ETHEL MERMAN
Name: Ethel Merman
Birth name: Ethel Agnes Zimmermann
Born: 16 January 1908 Astoria, Queens, New York, United States
Died: 15 February 1984 New York City, New York, United States
Ethel Merman (January 16, 1908 – February 15, 1984) was a Tony Award- and Grammy
Award-winning American star of stage and film musicals, well known for her
powerful voice and vocal range, often hailed by critics as "The Grande Dame of
the Broadway stage".
Merman was born Ethel Agnes Zimmermann in her maternal grandmother's house at
359 4th Avenue, Astoria, Queens, New York. Her father, Edward Zimmermann, was an
accountant, and her mother, Agnes (née Gardner), was a school teacher. Merman's
father was German American and Lutheran, and her mother was Scottish American
and Presbyterian; she was baptized Episcopalian. She attended PS 6 on
Steinway Street in Astoria. She used to stand outside the Famous Players-Lasky
Studios and wait to see her favorite Broadway star, Alice Brady. Ethel loved to
sing songs like "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" and "Alexander's Ragtime Band"
while her adoring father accompanied her on the piano. William Cullen Bryant
High School in Astoria named its auditorium Ethel Merman Theater.
Merman was known for her powerful, belting mezzo-soprano – alto voice, precise
enunciation, and pitch. Because stage singers performed without microphones when
she began singing professionally, she had great advantages in show business,
despite the fact that she never received any singing lessons. In fact, Broadway
lore holds that George Gershwin warned her never to take a singing lesson after
seeing her opening reviews for Girl Crazy. Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the
lyrics for Merman's Gypsy, remembered that she could become "mechanical" after a
while. "She performed the dickens out of the show when the critics were there,"
he said. He added, "or if she thought there was a celebrity in the audience. So
we used to spread a rumor that Frank Sinatra was out front. That whoever, Judy
Garland was out front. I'll tell you one thing [Merman] did do, she steadily
upstaged everybody. Every night, she would be about one more foot upstage, so
finally they were all playing with their backs to the audience. I don't think it
was conscious. Ethel was not big on brains. But she sure knew her way around a
stage, and it was all instinctive."
Merman began singing while working as a secretary for the B-K Booster (automobile)
Vacuum Brake Company in Queens. She eventually became a full time vaudeville
performer and played the pinnacle of vaudeville, the Palace Theatre in New York
City. She had already been engaged for Girl Crazy, a musical with songs by
George and Ira Gershwin, which also starred a very young Ginger Rogers (19 years
old) in 1930. Although third billed, her rendition of "I Got Rhythm" in the show
was popular, and by the late 1930s, she had become the first lady of the
Broadway musical stage. Many consider her the leading Broadway musical performer
of the Twentieth Century, with her signature song being "There's No Business
Like Show Business" (from Annie Get Your Gun).
Merman starred in five Cole Porter musicals, among them Anything Goes in 1934,
where she introduced "I Get a Kick Out of You", "Blow Gabriel Blow", and the
title song. Her next musical with Porter was Red, Hot and Blue, in which she co-starred
with Bob Hope and Jimmy Durante and introduced "It's Delovely" and "Down in the
Depths (on the 90th floor)". In 1939's DuBarry Was a Lady, Porter provided
Merman with a "can you top this" duet with Bert Lahr, "Friendship". Like "You're
the Top" in Anything Goes, this kind of duet became one of her signatures.
Porter's lyrics also helped showcase her comic talents in duets in Panama Hattie
("Let's Be Buddies", "I've Still Got My Health"), and Something for the Boys ("By
the Mississinewah", "Hey Good Lookin'").
Irving Berlin supplied Merman with equally memorable duets, including
counterpoint songs "An Old-Fashioned Wedding" with Bruce Yarnell, written for
the 1966 revival of Annie Get Your Gun, and "You're Just in Love" with Russell
Nype in Call Me Madam. Merman won the 1951 Tony Award for Best Actress for her
performance as Sally Adams in Call Me Madam. She reprised her role in the lively
Walter Lang film version.
Perhaps Merman's most revered performance was in Gypsy as Gypsy Rose Lee's
mother Rose. Merman introduced "Everything's Coming Up Roses" and "Some People"
and ended the show with the wrenching "Rose's Turn". Critics and audiences saw
her creation of Madame Rose as the performance of her career. She did not get
the role in the movie version, however, which went to movie actress Rosalind
Russell, and an infuriated Merman was quoted as saying: "There's a name for
women like her but it's seldom used in society outside [of] a kennel." (Since
this is a line from the film The Women, in which Russell appeared, the story may
be apocryphal.) She also insulted Russell's husband, Freddie Brisson, by calling
him the "Lizard of Roz". Merman decided to take Gypsy on the
road and trumped the motion picture as a result.
