Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman (82 page)

Autobiography II

In 1978, Simon and Schuster published Ethel's second and final autobiography, Merman: An Autobiography. Unlike the first, this was not first serialized
in a magazine but appeared in its entirety in book form. New Yorker writer
George Eells-the biographer of Cole Porter, Hedda Hopper, and Louella
Parsons-taped a number of two-hour sessions with Ethel. Eells handled the
final transcripts very differently from Pete Martin and did little editorializing to "Mermanize" his subject. Even the most casual reading of Merman reveals less of a "tough broad," with fewer hokey colloquialisms, though still
maintaining Merman's directness and humor. "George really captured Ethel's voice," appreciates Cointreau. "Of course, all he had to do was transcribe his
interview tapes with her!"49

Much had happened in Merman's life since the first autobiography,
most notably, the divorce from Six, whom the earlier book paints as the
love of her life. It's not unreasonable that Ethel would have wanted to update and correct the public record. At this point, she was near seventy, and
Merman: An Autobiography paints a portrait of a highly successful, mature
woman looking back on a full and unusual life. There is more candor in
this tome, and although Merman seems less guarded than she did in Martin's account, the autobiography is by no means "no holds barred." Bobby's
adult life barely skims the pages; Bob Six comes off as appallingly cheap but
not violent; the Borgnine story is consigned to its blank-page prison
(which infuriated more than a few reviewers).50 Even the way she talks
about the late Bob Levitt shows some reflection, nuance, and guardedness.
Around the time of Annie Get Your Gun, she wrote, "I enjoyed my home
life as fully as the demands of my job would allow. Bob had long ago adjusted to being `Mr. Merman' and had enough inner resources to live as
comfortably as anyone could under the circumstances. Luckily, at work or
out having cocktails with newspapermen, he was regarded as a successful
and amusing fellow in his own right. I wasn't any crutch. I don't really
know, but there may have been some hidden stress."51

Like Who CouldAsk forAnythingMore? Eells's Merman leans heavily on
the scrapbooks for details concerning the historical record and reproduces
telegrams, reviews, and quotations from fellow celebrities word for word.
The effect is still striking, and, while Merman doesn't name-drop with the
heavy hand of Who CouldAsk? the later book is not free of this either, and
reviewers again took note. Some of them still found a gauche, boastful star
at work here, but those who knew Ethel well knew that the frequent quotations from others reflected her concern for accuracy and the pride she
had in her achievement-not pride in her celebrity. Moreover, Merman
was not one to feign modesty any more than she liked to exalt her successes.

After Eells was finished, Ethel handed over her scrapbook collection to
the Museum of the City of New York in two large installments, and there
they remain today in the Theater Collection. The earliest volumes are now
ravaged by age, and many book signatures are illegible from mold and deteriorating paper. A few portions have had to be tossed out and are lost to
posterity, and the museum is constantly looking for the means to preserve
the remaining ones.

The Last of a Kind

By the 1970s, Ethel was a walking piece of Broadway history, a figure who was
both standing still and moving forward, recalling old contexts as much as she
was brushing up against new ones. She made no bones about the disparity
between her own work and tastes and current entertainment trends, disapproving of Broadway stars who were signing on for only short runs and refusing to do matinees. "We used to do movie shorts in the day, and doublein to a late show after curtain," she said. "That's three jobs. Now you can't
get people to do eight shows a week-and they're young!"52 She openly disdained the "message musical" and complained of leaving theaters without
any hummable tunes going through her head. Shows like Hair, needless to
say, appalled the conservative star, who found much of current popular music
abominable, especially rock and roll ("method acting for musicians"). Merman openly lamented that her kinds of songs-and their songwriters-were
no longer on the scene.

