Ethel Merman: A Life (6 page)

The only thing that worried Ethel as she prepared to open in Philadelphia was Al Siegel’s condition. He had not been well for some years; by now his chronic, rattling cough was getting much worse, and he was spitting up blood. The diagnosis appears to have been tuberculosis. His doctors tried to persuade him to enter the hospital, but there was too much at stake with Ethel for Siegel to drop out now. His energy steadily plummeting, he packed to go to Philadelphia with the rest of the company.

Few Broadway-bound debutantes have ever been as lucky as Ethel. The part of Kate was cleverly designed to catch the audience by surprise, for though she first appeared in the play’s second scene, she had only a few snatches of dialogue until the first act was about to come to a close. Just as the audience had accepted Ethel as a straight comedienne with book scenes only, she suddenly sauntered onstage, leaned against the piano where Al Siegel was seated, and launched into “Sam and Delilah.” She toyed with a cigarette, and her provocative costume—a black satin skirt slit daringly high, red silk blouse, garter, and ankle straps—caused a stir on its own. But when she opened her mouth and shot out the song’s first line, “De-lilaaaaaaaaaah was a
floozy
!”—the audience was both delighted and riveted. It was a sexy, funny blues song, and Ethel’s precise delivery guaranteed that every single joke came through. She finished the song to a big ovation. Then, immediately afterward, came “I Got Rhythm.”

One of the first things that must have struck Ethel about the song when Gershwin first played it for her was how simple it was—just a quick trip up and down the pentatonic scale. The words were equally simple. For weeks Ira had wandered around fiddling with a dummy lyric for the song (at one time it was “Roly-poly / Eating solely / Ravioli / Better watch your diet or bust!”), and at last he hit on the idea of abandoning a rhyme scheme and simply repeating the words “I got” at the beginning of each line. The Philadelphia audience loved it and applauded it even more than they had “Sam and Delilah.”

Ethel also made a hit in the book scenes; she seemed a natural comedienne, and the audience roared at her lines. After the first show in Philadelphia, Jack McGowan wrote even more dialogue for her—none of which sat too well with Ginger Rogers, who was starting to get the feeling that Ethel was taking over the entire show. But Rogers wasn’t in a position to argue. Although she’d made a good impression in a few Hollywood films, she was still some distance from major stardom, and she had little clout. She watched helplessly as Ethel’s part grew and grew.

On October 14, 1930,
Girl Crazy
opened on Broadway. Al Siegel, still very sick, managed by sheer will to be on hand for opening night. The orchestra, which would go on to become part of musical legend, included several members of Red Nichols and His Five Pennies: Benny Goodman on clarinet, Jimmy Dorsey on saxophone, Glenn Miller and Jack Teagarden on trombone, and Gene Krupa on drums. Further luster was added by having George Gershwin himself conduct the premiere performance. The first-nighters included Gertrude Lawrence and George White. Ethel later recalled, with wicked delight, that “all the big shots I’d sent notes and flowers to when I worked for Bragg were out front.”

From the time Gershwin gave the downbeat,
Girl Crazy
sailed through with the confidence that belongs only to a sure hit. The audience liked the first number, the easygoing “Bidin’ My Time,” sung by a quartet of ranch hands. The songs that followed in act 1, including the jaunty “Could You Use Me?” and the wistful “Embraceable You,” all got a warm response. Then Ethel came out in her black satin dress and tore into “Sam and Delilah.” All through the number, the audience loudly registered its pleasure, so much so that Ethel would remember, “I thought my garter had snapped or I’d lost something.” By the time she reached its end, she knew she had landed safely, and she braced herself for “I Got Rhythm.”

The Gershwins must have been certain all along that the song would be a hit: it was the first tune heard in the overture and the last the orchestra played at the end of the show. (Perhaps it helped the audience forget “Cactus Time in Arizona,” the clunker that was the final melody of the evening.) For “I Got Rhythm,” the brothers had taken advantage of Ethel’s lung power and included a stunt in the second chorus that they hoped would stop the show: on the word “I,” she was to hold the C above middle C for sixteen bars. It was a daring trick that few singers could have pulled off with such panache, and it had an electrifying effect on the audience, which responded with cheering and clapping and more cheering. Lyricist Dorothy Fields was in the audience that night and recalled that Ethel seemed slightly stunned by the reaction, as if she didn’t quite believe what was happening. There was a time when encores were the audience’s seal of approval on a Broadway musical. That night “I Got Rhythm” took more encores than anyone would later be able to remember.

