Biographer Brian Kellow Talks About Ethel Merman

I'm Thom McAn I'm the president of the Friends of the libraries Boston University before we begin I'd like to ask everyone as I do every time to please check to be sure your cell phone beep or whatever you have is turned off okay thank you tonight we welcome distinguished author and features editor of Opera News Bryan Kelo mr. Keller began writing at Oregon State University as a reporter and editor for student publications in in nineteen in in 1982 he moved from Oregon to New York City and oversaw the publications at the 92nd Street YMCA before joining the editorial staff of Opera News five years later currently he's the magazine's features editor and his popular column on the beat appears in each month's issue he's also written numerous profiles of many of the leading figures of the Opera world Bryan Keller has also contributed articles to HUD a major publications including playbill Newsday and many many others he's the author of can't help singing the life of Eileen Farrell and the Bennett's and acting family his new book Ethel Merman of life was released in November to rave reviews and as a matter of fact there was a great review in the last Sunday's New York Times Book Review he joins us tonight in the midst of his book tour he's brought with him these clips of his current subject there we go I'm feeling so happy birthday got anything hot maestro huh yeah you know sizzling oh yes I know what you mean something up to date we have it let's see here it is an American song Irving Berlin the international drag mmm 1913 well that belly of today let's give it a whirl real rather macaws Highness dignity the world goes round to the found of the International 30 melody for originality Oh Oh Wiggly personality I saw you last night and got that all Peyman night the moment that you dad by I felt a thrill and when you put my eye or me or that all it's still in my I tried to accept it was over like a dream but when I saw you and hurt your boy Oh there'll be no new romance for me or that all I know it's terrific because you and me we come from two different boils you know that's true I'm used to the bright lights of Broadway and you're used to the bright lights of a police station I was really hoping you know that maybe you and me we could do a song but I soon realized that there was no way that you could do our music oh yes I can no I thought you can as a matter of fact now is there anything you can do I can do better but rich weird a single pot I can't live on bread and cheese no you're too that commercial that dub Ella Fitzgerald did what she sang so loud that she broke the wineglass yeah well I sang so loud that I broke Ellen Fitzgerald I can take anything this is where I gotchas I once dug a hole it was ten feet deep and a hundred yards long oh I can't believe that movie I'll try what you sing up a Marvin Hamlisch song Marvin I thought you'd never ask with lyrics by Ed Cleve Anne kiss today good the sweetness and the sorrow wish me luck the same to what I can't remember what I did follow what I did oh look my eyes are dry the gift twice hours to bar it says if we always and I won't forget what I did follow what I did as we travel on loves what we remember point me toward tomorrow we did what we had to like no business the audience that looks you when you're down the sheriff who a spot you out of the opening when your heart beats like a drum even with a turkey that was really great thank you so much for putting it together Brian and bringing it and Brian's papers are part of the how he got lis archive Research Center and we're very pleased to have him here this evening ladies and gentlemen mr. Brian callow good evening thank you very much for coming tonight just a few notes on what you just saw the the first appearance when she's wearing the yellow dress and singing riding high is from the Ed Sullivan Show and it took place just three weeks after her daughter had died quite suddenly quite unexpectedly in 1967 and the for those of you who might not have been sha na na fans that was Bowser from the sha na na show singing anything you can do with her this was when she was branching out and trying to connect with younger audiences so just a few notes I'm delighted to be here tonight I have been coming to the Gottlieb archival research center for a number of years working on my various books and I remember so well the first time I came here dr. Gottlieb was still here and I was working on research I believe for my Eileen Farrell book and I was sitting in the research room with all the other people who were working on their various projects and dr. Gottlieb walked in dressed immaculately as he always was with his rather ornate cane and he walked in very authoritative Lee instead of wears mystic hello and I sort of snapped to attention I it was like the headmaster in school or something had just asked me to come up to the front of the class and he was so warm and welcoming and that is the experience that I have always had here in all the subsequent books I've done and Vita Palladino and Sean Noel are just two of my favorites they're just wonderful wonderful people and I'm so glad that the wonderful work is being carried on under Vitas stewardship so I wanted to thank them first of all very much for asking me to be here I hope it's all right with you if I do it this way I thought I'd tell you just a little bit about my own background and how I came to be a journalist and ultimately a biographer and then I would end by reading just a little from Ethel