Given that Merman's music, like any popular music, is more emphatically
tied to moments, trends, and fads than "art" music is (however weak that
high-low distinction is), most forms of popular music (and their singers) are
lucky to retain audiences for a generation, and in that regard, Merman might
be the exception that proves the rule. Over a half-century career, she moved
in and out of wildly different media and performing venues. Yet at the same
time, she never left the older entertainment world behind, sticking to its energetic presentation, rigid work ethos, and audience-directed performance
style. "Ethel Merman always gave you Ethel Merman," says Tony Cointreau.
"Even when she was a little girl doing `When Maggie Dooley Did the Hooley Hooley,' you got the same Ethel. She never changed."53

How audiences and the press responded to her over time reveals more
about the attitudes toward entertainment and leisure, music, women, and
celebrity at a given time than anything about Ethel Merman herself. When
she made her appearance at the Hollywood Bowl in 1977, for instance, one
reviewer applauded the Merman voice in order to complain about current
trends: "In an era when a Bette Midler ... isn't able or motivated to sing on
pitch, the indomitable accuracy of Merman's vocalism can't be dis-
counted."54 (Midler is a curious figure with whom to make the point, since
so many people consider her as keeper of the Merman flame.)

Ethel was fortunate that during her late-career concert phase, the belt in her
voice, the force of her spirit, and her place in musical history were all substantial enough to engage young people, including performers like Midler, as much as they did. At the same time, it would be wrong to attribute her longevity and appeal to the concert tours. According to many of the younger fans
that I spoke to, what drew them in came earlier: seeing Gypsy or the Annie revival or Call Me Madam-those were the "Ethel encounters" with terrific
meaning. Time and time again, people said how important it was to hear her
perform her songs as a character, a personality, and those character traits often
rubbed off on Ethel just as much as she imposed her stamp on them. The concert performances didn't have this force. They tended to attract an older, established fan base, one already familiar with her work and happy to enjoy the
evenings as a tour of song hits of their youth. (Younger listeners might have
stayed away also because Merman was backed by symphonic orchestras; this
was a time when young fans were turning to rock, pop, and disco, and for
them, orchestras like the Boston Pops were little more than old squares trying
to make their old music hip, much like high school English teachers were trying to appeal to their classes by teaching Bob Dylan lyrics.)

Those kinds of splits in the musical tastes of Ethel's fan bases are evident
in several tapes of her televised work. In a 1971 appearance, Super Night at
Forest Hills at the U.S. Open in Queens, Ethel entertains the crowds in the
bleachers as tennis superstar Ilie Nastase sits on the stage wearing tennis
shorts, sneakers, and a shirt that says "Nasty." Ethel mills among the crowd,
singing "Everything's Coming Up Roses" to the clear bemusement of some
of the younger members, who don't seem too sure of what to make of this
older woman so full of confidence and show biz energy. And Nastase, for his
part, just looks awkward about the whole affair. Merman, of course, is not
there for him and does not have as much meaning for the young tennis fans
as for older viewers, especially in this Queens locale. Merman herself seems
to have no trouble disregarding all this, handing out roses to audience members while she sings full-out.

Her guest appearance on The Sha Na Na Show plays up the same generational discrepancy but with more self-awareness and fun. Ethel is relaxed but
professional: "Instead of calling me Miss Merman," she tells them, "just call
me Ethel." The group is wearing its signature '50s greaser gang outfits-tight
jeans, cutoff T-shirts, and slicked-back hair; Ethel wears an age-appropriate,
but still hip for the '70s, large, splashy caftan ("Grandma was always wearing those," recalls Geary) and lacquered teased hair. If Sha Na Na were banking on the nostalgia for '5os rock and roll, Ethel is there as if visiting from an
even older era ("another world," as Elke Sommer had put it), a good sport
who plays the cultural disconnect for a rocking good time. In the skits, her
clear, booming voice is pitched against their playfully macho ones, and significantly, the band joins her in singing Merman's music, not she in theirs,
with Bowser, the group's lead singer, going head to head with her in a version of "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better."