At intermission everyone out front crowded into the lobby, chattering in exclamation points about the new discovery. There was excitement backstage, too: at the end of the first act, Al Siegel collapsed and had to be carried away on a stretcher, and Roger Edens, another member of the Red Nichols orchestra, was preparing to take over for him in the second act. In Ethel’s dressing room at the top of the theater, the mood was calmer. Mom and Pop Zimmermann had come backstage, trying not to show that they were bursting with pride while Ethel sat at her dressing table, methodically adjusting her eye makeup. Suddenly there was a knock on the door, and George Gershwin himself exploded into the room.

“Ethel,” he gasped, “do you know what’s happened? Do you know what you’ve done?”

Ethel didn’t quite understand. “You’ve just been made a star!” George shouted. She still seemed nonplussed. Exasperated by Ethel’s inability to grasp what had happened, George turned to Mrs. Zimmermann and said, “Did you ever see a person so unconcerned as Ethel?”

Before he dashed out to congratulate the other cast members, George made her promise that she would never go near a singing teacher. Then he added, “And never forget your shorthand.”

P
erhaps the famed Yiddish theater actress Molly Picon described Gershwin’s music best, after seeing
Girl Crazy:
“Your music does funny things to me. I feel like I’d just had a Swedish massage, sort of all a-tingle.” Some of the critics didn’t quite share Picon’s enthusiasm, but the press generally liked
Girl Crazy,
despite their reservations about the quality of the book. The
New York Times
set the tone: “One song, ‘Sam and Delilah,’ sung by Miss Ethel Merman, as a tough girl from the Barbary Coast, was specially interesting.” The review went on to note that Ethel sang “with dash, authority, good voice and just the right knowing style.” The
New Yorker
found Ethel “imitative of no one…. She approaches sex in song with something of the cold fury of the philosopher. She rhapsodizes, but she analyzes. She seems to aim at a point slightly above the entrails, but she knocks you out just the same. She shouts; she ravishes the words, and her ‘Oh’s go sailing out over the orchestra like balloons.”

It wasn’t until noon on the day after
Girl Crazy
opened that Ethel became aware she’d made such a hit with the press. After the curtain came down, she had taken her parents to the Central Park Casino, where she was suddenly given the star treatment by the staff and shown to one of the best tables in the house. She later went to the company party at the Gershwins’ but left before the newspapers were delivered. She grabbed a few hours’ sleep, then showed up at George Gershwin’s apartment for lunch the next day. A jubilant George had spread the reviews out everywhere, proof that he and Ira had another hit on their hands.

He could scarcely believe it when Ethel told him that she hadn’t thought to pick up any of the newspapers. It wasn’t false modesty; she’d always considered herself a singer, not an actress, and although she’d gone avidly to vaudeville, she’d seen very few Broadway musicals. She simply had no idea at all about the traditions of the theater.

Girl Crazy
settled in for a long run at the Alvin. Ethel’s coworkers marveled at how little all the attention seemed to have affected her. She showed up punctually at the theater eight times a week, stepped out onstage, knocked the audience dead, then went back home to her parents in Astoria. This was the beginning of a pattern that was to mark her entire career. Much as she loved singing, she approached it simply and matter-of-factly as a job.

Although the Gershwins left New York shortly after
Girl Crazy
’s opening for a sojourn in Hollywood, George and Ethel stayed in close touch. George wrote her warm and affectionate letters, once addressing her as “my favorite singer of songs,” and it looked as though their working relationship would continue in the future. “I want you to be in a big success next season,” he wrote to her in November 1930, “because I think it is very important to your career. And whatever book they bring me, I will always look for your part very carefully.” Ethel had, as she would always admit, come along at just the right time. Seldom had a composer and a singer fused their talents so successfully.

For now, Ethel hardly had time to think of future shows. A few weeks after
Girl Crazy
opened, she began a limited run at the Central Park Casino, an engagement that cemented her arrival. With its circular hardwood dance floor, elaborate floral displays, and high-octane celebrity clientele, the Casino was one of Manhattan’s most elegant night spots. Her accompanist was now Roger Edens, leading many to wonder what had happened to Al Siegel. After Siegel had been taken to the hospital on the opening night of
Girl Crazy
and Edens had substituted for him in the pit, Ethel found herself immediately charmed by Edens’s deep voice, Texas drawl, and kindly manner. Best of all, he was a musician par excellence. Later in the 1930s, he would go to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he would stay for years as a crucial member of Arthur Freed’s production unit. There he helped to create the style and sound of another big-voiced singing phenomenon, Judy Garland.