Merman a life my my latest book which just was published about three weeks ago and I am very happy to say it has gotten a tremendous reception you always want it to be good and you always want it to be successful but you never quite know what's going to happen to a book when it goes out into the world but I'm happy to say this one seems to be landing very safely so I grew up on the Oregon coast along a long way from here about as far as you could get and stay in the continental US and it was a tiny little place there was really not much around Portland was 90 minutes away but I didn't feel that I was culturally deprived in any way I just didn't there was a lot of music in our home there were a lot of books in our home I I was blessed to have parents who regularly discussed current events and and world issues usually with a lot of venom but it was a lively household to grow up in and it was a real privilege my mother was a very musical person she loved operetta that was her idea of great music she liked opera up and up and up to and including a point but she really liked operetta and and lots of different kinds of music my father very unmusical his his favorite song was buttons and bows by Dinah Shore which I have to admit I like to a lot but my mother absolutely hated Ethel Merman with a passion it was unbelievable Ethel Merman would come on television on the Ed Sullivan Show or the Merv Griffin Show or whatever she happened to be appearing on that particular week and she would say please turn it off I cannot stand the sound of that woman's voice so i-i've come to think that maybe my initial fascination with Ethel Merman started out as some kind of teenage rebellion or something but but I fell in love with Ethel Merman right away anyway I attended Oregon State University in Corvallis Oregon and while I was there I worked on the campus newspaper the arts and entertainment section of the daily barometer which was the daily student paper and I I don't know it's interesting to me when I hear people talk about how they've wanted to be lots of different things in their lives and they've made all these transitions from one to the other to the other I just never remember ever wanting to be anything but a writer I was just burning to write from the time I was a child relay and so finally at Oregon State I got a chance to do it for for a public I was appearing in the the campus arts magazine montage every Friday and I learned a lot and I see in the back here and this wonderful exhibit that the people at the Gottlieb archival Research Center have put together that there's a copy of one of those student magazines when I had sunglasses and a beard which was a very very long time ago so I graduated and I did the kind of thing that you're only stupid enough to do when you're very very young I came to New York City with $400 and one navy blue blazer and a few other things I think I think everything I had fit in one suitcase and I found work right away at Harcourt brace jovanovich publishers which was then located on 3rd Avenue in New York City I later went to work for Time Life the 92nd Street Y in its concert office which gave me access to wonderful music of all kinds and then in 1988 I got a job on the staff of opera news magazine and the editor who had hired me was let go about six months after I arrived so I knew immediately thought well that's the end of me you know whoever his successor as is probably going to bring in an entirely new staff but that wasn't what happened his successor actually promoted me and I have been happily at opera news ever since it has been a great job in the sense that I have gotten to write about so many of the leading singers conductors stage directors designers in the Opera world and get to know many of them quite well I've learned an immense amount in that time and I'm still learning because the Opera world is a very different place from what it was when I first started going I see my friend Allison Cohen is here in the audience and Allison can remember when I first moved to New York and I was absolutely possessed by Joan Sutherland right just i ate slept and drank Joan Sutherland but all these years later I have to say the world of opera and writing about it is still just as fascinating to me as it was back then the first book that I wrote was published in 1999 and it was called can't help singing and it was actually a collaboration with Eileen Farrell the great opera and pop singer who appeared here in Boston a great deal actually and it came about in a funny way I had been assigned by the editor-in-chief of opera news to do an article on Eileen because she had come out with a series of pop recordings quite late in her career and they're quite remarkable most of them and one of these albums had just been released and I was assigned to go interview her at the Westbury Hotel in New York and how many I'm just curious how many people here ever heard Eileen Farrell sing live oh good for you that's great and I'd heard all the stories about her that she was you know could be kind of a tough character and she had quite a mouth and and she was a very funny woman all of which turned to be out to be true so I went to interview her we had a great time and she liked the article she wrote me a note after it was published and I ran into her at the Algonquin Hotel about oh I don't know three years later maybe and we were sitting talking and I said has anyone ever asked you about writing your autobiography and she said oh yeah all the time and I said well what do you think would you