Predictably, the media continued to have conflicting attitudes toward
Ethel. By now, most of the New York press, especially the entertainment writers, knew that with Ethel Merman they had a piece of theater history on their
hands and treated her with respect and awed affection. Most were delighted
that Ethel never stopped performing and noted that her endurance made her
not only a legend but also a survivor. Others saw in Merman a woman who
"was staying on too long," as if the proper thing to do at a certain age was to
hole up in a dark room and shield one's face from the press, as Dietrich and
Garbo had. Merman proved quite the opposite and never took cover; in that
regard, she was more like film diva Bette Davis. The '70s in fact gave Merman opportunities to widen the scope of her visibility and her "worth" all the
more; making herself scarce was not what she was about. "When they stop
asking for autographs," she said, "is when I'll think about retiring."ss

The Love Boat

The year 1979 was especially busy for Merman with television appearances,
among them American Pop: The Great Singers in January; May and October
appearances on The Merv Griffin Show; a PBS special in October; and a
Christmas movie for children, Rudolph and Frosty 's Christmas in July, in
which Ethel voices a Claymation character who manages a sea theme park
and wears an outfit that makes her look just like a middle-aged Annie Oakley. In addition to giving Ethel a chance to work for children, as she had with
the Muppets, the movie also gave her a chance to celebrate her favorite holiday. She closes out the special singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,"
hitting the notes hard with her characteristic twangs and grace notes.

At the end of the year, Ethel shot a television show that quickly became
legendary in the Book of Merm. It was The Love Boat, in which Ethel was
joined by Carol Charming, Della Reese, Ann Miller, and Van Johnson for a
special musical pair of episodes. In them Ethel plays the mother of cruise ship
regular Gopher and, like the other stars, performs a number onboard the
ship. Given all of its famous guests, The Love Boat's producers, agents, and
writers were busy keeping everyone on a relatively level playing field and not
advantaging one star more than another; each guest, for instance, did one
song or dance number in the episode. But Merman had a little edge. Not only was hers the final song, but hers was also the only female character who was
given an on-screen romance, with Van Johnson, and her character ends up
being more rounded out and developed than the others.

Ethel prepared for the show as she prepared for her other appearances,
learning only the script scenes in which she appeared. "It could be read as
egotistical," says Cointreau, "but it worked! She had incredible instinctive
gifts. Ethel relied on total instinct, and she never made any mistakes in the
roles or songs she chose. Everyone in the business is so afraid of instinct, and
it's all Ethel knew. "56 The episodes were shot in Los Angeles, and Ethel was
able to stay at her long-preferred Beverly Hills Hotel-the same spot where,
during No Business, little Bobby had caused an uproar by burning some candy
wrappers in his mother's wastebasket and accidentally igniting the drapes in
the room.

For any viewer of the "Love Boat Follies," it's clear that the elder guest stars
are enjoying themselves immensely; they perform their hearts out and sparkle
with appreciation as they watch one another. If there was any rivalry on the
set, it doesn't come through. Charming recalls working on the show:

When we were rehearsing a musical number of an episode of "The Love Boat,"
Ethel was supposed to be "Miss Mexico," dressed in a big black sombrero and
a black shawl [ethnic cross-dressing again], Ann Miller was "Miss Panama
Canal" with a parrot on her shoulder and I was "Miss Alaska." They had me
dressed in a long white diamond dress with a white fox stole, white everything.
When I was at the top of the staircase to do my number, Ethel yelled out,
"What the hell is this? I'm dressed like a Mexican senora, but you look like a
big bottle of Maalox!" I worshipped her.57

The episodes have become an affectionate camp classic, though quite devoid
of camp's sometimes vicious side, especially where aging divas are concerned.
For Ethel, playing the character gave her a chance to exhibit her familiar firm,
brassy side through the character's banter, along with a sense of genuine softness and wisdom. (Her character demurs to act on the feelings she and Van
Johnson's character have for each other.) For people growing up at the time,
The Love Boat was their introduction to Ethel Merman, and to this day, "their
Ethel" remains Gopher's mom.