Shortly after her opening in
Girl Crazy
, Ethel, accompanied by Lou Irwin, went to visit Siegel in Bethel, Connecticut, where he was recuperating. With an important booking coming up at the Casino, Ethel wanted some new song arrangements, and she and Irwin had it in mind to extend the deal she had previously had with Siegel: 25 percent of her club fees for use of the arrangements. But Siegel had read the reviews of
Girl Crazy
, too, and knew an opportunity when he saw one. He countered that he would be happy to write the new arrangements in exchange for 33 percent of all Ethel’s earnings
in perpetuity.

Ethel was livid. Now that she was launched on a career as a musical-comedy actress, she could see no reason that Siegel was entitled to
any
cut of her salary on projects that didn’t involve him. Irwin backed her up 100 percent, and in a heartbeat Al Siegel was erased from her life.

This was to become one of the dominant cycles of Ethel’s life. If someone used her, or if she felt that someone was trying to use her, she could make him vanish instantly. It played into the vulnerable side of her personality, a side she took great pains to hide from everyone except her closest circle, and it helped establish her enduring reputation for toughness. Her longtime friend Tony Cointreau remembered that she had no ability to edit her thoughts or reactions, no matter how strong they were. “We all have that little policeman in our heads,” said Cointreau. “She didn’t have that little policeman. If you were faking it, you wouldn’t get away with it for one second. And it could be trivial. She couldn’t let it go. She had to make it an issue. Black or white. She couldn’t go to the gray area.” Ethel’s reaction was always strongest when she felt that someone had lied to her or taken advantage of her, even slightly. No matter how long the friendship or association, it could end in a matter of seconds. She even had a word that she used to describe her abrupt cutting-off of people: “Fing!” Finished.

At first it seemed that her “Fing!” was not going to have much effect on Al Siegel. He talked to many people about what he considered Ethel’s betrayal of him, one of whom happened to be the powerful columnist Walter Winchell. Winchell then ran an item about Siegel’s claim to be the mastermind of her singing style. Ethel fired back a sharp telegram to Winchell that concluded with,
I’M TELLING YOU THE ONLY THING THAT AL SIEGEL EVER DID WAS WRITE ARRANGEMENTS. HE NEVER TAUGHT ME ANYTHING
. Winchell printed her remarks, which Ethel considered “as close to a retraction as you could get from him in his prime.”

The next several months were among the busiest of Ethel’s life. Paramount released
Follow the Leader
in early December, to generally positive notices, although most critics concentrated on the performance of its star, Ed Wynn. After Ethel’s Casino engagement ended, she signed a contract with Paramount to make a series of ten musical short subjects. What these reveal today is that the Merman persona was already well on its way to being fully formed. In
Roaming,
Ethel plays the daughter of a traveling medicine-show peddler who is tired of her vagabond life. In
Ireno,
she is a woman on the brink of breaking up with her husband after a silly argument. In both she has a big, rousing number, the type that would come to be associated with her. In both she also has a ballad that she delivers in a beautifully shimmering tone, showing a decided soprano mix that she would eventually abandon.

By March of 1931, the Central Park Casino had reengaged her, along with Edens, who was now providing arrangements that she liked every bit as much as she had Siegel’s. A particular hit was his treatment of the popular tune “Just a Gigolo.” The
New York Evening Post
noted, “Never before has Ethel Merman been more charming or stimulating. She keeps her audience spellbound with her group of individual songs and her ‘Gigolo’ is something to be remembered.”

All this success and the attendant publicity still had little effect on Ethel’s personal life. She continued to live with Mom and Pop Zimmermann at the Windsor Apartments. When she could, she helped Mom with the housework, although she showed no interest whatsoever in cooking.

After the engagement at the Casino, she and Edens played the New York Paramount, and by July they were back at the Palace. They were still there when
Girl Crazy
closed, on June 6, 1931, with an impressive total of 272 performances. The show had been the most thrilling event of Ethel’s life, but she didn’t mind its coming to an end. She was sure that someday soon she would work with the Gershwins again.