like to do she said well I'll tell you know I've know I've always said no because there are only two things that you talk about in a singer's autobiography one is how great you were and you quote your own reviews and I'm not interested in doing that and the other is who you slept with and she said and maybe I did and maybe I didn't but at this point I'm not telling so I said well I think maybe there's a different weekend there's a third way that we can do this and so I talked her into it and starting in early 1997 we met every Saturday at her apartment in New Jersey and I have to say I don't think I ever had so much fun in my entire life there were there were Saturdays when we just sat and laughed until we couldn't stand it she was one of the funniest people I have ever known in my entire life and it was a unique career that Eileen was with someone who could really sing anything she could sing vogner she could sing Strauss she could sing Verdi and Puccini she could sing Harold Arlen and Cole Porter and and on and on and on there was really no limit to her versatility and she had known many many of the great people not only in classical music but in show business as well because she was a very popular television personality for many years and I think my favorite story about her if I had to choose one she she warned me right away when we started working on the book that she although she remembered the stories and the anecdotes of her life vividly she wasn't so great on names and I said well that's okay you know give me a hint and I'm sure we can come up with the name so she said well I'm warning you it's very bad I have a terrible memory for names so in fact this also turned out to be true but you know we've got to be a real joke between us and we always figured out who it was that she was trying to tell the story about but one day she stumped me and she was talking about what how one of the the benefits of being a concert singer was that you got to meet all these interesting people backstage that you might not have met otherwise and I said well give me an example and she said well I remember I was singing with the Philharmonic and one night you know who came backstage what's her name and I said can you give me a hint and she said oh you know honey you know who I'm talking about the the one who wrote the book and I said well I'm sorry Edna Ferber I don't know and she said no no no oh she wrote the famous book that ever is so touching it's such a moving story and I said I have no idea who you are talking about and she finally said oh the deaf dumb and blind gal and I said Helen Keller yet yeah and I said do you know how happy I think Helen Keller would have been to be called a gal I just I just think that would have made her life but that was Eileen there was no pretense no holds barred and it was one of the greatest relationships I ever had in my life she I miss her very much the book was finished it came out it did very well for a music book it got a lot of attention we we did a remember a wonderful event up here at at Symphony Hall when she received the Leonard I believe it was the first Leonard Bernstein it wasn't yep that's right from the laundry school of music and I can still remember pushing her in her wheelchair and all the stagehands bursting into applause as we came backstage because they'd been there for so many of her her concerts with the BSO and with the Pops it was it was just amazing but I did the book and I thought well I've done a book now I'm through and my friend and Magette told me no you'll never be happy until you do another one so I thought well I think gee I don't know if I can do another one and around this time opera news was being reformatted it had been published 17 times a year which was kind of an odd publication schedule that came out monthly during the offseason and then every other week during the Met broadcast season and we had wanted for some time to make it a monthly publication beefed it up redesign it and we did that in the fall of 1998 and it was very successful I'm happy to say it continued for a few years after that full-time as executive editor but it was a lot of work and I really really had the growing feeling that what I wanted to do all more of the time was right writing to me is it's the highlight of my life I can't express it any other way I love doing it more than I love anything I think and so I sat down I did something very very audacious I wrote a new job description that was for the position of features editor and it was a part-time job it was only half of the time that I was currently putting it at opera news and I presented it to my boss the editor in chief Roo Roush who very very kindly supported me and said if that's what you want that's what you've got I actually just think he wanted to get rid of me but he was very gracious about it and I became the halftime features editor of Opera News which I still am I'm happy to say and I went to work on my second book which was called the Bennett's and acting family and I am a great lover of the theater and and of old films as well and the Bennett's is a biography of the great American stage actor Richard Bennett who unfortunately is not terribly well remembered anymore but he he introduced many of the great American plays of the first part of the century including Eugene O'Neill's first full-length play beyond the horizon he who gets slapped damaged goods which was the first Broadway play to deal with the very controversial subject of venereal disease he was a very progressive man and a wild