Merman lost the Tony Award to Mary Martin, who was playing Maria in The Sound of
Music. "How can you buck a nun?" mused Merman. The competitiveness
notwithstanding, Merman and Martin were friends off stage and starred in a
legendary musical special on television.
in the film trailer for There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)
Merman retired from Broadway in 1970, when she appeared as the last Dolly Levi
in Hello, Dolly!, a show initially written for her. No longer willing to "take
the veil," as she described being in a Broadway role, Merman preferred to act in
television specials and movies. Despite having a reputation for a salty tongue
and having introduced ribald Cole Porter lyrics, Merman was known to dislike
1970s theatre fare like Oh! Calcutta! for being lewd.
Merman's film career was not as distinguished as her stage roles.
Though she reprised her roles in Anything Goes and Call Me Madam, film
executives would not select her for Annie Get Your Gun or Gypsy. Some critics
state the reason for losing the roles was that her outsized stage persona did
not fit well on the screen. Others have said that after her behavior on the set
of Twentieth-Century Fox's There's No Business Like Show Business, Jack Warner
refused to have her in any of his motion pictures, thereby causing her to lose
the role of Rose in Gypsy, though some believe Rosalind Russell's husband and
agent, Freddie Brisson, negotiated the rights away from Merman for his wife.
Nonetheless, Stanley Kramer decided to cast her as the battle-axe Mrs. Marcus,
mother-in-law of Milton Berle, in the madcap It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
Merman's last movie role was a self-parody in the comedy movie Airplane!,
appearing as a soldier, Lieutenant Hurwitz. Hurwitz is suffering from shell
shock and thinks he is Ethel Merman. Merman sings "Everything's Coming Up Roses",
while the nurses drag her back to bed and give her a sedative. In 1979, she
recorded the infamous The Ethel Merman Disco Album, with many of her signature
show-stoppers set to a disco beat.
Name: Ethel Merman
Birth name: Ethel Agnes Zimmermann
Born: 16 January 1908 Astoria, Queens, New York, United States
Died: 15 February 1984 New York City, New York, United States
Ethel Merman (January 16, 1908 – February 15, 1984) was a Tony Award- and Grammy
Award-winning American star of stage and film musicals, well known for her
powerful voice and vocal range, often hailed by critics as "The Grande Dame of
the Broadway stage".
Merman was born Ethel Agnes Zimmermann in her maternal grandmother's house at
359 4th Avenue, Astoria, Queens, New York. Her father, Edward Zimmermann, was an
accountant, and her mother, Agnes (née Gardner), was a school teacher. Merman's
father was German American and Lutheran, and her mother was Scottish American
and Presbyterian; she was baptized Episcopalian. She attended PS 6 on
Steinway Street in Astoria. She used to stand outside the Famous Players-Lasky
Studios and wait to see her favorite Broadway star, Alice Brady. Ethel loved to
sing songs like "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" and "Alexander's Ragtime Band"
while her adoring father accompanied her on the piano. William Cullen Bryant
High School in Astoria named its auditorium Ethel Merman Theater.
Merman was known for her powerful, belting mezzo-soprano – alto voice, precise
enunciation, and pitch. Because stage singers performed without microphones when
she began singing professionally, she had great advantages in show business,
despite the fact that she never received any singing lessons. In fact, Broadway
lore holds that George Gershwin warned her never to take a singing lesson after
seeing her opening reviews for Girl Crazy. Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the
lyrics for Merman's Gypsy, remembered that she could become "mechanical" after a
while. "She performed the dickens out of the show when the critics were there,"
he said. He added, "or if she thought there was a celebrity in the audience. So
we used to spread a rumor that Frank Sinatra was out front. That whoever, Judy
Garland was out front. I'll tell you one thing [Merman] did do, she steadily
upstaged everybody. Every night, she would be about one more foot upstage, so
finally they were all playing with their backs to the audience. I don't think it
was conscious. Ethel was not big on brains. But she sure knew her way around a
stage, and it was all instinctive."
