later as an
alcoholic; Mitzi Gaynor is the happily married young bride on- and offscreen; Johnnie Ray's deeply held religious views off-screen are reflected in his
character's turn to the church (which can be read as an escape from heterosexuality as well); Geoffrey Miles, the designer with whom Vicky argues, is a
transparent reference to Miles White; and Dan Dailey, like his character
Terry, was a veteran hoofer (he'd had a small role in Stars in Your Eyes as the
show-within-a-show's "fifth assistant director"). Molly's character borrows
liberally from Merman's established persona and even from her family history. At one point, Molly asks her family, "Do you know who was in the audience tonight?-Flo! ... No, not Flo Ziegfeld, Flo Zimmermann, my
cousin from Passaic!"

A Wrap

Ethel's contract for the picture expired on August 7, 1954, but after some haggling was extended to the z7th. To allow for inevitable retakes, recordings,
and re-recordings, it had to be extended further, to the 31st, landing the star an extra twenty thousand dollars in the process. The battles between Ethel's
lawyers and the studios regarding other additional work started growing
nasty. After filing a complaint, producer Siegel wrote Lew Schreiber, "We
brought Miss Ethel Merman in long before shooting time for very necessary
preparation," and spent thirty thousand dollars "testing Miss Ethel Merman
for gowns, costumes and the remedying of facial characteristics. It is an ironic
comment that we were paying her her usual weekly salary and at the same
time spending a fortune trying to enhance her attractiveness." (That Siegel
had courted Merman in personal letters at the time, asking her to send pictures as they explored ideas for outfits brings a certain cruelty to the proceedings.) Hollywood seemed continually unashamed when it came to challenging Merman's looks.

Ethel was, as always, enthusiastic about the project and happy to talk
about it, making special ado of the last scene, in which she and her costars
descend a gigantic staircase at the Hippodrome. Hidden behind the wideand steep, she reminds you-staircase was a ladder they had to climb first in
order to move down the stairs. Merman, wearing a scalloped white gown that
weighed "fifteen or twenty pounds," told the press that there were some
"thirty" rehearsals and retakes, and she good-naturedly opined about her
"jaggy icicle" dresses that poked her whenever she sat down, clearly relishing
such "complaints" about her glamorous wardrobe.55

The film's six-million-dollar budget was three times that of Alexander's
Ragtime Band and was substantial enough to become part of its advertising
campaign, announced, for instance, in the movie's trailer. In a decade of big
spectacle movies, There's No Business Like Show Business fit right in. Predictable jokes were made: Gaynor described Merman's walk: "Like Marilyn
Monroe's, without the widescreen." Ethel said after a screen test, "Turns out
I was three dimensional." (She preferred Cinemascope, she said, since the
wider frame gave her more room to move around, and she'd always been frustrated by Hollywood's tight chalk lines.) 5' Ethel nursed big hopes for the big
picture.

Unfortunately, Merman had no way of knowing what was going on behind her back, even before cameras had begun rolling. There was Zanuck's
rather amazing assertion that she had had a costarring role in Call Me
Madam. And her agent, George Rosenberg, didn't take long to realize that
Zanuck and Fox had no plans to meet some of her demands when she was
finishing up the picture and establishing the terms for the next, unidentified
film in her contract. There was a question about expenses Merman would
incur between There's No Business Like Show Business and the next one; when Ethel insisted on ten thousand dollars, Fox was ready to walk. Rosenberg cut
what memos identify as a "strictly confidential deal" with the studio, fronting
five thousand dollars of his "own" money (likely fees charged to Merman) to
reach that figure.57 Merman never knew about it. Moreover, Fox's perception
of her prestige and star power continued to be vastly different from her own.
For the next project-tentatively entitled Star in the West-they were thinking of giving the role to Merman-"unless Susan Hayward" was available.58

Worse, as contracts were redrawn for There's No Business Like Show Business (due to Lang's illness, shooting delays, postproduction schedules, etc.),
Fox was hedging its bets on that second picture. By this point, they knew that
Call Me Madam was underperforming, and the studio brass was displeased
about her considerable demands for the next feature. In a letter to Frank Ferguson, Lew Schreiber wrote, "She is insisting on so many approvals ... such
as story approval, definitely agreeing that it would be made in Technicolor,
wanting a definite starting date now and a stop date, and many other approvals, that the making of the second picture would actually be in her hands.
We would have no controls and we would be committed to make the second
picture, whereas she would not be committed."59 Fox scored a considerable
coup when it was able to persuade Rosenberg only to finalize terms for There
No Business Like Show Business.

The movie premiered December 1954, in time for the holiday box office
surge. Ethel flew to Los Angeles with Bob Six, where she joined Mitzi and
Jack Bean. The four also attended the Denver premiere together; Six
quipped, "That makes four times I've seen it now." Mr. and Mrs. Six were
also invited to a private screening at a gala Christmas party hosted by the
Duke and Duchess of Windsor, also attended by Grace Kelly, Henry Ford Jr.
and his wife, and assorted ambassadors and counts, all of whom dined on
caviar, crabmeat, green turtle soup with sherry, roast pheasant, endive and
avocado salad, and crepes. (Ethel kept the menu.)