man he was an alcoholic he was a womanizer he was famous for giving very fiery curtain speeches at which he railed at the audience for not being more responsive to the play and I'm sorry to say that bah he Boston audiences were not his favorite he was very very tough on the Boston Boston audiences and the Boston censors at that time he became ultimately most famous for his three beautiful daughters Constance Barbara and Joan and Barbara had a short career but Constance and Joan as I'm sure many of you know were very very big film stars in the 1930s and 40s Constance incredibly was the highest-paid movie star in Hollywood at one time she was making $30,000 a week in 1931 at the height of the depression and she made such such films as common clay best remembered probably for topper with Cary Grant and merrily we live with Brian Aherne Joan Bennett her her little sister was is remembered for Little Women with Katharine Hepburn and and best remembered after she dyed her hair from blonde to brunette and appeared in such films as the woman in the window and Scarlett Street and then later in the wonderful comedy father of the bride was Spencer Tracy so it was a chance to show an acting family an acting dynasty and the progression through many many many many years and it was a tough project because I wasn't writing about one person I was writing about many many people and I nearly lost my mind about a dozen times I think while I was working on it but I finished it it was published in 2004 and then I was casting around for another project and this came about in an odd way and I tell you this story only because if there are any writers out there who who are looking for a book contract you never know how you're going to get one it's very surprising I was contacted by Viking one of the top publishers in New York about co-authoring Renee Fleming's autobiography and it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do but I thought well you know go in and talk to them and see what they had to say so in the end it was narrowed down to two of us and in the end she did not work with either one of us she found another person that she preferred who was a friend of hers which was fine with me but Viking called me and said we like your proposal so much and we were hoping she would go with you that if you have anything else to show us please do so I had been thinking for quite a while about doing a book on Ethel Merman and it struck me as odd that there wasn't a good serious biography of her available she had written her own book in fact she had written two of them about 20 years apart there they were written for her neither one I thought really really got to the heart of and neither one even more important to me I think showed the times that she worked and lived through I wanted to write a book that would really show the progression of the Broadway musical and for those of you again I just I'm just curious how many people here saw Merman on stage oh great good good good well for those of you who don't know quite so much about her Ethel Merman was born in Astoria Queens in nine in 1908 and her Centennial is is coming up on January 16th and she was an only child she was born into a working-class family to parents who adored her loved her supported her gave her unconditional support and belief and she exhibited quite a remarkable singing voice from an early age she got nothing but encouragement at home and by the time she had graduated from high school she was singing in clubs and restaurants around New York and in 1930 she was singing at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater and these were the days when there was live entertainment between the movie showings at all the big theaters at the studio chains owned and she was singing and a producer named Benton freed Lee a Broadway producer came to see her because he'd heard how good she was and indeed she was good and he brought her to the attention of George and Ira Gershwin who were writing the score for the show that freely was about to produce called girl crazy so Ethel was taken to the George Gershwin's apartment and she was quite nervous and he sat down and played the three songs that she would eventually sing in the show and those were Sam and Delilah boy what love has done for me and the song that became one of her most famous signature tune I got rhythm and he finished and sat back and said well miss Merman if there's anything you don't like about any of these songs I'll be more than happy to change them and she was absolutely astonished by this she told the story for years and years and years she never got over the the surprise of that that this great great man would would be willing to do it so she said no no I think they're just fine and she did sing seeing all of them in the show and on opening night when she sang I got rhythm she stopped the show cold shows don't stop anymore I don't think so much the way they used to I mean it used to be that they were stopped cold and you might even get an encore if a number was was going over well enough with the audience this one certainly did Dorothy fields a great songwriter said she never heard an ovation like it in her life she said the only one comparable was Mary Martin on opening night of leave it to me singing my heart belongs to Daddy the audience was absolutely in pandemonium and she was a star overnight she was a star and she remained a star for many many years right up until she died in 1984 she went from Ethel Merman really has the distinction I think of being the only