New Book: She's the Greatest Star

As he starts to tell the story of Broadway giant Ethel Merman in his new book Ethel Merman: The Biggest Star on Broadway Barricade Legend, author Geoffrey Mark, who has also written books about Ella Fitzgerald and Lucille Ball, begins to debunk certain myths about his subject. While Merman's date of birth has been variously quoted as 1908, 1909, and 1912, Mark states that she was born in 1906. When Merman requests a better song to sing in George White's Scandals, it's "the beginning of the myth that Ethel Merman was a demanding bitch who was difficult." Of her early career, Mark notes that "Ethel later claimed to have been a complete unknown at the time of her Broadway debut. This was far from true."

Mark correctly notes that the term "belting" for Merman's singing is somewhat misleading. As he puts it, "Ethel Merman sang incisively, hitting her notes like a gong." He also points out Merman's use of the downward scoop, a trademark of her singing that became more pronounced with the years.

But most of the time, Mark is interested in dishing the dirt, and he does so in fairly crude terms. "Romantically, she thought with her vagina," he writes. "Her suitors were all well endowed," and she was "blessed with fascinating breasts." Of her dates with Cesar Romero, we're told that the actor "was gay and cheap, two things Ethel didn't like in her suitors." "Kissing ass was not Ethel's strong suit," it's reported. Mark also goes in heavily for cliche: "No matter who else was a success on stage, Mighty Ethel was always the top!," or "Ethel needed a chaperone like Michael Jackson needs another nose job."

While all of this makes Ethel Merman: The Biggest Star on Broadway a fast, lively read, an account that's clearly meant to be hard-hitting comes off as tacky and graceless. And there's very little about the actual material of her shows and films. Mark writes of Bob Thomas' 1978 biography of Merman the most recent book on the subject until now that it lacked "any understanding of what motivated her or for that matter, what it was about her as a performer that made her so special." But other than continuously reminding us of her great voice, Mark too fails to get at what made her such a unique musical-theatre performer.

The events of Merman's life that Mark outlines in his text 200 pages, followed by a 100-page appendix are familiar from previous accounts, but Mark manages to put his own spin on them. After a relatively happy childhood in Queens, she trains and works as a secretary while performing at night in Manhattan cabarets. But Mark is quick to add that "When it came to sex, Ethel put her spiritual beliefs aside and got what she wanted." In 1929, she's booked into a club run by Jimmy Durante, and rumors circulate that "Merman had gotten the job by first singing for Jimmy and then performing oral sex on him and his partners."

A booking at the Brooklyn Paramount leads to her Broadway debut in 1930 in the Gershwins' Girl Crazy. She makes several forays in Hollywood, none particularly successful. Through Cole Porter, the composer of her smash Anything Goes, she meets and commences a torrid affair with Sherman Billingsley, owner of the Manhattan nightspot the Stork Club. He "was a married man with children. Ouch!," writes Mark, and on one of Merman's returns to New York, Billingsley "happily greeted Ethel with open arms and an open zipper."

Starring in Something for the Boys, she files charges with Equity against co-star Paula Laurence whose name is misspelled, along with those of Happy Hunting songwriter Harold Karr and The Fantasticks. Two unhappy marriages make Merman realize that no man can take care of her as well as she can take care of herself.

After giving birth to a son, she jumps into Annie Get Your Gun: "She had tasted the fruits of marriage and motherhood, but found it not as sweet as that of her career." Although Mark notes that "It is really impossible to impress upon anyone just how successful Annie Get Your Gun was," he fails to describe how the role of Annie Oakley differed from her parts in such previous musicals as Red, Hot, and Blue!, Panama Hattie, DuBarry Was a Lady, or Something for the Boys. We do, however, get the interesting information that she held a grudge against Annie producer Richard Rodgers for coercing her into staying longer with the show than she had planned.

After her marriage to Bob Levitt falls apart, she weds Bob Six. "At least Ethel didn't have to learn a new first name to scream when she had an orgasm," Mark notes. Her joint appearance with Mary Martin on the Ford 50th Anniversary TV program "was the night Ethel Merman became a superstar," and "the greatest moment in television variety history."

While Gypsy confirms Merman's status as Broadway's top musical-theatre star Mark avers that Martin was richer, but Merman was better, Mark makes the debatable statement that "Ethel was not in top voice the day of the recording" of Gypsy.

When Ethel traveled to Europe with friends Judy Garland, Benay Venuta, and Kay Thompson, "rumors of Ethel's supposed bisexuality began to surface." And Mark offers a juicy if unverifiable anecdote about why the 1964 marriage of Merman and Ernest Borgnine was over within eighteen hours.

Merman suffers through alcoholism, the death of her daughter, and rumors of an affair with novelist Jacqueline Susann. Taking on Hello, Dolly! as the final star of the original Broadway production, Mark says that while "previous Dollys had been cute, clever, cloying, or cantankerous," Merman "gave her balls." The narrative concludes with the star's concert years and death from a brain tumor.

Ethel Merman: The Biggest Star on Broadway is obviously the work of a knowledgeable, enthusiastic fan, with Mark mentioning several occasions when he met and briefly interacted with the star. But too often he seems to be repeating questionable stories he's heard via the grapevine. In terms of the stage career, there's little that's new here, and Mark doesn't manage to convey much of a sense of what Merman's shows were like. After a fairly long wait for a new Merman bio, this one must be considered a disappointment. As one peruses the book, one can't help feeling that Merman deserves better than this blunt account.

The final third of the book consists of an annotated list of the star's stage shows, films, TV and radio appearances, and recordings. Such a list previously appeared in George B. Bryan's bio-bibliography of Merman, published by Greenwood. Brief plot summaries are offered of her movies and shows. In the TV section, Mark is frank about the changes in Merman's appearance, wardrobe, and vocal abilities from year to year, and sharply distinguishes between her better appearances and the less happy ones. He includes fascinating detail on such subjects as the changing hairstyles of Lucille Ball, Vivian Vance, and Merman during an episode of "The Lucy Show," and explains what went wrong with the sound on the "Merman in Vegas" album. He also firmly states that the tape of the 1967 NBC-TV production of Annie Get Your Gun has been erased.