Merman began singing while working as a secretary for the B-K Booster (automobile)
Vacuum Brake Company in Queens. She eventually became a full time vaudeville
performer and played the pinnacle of vaudeville, the Palace Theatre in New York
City. She had already been engaged for Girl Crazy, a musical with songs by
George and Ira Gershwin, which also starred a very young Ginger Rogers (19 years
old) in 1930. Although third billed, her rendition of "I Got Rhythm" in the show
was popular, and by the late 1930s, she had become the first lady of the
Broadway musical stage. Many consider her the leading Broadway musical performer
of the Twentieth Century, with her signature song being "There's No Business
Like Show Business" (from Annie Get Your Gun).
Merman starred in five Cole Porter musicals, among them Anything Goes in 1934,
where she introduced "I Get a Kick Out of You", "Blow Gabriel Blow", and the
title song. Her next musical with Porter was Red, Hot and Blue, in which she co-starred
with Bob Hope and Jimmy Durante and introduced "It's Delovely" and "Down in the
Depths (on the 90th floor)". In 1939's DuBarry Was a Lady, Porter provided
Merman with a "can you top this" duet with Bert Lahr, "Friendship". Like "You're
the Top" in Anything Goes, this kind of duet became one of her signatures.
Porter's lyrics also helped showcase her comic talents in duets in Panama Hattie
("Let's Be Buddies", "I've Still Got My Health"), and Something for the Boys ("By
the Mississinewah", "Hey Good Lookin'").
Irving Berlin supplied Merman with equally memorable duets, including
counterpoint songs "An Old-Fashioned Wedding" with Bruce Yarnell, written for
the 1966 revival of Annie Get Your Gun, and "You're Just in Love" with Russell
Nype in Call Me Madam. Merman won the 1951 Tony Award for Best Actress for her
performance as Sally Adams in Call Me Madam. She reprised her role in the lively
Walter Lang film version.
Perhaps Merman's most revered performance was in Gypsy as Gypsy Rose Lee's
mother Rose. Merman introduced "Everything's Coming Up Roses" and "Some People"
and ended the show with the wrenching "Rose's Turn". Critics and audiences saw
her creation of Madame Rose as the performance of her career. She did not get
the role in the movie version, however, which went to movie actress Rosalind
Russell, and an infuriated Merman was quoted as saying: "There's a name for
women like her but it's seldom used in society outside [of] a kennel." (Since
this is a line from the film The Women, in which Russell appeared, the story may
be apocryphal.) She also insulted Russell's husband, Freddie Brisson, by calling
him the "Lizard of Roz". Merman decided to take Gypsy on the
road and trumped the motion picture as a result.
Merman lost the Tony Award to Mary Martin, who was playing Maria in The Sound of
Music. "How can you buck a nun?" mused Merman. The competitiveness
notwithstanding, Merman and Martin were friends off stage and starred in a
legendary musical special on television.
in the film trailer for There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)
Merman retired from Broadway in 1970, when she appeared as the last Dolly Levi
in Hello, Dolly!, a show initially written for her. No longer willing to "take
the veil," as she described being in a Broadway role, Merman preferred to act in
television specials and movies. Despite having a reputation for a salty tongue
and having introduced ribald Cole Porter lyrics, Merman was known to dislike
1970s theatre fare like Oh! Calcutta! for being lewd.
Merman's film career was not as distinguished as her stage roles.
Though she reprised her roles in Anything Goes and Call Me Madam, film
executives would not select her for Annie Get Your Gun or Gypsy. Some critics
state the reason for losing the roles was that her outsized stage persona did
not fit well on the screen. Others have said that after her behavior on the set
of Twentieth-Century Fox's There's No Business Like Show Business, Jack Warner
refused to have her in any of his motion pictures, thereby causing her to lose
the role of Rose in Gypsy, though some believe Rosalind Russell's husband and
agent, Freddie Brisson, negotiated the rights away from Merman for his wife.
Nonetheless, Stanley Kramer decided to cast her as the battle-axe Mrs. Marcus,
mother-in-law of Milton Berle, in the madcap It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
Merman's last movie role was a self-parody in the comedy movie Airplane!,
appearing as a soldier, Lieutenant Hurwitz. Hurwitz is suffering from shell
shock and thinks he is Ethel Merman. Merman sings "Everything's Coming Up Roses",
while the nurses drag her back to bed and give her a sedative. In 1979, she
recorded the infamous The Ethel Merman Disco Album, with many of her signature
show-stoppers set to a disco beat.