Broadway star who never appeared in a flop it just didn't happen I mean some runs were shorter than others but she had a remarkable run she did five Cole Porter shows starting with anything goes going through red hot and blue and Du Barry was a lady Panama Hattie something for the boys she did two classic Irving Berlin shows Annie Get Your Gun which she played on Broadway for three years and hardly missed the performance and call me Madame which she played for two years she did gypsy which was really the crowning achievement of her career she played the domineering stage mother Rose who was pushing both her daughters on the stage and I I don't know I don't think there's any better musical in anywhere than gypsy i I think it's it's just an amazing dramatic piece and it certainly gave her a role a greater dramatic scope than she had ever been offered before and she knew it she knew what a great opportunity she had been given for those of you who might not know gypsy there's a remarkable scene at the end of the show it's called there's a number called roses turn in which Rose this pushy overbearing mother finally has has alienated not one but both of her daughters and she has essentially a musical nervous breakdown on stage it's almost like an operatic Aria and she this this remarkable piece was written for her by Julie Stein and Stephen Sondheim who wrote the entire score and it's a very very dramatic maybe the most intensely dramatic scene in all of Broadway musical history and there's a famous story about it when Stephen Sondheim was explaining how the scene was to go to her he said know Ethel there's a moment in the number in which you're going to be asked to stammer on a line and the line I'm sure many of you know it is mama mama and Ethel said well what does that mean I don't know why and he said well it's it's a it's a nervous breakdown I'm trying to show he said I got the idea years ago when I went to see Jessica Tandy on Broadway play Blanche DuBois in a streetcar named desire I want to show the complete mental disintegration of this woman rose in musical terms and Ethel listen and she nod and she said okay this is one thing I want to know does it come on the upbeat of the downbeat Ethel Merman is Stephen Sondheim were not cut out to be good friends he was a very intellectual artist she was not an intellectual performer or an electoral woman by any stretch of the imagination and unfortunately I think both Sondheim and Arthur Laurents who wrote the book of the show have said a number of very very disparaging things about her over the years and they should stop because she it's a great show they don't need to do that but she made it happen on stage in a way that nobody else has played that part of her has and her conductor Erik night told me the thing about Merman was every time she came out she delivered every time so gypsy greatest success of her career the greatest disappointment of her career was that she did not get to repeat the role in the 1962 Warner Brothers film version that went to Rosalind Russell and Ethel would go to parties and say well that broad can't even sing Wow why did they give her the part you know but she then concentrated primarily on film and television appearances in 1970 she did her final Broadway show Hello Dolly which actually had been written for her by Jerry Herman and David Merrick who had produced gypsy was was going to produce Hello Dolly and they were confident that she would accept it and Jerry Herman told me about the day that David Merrick made the phone call and Ethel turned him down flat she said I've done too many long runs I'm tired I can't do another one I want to do I want to do television and movies and so of course the part of the the show was reconfigured and and given to Carol Channing however there were two numbers in the show that Jerry Herman had written for Ethel that vocally Carol Channing just couldn't handle and they were never done in the in the long parade of ladies who did dolly on Broadway Betty Grable Martha Raye Ginger Rogers on and on and on Pearl Bailey the songs remained in the trunk so in 1970 Merrick called and said I want to make this the longest-running musical in Broadway history I want to make it longer than my fair lady I want to beat the record and if you come in and take over the part I think we can do it at the moment Phyllis Diller was playing the role incredibly enough and it was playing two half empty houses so Ethel said okay I'll do it for three months but I want to do that I want to do those two songs that were written initially so she did and the odd thing about that was that they didn't cut anything else from the show they just added these two numbers to it and it was quite a workout for a woman who was getting on in years at that point but she did indeed make it the longest-running show up to that time in Broadway history musical show and she played it for nine months and then closed it and that was it for Ethel on Broadway really the rest of her career was was consumed with television appearances a couple of memorable cameos and in movies I'm sure a lot of you have seen her famous cameo in the movie airplane where she plays the the war veteran in the in the mental ward who thinks he's Ethel Merman and and has to be sedated but she also got great pleasure out of doing symphonic concerts and the first big one that she did was in 1975 right here in Boston with the Boston Pops I remember as a kid and Oregon watching it on television and she did the famous medley that Roger of her of her her big hit songs