“Nothing lasts forever in the theater,” says the playwright’s wife, played by Celeste Holm in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1950 movie classic
All About Eve.
People in show business have always been famous for their short memories, and it’s impossible to tell when yesterday’s rejection is going to turn into tomorrow’s job offer. Only a few years earlier, George White had no time for Ethel; now he found himself in desperate need of her. The newest edition of his
Scandals
—his eleventh—was in big trouble, and to save it he wanted the girl singer who had just made such a hit in
Girl Crazy.
What Ethel wanted was a vacation. After her run at the Palace ended, she had booked herself, along with Pop and Mom, into a quiet resort at Lake George. Eager to see her parents travel in style, with some of her earnings from the Palace she purchased a Chrysler and engaged a chauffeur to drive them all upstate.

Ethel’s vacation lasted a single day. At the end of the first afternoon at Lake George, she came back to the hotel and was handed a fistful of increasingly frantic messages to get in touch with George White. Once she telephoned him, the producer wasted no time sugarcoating the situation: the
Scandals
was in its Atlantic City tryout, and it was in trouble. White not only produced his shows, he staged them, as well. Each time he had mounted a new edition of the
Scandals,
friends advised him to throw the whole thing away. He never listened and always brought in a hit. This time, however, things really were not gelling, and he was growing frantic.

Ethel didn’t bother reminding him that he had passed on her years earlier. This was another job, in one of Broadway’s most high-profile revues. There was one minor problem: she was still contractually bound to Vinton Freedley, who wasn’t about to do White any favors. Freedley made the terms of buying up Ethel’s contract tough—the
New York Times
reported that the amount was $10,000—but White had seen
Girl Crazy,
and he was sure that Ethel was the one performer who could save his ailing show. He handed over the buyout money to Freedley and signed Ethel at a weekly salary of $1,500.

The 1931 version of the
Scandals
was a lot like its predecessors: loud and fast, a little bit vulgar, and heavy on topical satire. It starred crooner Rudy Vallee, then at the apex of his popularity, who had stiff competition from the rest of the talented cast. First and foremost were Willie Howard, fresh from
Girl Crazy,
and his brother Eugene, who together appeared in most of the comic sketches, including the famous “Pay the Two Dollars” routine. Also on board were dancer Ray Bolger, who played former New York State governor Al Smith in the tart-tongued “Empire State” spoof that opened the show, and power-mad columnist Walter Windshield in “The Daily Reflector,” one of the comic highlights of the second act. Metropolitan Opera comprimario Everett Marshall closed the first act with a social-message song, “That’s Why Darkies Were Born.” There was major talent even in the chorus—namely, Alice Faye, a pretty, cow-eyed girl whose mellow contralto would later be heard in some of 20th Century Fox’s biggest musical films. (She was only sixteen, but, as was the custom of the time, she had lied about her age to land a chorus job.)

On arriving in Atlantic City, Ethel studied the rehearsals. The physical production was undeniably first class, with sets by Joseph Urban, the brilliant designer whose style combined elements of the Viennese Jungendstil painters with a bold American showmanship. Urban’s work had ranged from
Parsifal
and
Les Contes d’Hoffmann
for the Metropolitan Opera to the
Ziegfeld Follies
. The superb costumes were by Charles LeMaire, who would go on to become an Academy Award–winning designer for the 20th Century Fox studio. The comedy sketches were in pretty good shape and were getting their laughs. Ethel felt that the trouble lay in the songs, by Lew Brown and Ray Henderson. With their ex-partner Buddy DeSylva, they had been one of the most successful songwriting teams of the 1920s. (The 1926 edition of the
Scandals
had included their hits “Birth of the Blues” and “Black Bottom.”) But DeSylva left his partners in 1930, after they wrote the Bert Lahr vehicle
Flying High,
and without him Brown and Henderson had come up with a score for the new
Scandals
that fell far short of the team’s old standard.

Initially several of the show’s songs had been entrusted to another Ethel: Ethel Barrymore Colt, of Broadway’s royal family. Her taking her millionaire father Russell Colt’s last name showed her streak of independence, for she had worked hard to distance herself from the overpowering legacy of the Barrymores. Another way to do this was to distinguish herself as a singer. She had a legit voice, and would eventually achieve a marked degree of success as a nightclub chanteuse, but somehow she wasn’t coming across in the songs that Brown and Henderson had given her. It was decided that Colt would remain in a few sketches but that the songs would be handed over to Merman. Years later Merman recalled that this turn of events devastated Colt, who considered leaving the show. In the end she swallowed hard and stood back while a different Ethel took center stage.