It was widely reviewed, though most were mixed, reflecting the film's
highs and lows and its strange fusion of stars and performance styles. Ethel
"socks home every number," said one East Coast paper;60 another reviewer
wrote that the best scenes were those with Merman and Dan Dailey and that
things weakened considerably whenever the younger players were involved:

It is always horrible to see or hear a human being make a public exhibition of
his weaknesses, and the agonies of watching Mr. Ray and Miss Monroe apply
themselves to song were to me almost unendurable. Both seemed to be in
agony; he, approaching God with a desperate piston-action of the jaws; she, in urgent need, perhaps, of a nice, quiet "lay-down" and a comb run through
the voice. At the risk of seeming prim, I would call There's No Business Like
Show Business a vulgar picture; suggesting to me at least an insult to intelligence, religion, music, Ethel Merman, good taste and the human soul.61

Predictably, Ethel's scrapbooks bulge with reviews, especially from West
Coast papers. Although she was the denizen of a new region working in a new
entertainment industry that was more profit-driven, institutionalized, and
industrialized than Broadway ever was, correspondence shows that the
human element was still not lacking. Telegrams stacked up from friends from
all over the country when the film opened, including the sweet "faux family"
notes: "Dear Mom, You're not only the best of Broadway you're the best of
the whole world.... Love and Kisses, Your daughter Katie."62 Back in New
York with the film, Ethel attended a special benefit screening for the Actors'
Fund at the Roxy Theatre on December it.

Ethel's evolving persona-and its relation to "Momism"-is apparent in
reviews that placed considerable weight on her role as materfamilias. Call Me
Madam was great, began one, but now with There's No Business Like Show
Business, "Miss Merman spends much of her screen time as a bereaved
mother, spurred by the old tradition that the show must go on even though
one's heart is breaking. It seems odd that someone missed the fact that Miss
Merman is more of a comedienne than an emotional actress." 6'3

Given Ethel's cultivation of her offstage image at the time as a wife and
mother, the remark suggests just how much her public did not want to see
singer Ethel Merman as a domestic figure-or even, apparently, as an emotional one. Sol Siegel seemed to have anticipated this reaction while the story
was in development: "If more [emphasis] is shifted to the role of the mother,
then we will not get Donald O'Connor to play Al or Dan Dailey to play Tim.
The whole idea that we talked about was based on this being the story of a
`family.' If it becomes just a `mother' story then I think we narrow the di-
mensions."C4 And in a review that extols the efficiency with which the film
introduces the Donahues, the Hollywood Reporter adds, "By this time, you
like them so much that you don't resent the fact that the very first line that
Ethel Merman delivers in the picture is a petulant line that chops her husband.... [She] leaps right into the role of the tart and lovable bickerer that
is to be her character throughout the picture."65 Momism, anyone?

Decca had contractually arranged to release the movie soundtrack, and,
since Decca was Berlin and Merman's label, there was no problem getting
their work. Johnnie Ray, however, had to be borrowed from Columbia, and Marilyn Monroe's voice never made it to the final recording, since no agreement was ever reached with her recording company, RCA/Victor. Zanuck
proposed replacing her with Peggy Lee but finally okayed Dolores Gray.

End of an Era

In many ways, There's No Business Like Show Business is Fox's bookend to
Alexander's Ragtime Band. Both are tributes to earlier musical eras, but
whereas Alexander's Ragtime Band shows the reinvigoration of that era,
There's No Business Like Show Business marks its passing, something apparent
even by having the grand finale occur at the Hippodrome, a building that was
now gone in reality. This was where the cinematic family enjoyed its first big
success, and now it provides the locale where the Donahues reunite as a family, but not as a show biz act. For a movie called There's No Business Like Show
Business, the ending is infused with a surprising sadness, even if it lacks real
emotional punch. In order for the Donahues to move forward, vaudeville
has to be left behind, and, by this time, the three children are moving into
different careers and futures. There will be no more "family business," something that many real family-run businesses were experiencing in the postwar boom of corporate life. American society and economics were in the
middle of a shift away from the family business model, like the Donahues',
to a system in which individuals worked for large firms owned by other organizations.

If Monroe's Vicky was a thorn in the side of Merman's Molly, she also gave
Merman a run for her money in this larger cultural arena. For There's No
Business Like Show Business self-consciously uses Ethel as a figure to symbolize old Broadway or vaudeville performances or both. She is, moreover, a star
whose magic doesn't transfer to the camera, whereas in the supremely photogenic Marilyn Monroe, the film offers the young forward-looking model
of Hollywood itself. The transfer of Molly/Merman's "Heat Wave" to
Vicky/Monroe cements that connection all the more. In all, Zanuck biographer George Custen says of both the film and its casting, "New Hollywood
has triumphed over old."66 Nearly thirty years later, when Fox released There's
No Business Like Show Business on video, it would be as part of its "Marilyn
Monroe Diamond Collection," with only Monroe depicted on the box.

For many audiences, There's No Business Like Show Business doesn't work,
even now, decades after its release. Viewers of all ages say they are unable to
sit through it, that they either love or hate one of the principals (Merman, Monroe, Johnnie Ray-performers who all elicit strong responses); many
find the story dull, corny, or overstuffed. Even for those who enjoy There's
No Business Like Show Business's numbers and performances-myself
included-the movie just does not satisfy. One reason might have something
to do with what There's No Business Like Show Business leaves behind: in many
ways, that entertainment world is more compellingly depicted than either the
movie's own story line or the characters drawn around it.

When There's No Business Like Show Business failed to do as well as the studio had expected, zoth Century-Fox chose not to pursue its option of a
follow-up picture with Merman. Ethel turned her hopes elsewhere, to TV, as
she returned to the Denver suburbs.