that Roger Eden's had devised for her in the 1950s and she was in great shape vocally and she knocked him dead again and this led to a long series of of symphonic appearances with with orchestras all over the world and that was really her bread and butter until she died personally death was not as well liked by many people as she was by the people who worked with her it was interesting when I was writing this book I interviewed almost 130 people and I went back to I found people dating back to do Barry was a lady in 1939 believe it or not and very I don't think anyone I literally don't think anyone really had anything terribly negative to say about the experience of working with her but her agents in particular did not like working with her I think she was very tough on them and they had plenty to say about how tough and intractable she really could be I think that there's a direct connection between this this little girl who grew up adored by her parents and had this totally outward directed personality and not really any introspective ability at all that I could find she was not a great reader she was not a great thinker she was she was a very simple person in many many ways I think there's a very direct connection between that and her very out-there performing style she was not somebody like Judy Garland who internalized the songs she sort of threw them out of the audience a rare exception to that I think we saw tonight the that old feeling which is absolutely one of the most devastating performances I have ever heard her give and that clip was actually the thing that made me want to write this book it was it was so overpowering but in general she did she did not internalize she she threw it out at the audience she also had a funny habit in which a few people do complain about of not looking at her fellow actors on stage and I think that this stemmed from the fact that she had appeared early in her career with many vaudevillians and in vaudeville of course what you did was just Here I am and out to the audience she was not exactly what you would call an ensemble player she she would plant herself in the middle of the stage and and and send it out to you and of course her her voice was so remarkable that she could be heard all the way at the back of the house I think the great composers loved her not only for her remarkable voice but even more for the fact that her diction was so incredible and that's really what the Gershwins Cole Porter and Irving Berlin were after I think it's the same reason they liked Fred Astaire he wasn't really much of a singer but the words are crystal clear and so were athel's and as wonderful as all those melodies are I think it's the words we hang on to don't you think I mean in so many cases certainly in the case of Cole Porter I think it's the words that that that really stay with us and Ethel was incomparable at getting those words across she had a rather unhappy personal life in fact a very unhappy personal life she had four failed marriages two children one of whom as I mentioned earlier died when she was quite young in her mid-twenties and a somewhat up-and-down relationship with her son which while it ended happily had have said it's rough spots and unfortunately I think and I try to show this in the book without banging you over the head with it I think there was a funny kind of emptiness in her I think there was something that wasn't fully formed in her as thrilling as she was on stage I think at times in the performances you can even see it in the in the singing or hear it in the singing that this she had a very very sharp black and white view of the world and you were either with her or you were against her and that was all there was to it there was not much gray area at all and she had a wonderful expression she had a very strong code of ethics and if you had violated that if you felt if she felt you had used her in any way if she felt that you had violated her trust or lied to her she had an expression she would say thing and that meant you were out of her life thing so feel free to use it if you like it's the f ing exclamation point but it certainly did not hold her in good stead in her personal life at all unfortunately so anyway this book has been just a remarkable project in my life it's it's been a it's been my favorite thing I've ever worked on I have to say it was it was just a privilege to to do the research to meet all the people who worked with her and to try to make the life of the woman that I still think is the greatest star in the history of the Broadway musical come alive for the reader and I I just wanted to read you a brief section if that's okay which will illustrate a little bit of what I just explained to you it also tells you a lot about her sense of humor and her lack of pretense and her incredible honesty and I'm going to start this is toward the end of the book in the late 1970s Ethel was kind of getting tired of what was happening at the Broadway musical she didn't understand the musicals of Stephen Sondheim or or later on Andrew Lloyd Webber she didn't quite understand the appeal of them and she was feeling a little alienated so that's where I'm going to start deep down Ethel was beginning to have a gnawing feeling that Broadway had begun to forget about her or at the very least to have taken her for granted the Year 1980 marked her 50th anniversary in the theatre and few in the Broadway community seemed to notice or CAIR one who did was her friend stage manager Bob Scheer who took it upon himself without telling her to try to have a Broadway theater renamed for her he went first to the owners of the Alvin where he was turned down flat he also met with rejections from the owners of the Imperial the st. James and nearly every other theatre in town finally he tried the owners of the Apollo which had recently been remodeled the owners were enthusiastic about the idea and it seems sentimentally fitting the Apollo was the theater where Ethel had performed both George White's candles and take a chance with the deal all but signed Bob went to see Ethel to tell her the good news he thought was certain to please her Ethel was incensed the idea flopped with her on every conceivable level for one thing she hated surprises of any kind for another the idea that someone would try to drum up support for her without her knowledge as if she were a charity case infuriated her finally the fact that it would be the Apollo and not one of the more prestigious theaters that would be named after her was an insult did I ever ask you to do anything about naming a theater after me she railed at Bob who the hell gave you permission to do that and the Apollo what does that have to do with me do you think that theaters gonna be there in 20 years mark my words it isn't going to be there as it happened she was right the Apollo closed a few years later she wrote her attempting to a swash or anger in response FL wrote him a letter typed on her own electric typewriter dear Bob thank you for your letter of September 28th I appreciate you having my interests at heart and I think part of the success that I have been fortunate enough to have has been because I have had such nice friends all good wishes Ethel she open copied the letter to her financial advisor Irving Katz and did not speak to Shearer again for nearly a year in the fall of 1980 Ethel was on hand at the New York State Theatre for an all-star gala honoring Beverly Sills at her final operatic performance the Opera was New York City operas production of deflator Mouse and in the famous act two parties scene a collection of sills a show business friends and colleagues each did a special turn before this however the audience had to endure the first part of fledermaus is act 2 which I must say I is tough for me as an opera critic which was given an extremely arch and unfunny performance with kitty Carlisle on the trouser role of Prince Orlovsky in the dressing room that she shared with Mary Martin and Eileen Farrell Ethel sat with her hands folded across her stomach and her feet propped up staring at the television monitor as the act dragged on finally she pronounced the entire performance and asked Farrell how long it was going to last things didn't get much better once the stars began parading across the stage as there were too many opera stars offering off painfully labored versions of pop songs notably leontyne prices what I did for love walking off with the whole show were Mary Martin with a stunning rendition of my heart belongs to Daddy and Ethel with there's no business like show business at the party afterward Ethel admitted to a reporter that she had never actually seen one of SILS operas but her enthusiasm for the art form which had had been running for several years continued her current favorite was the magnetic American baritone Sherrill Milnes whom she had heard in his Met performances of Rigoletto and Macbeth and she had started to pick up some of the terminology associated with opera singers after one of her concerts she jokingly asked her agent Bob Gardner what was better tonight my head voice on my chest voice in the early sorry I'm going to jump although Apple was anything but a constant theater goer she dutifully went to see her close friends perform it didn't matter whether the venue was Broadway the straw hat circuit or a nightclub when Carol cooks husband Tom troupe starred in same time next year at the Westbury music fair Ethel trekked out to Long Island twice to see the show she showed up for all of Tony Quattro's nightclub engagements often bringing an entire table of friends with her and always picking up the check at the end of the night occasionally she could be spotted at a Broadway opening night some shows however inspired indifference or outrage in her when Andrew Lloyd Webber's Katz was opening on Broadway in 1982 she received an invitation to a cocktail party that Josh and Neda Logan were hosting for Weber she sent it along in the mail to tony quantro scribbling on the card one ago then having circled Weber's name she wrote who the hell is he when John Kander and Fred ebbs Woman of the Year reached Broadway in 1981 Ethel was in the first night audience her opinion of Lauren Bacall's musical abilities had not changed since applause eleven years earlier as Bacall barked out her first few lines ethel seated in the third row of the orchestra on the aisle bellowed jesus was anybody there people on stage heard it said the show's conductor Donald Pippin I certainly heard it at intermission Ethel came breezing into Bacall's dressing room despite the doorman's attempts to prevent her from entering as a dazed Bacall looked on helplessly Ethel said honey I have to have a drink and went to the bar to fix herself one after she tossed it back she said oh that's just what I needed okay see you on stage second act and barreled out of the room without saying word about the performance according to Donald Pippen the call was for the first time in her career speechless so that's a little sampling of the book it's it's very exciting what has happened to this book the response has been amazing and I think it's a wonderful thing when you write I just as I said I love writing more than anything but you never know what's going to happen and with this book everything has just gone right from the word go and I'm a very very happy very very grateful author and I'm very very proud to be a writer and thank you so much for having me here to speak to you tonight thank you now do we have any questions about Ethel or the Bennett's or Eileen Farrell or anything else what am I going to write next I am Not sure I'm supposed to say what the very next thing is I can tell you that down the road probably for her centennial is going to be a biography of Mary Martin so I didn't want to do it right after this because I just thought it seemed like too much of a bookend but that will be happening eventually but the next one is is a secret at the moment I'm also working on a novel at about my experiences growing up in Oregon so please say a prayer for me on that one the two songs that Ethel added to Hello Dolly were world take me back and love look in my window and they're good songs the funny thing about them is that they kind of cover exactly the same ground that before the parade passes by does it's the same idea exactly you know she's coming back she's reentering the mainstream and but audiences didn't mind they just wanted more of her yes a weekend marriage oh oh oh oh oh yes yes I'm sorry yeah she did her her he asked if we she had a weekend marriage Ethel's fourth and final marriage was to the actor Ernest Borgnine and it lasted for just one month it was the shortest one of the shortest marriages on record I just read in Publishers Weekly that he's doing his own book so I guess we're going to get his side of the story too which should be interesting it was a terrible match she thought at first it was going to be the great romance of her life he sort of wined her and dined her and wooed her and he was you know substantially younger than she was and he had a big hit television series and he'd won an Academy Award and and he seemed like a great catch and he was he he had a rather troubling marital history before and after Ethel I don't think you know not in his last life I think that's been very happy but they did not get along to put it mildly and they went on a honeymoon to the Far East and they came back on the following day it was it was it was all over all over so yes I'm wondering if the Imam is still thing in if so what she thinks of your writing this book oh she my mother is still living thank you for asking she is going to be 90 and March and she's very very happy that it's been a success and but she said but I want you to know I still don't like her if I wrote a book about Margaret Whittaker Joe Stafford I think she'd be much happier yes yes I didn't the question was is Ethel mermans son still living and if so did I interview him he is he lives in the Bay Area and just north of the city and he's a very private man somewhat reclusive even he lives in a little community called Bolinas and it's it's frequented by people who kind of want to get away from it all and he was very nice and and very he didn't in any way stand in my way but he told me I I don't cooperate with biographers as a rule and I just sit this one out however I did get a very nice phone call from him right around the time the book came out and he said I I wish I had I've been told by several people who you did speak with that I should have and he said I've regret it so that was nice I think but he did not in any way impede me so her his niece Ethel's granddaughter Barbara Geary gave me her full cooperation so there's a lot from her in the book and as I said for him almost 130 of her friends and co-workers anybody yeah any clips of the of the Pharaoh or the the the Bennett's would you like to see we thought we know we know that you're selling this book now and we love these clips sure we saw Ethel Merman on the stage I think it was 1949 we've gone to a dinner and we afterwards we sat in the first row of the first balcony and we got splitting headaches were you dating my mother by any chance at the time well I'm sorry I didn't have any clips of the others but you can go to the video store and get the Bennets yes yeah compare I'm just curious if you were to compare how you feel about the large musical theatre personality of Ethel Merman compared to the large operatic personality of Eileen Farrell and what you think is similar about them and/or different because they come from such different worlds but in some ways are so similar in their largesse yeah oh that's it that's a really good question I I would answer that by saying that I think they were both very very solid people sure of themselves sure of their talent Eileen - had a lot of confidence had a mother who really really gave her a lot of self-confidence and support and like Ethel Elaine didn't really ever have any failures you know she she came to CBS radio as a chorister in 1930 in 1940 and after just a few months in the chorus they said well you're too loud so we're going to give you your own radio show and so there was a similar lack of struggle I think with both of them you know and I think that that was kind of one of the defining things of their lives thank you for doing this Ethel Merman was different she sounded different she looked different and her persona was different and a lot of people didn't like her you know how she was different right America has become so homogenized if you don't look like everybody else you don't sound like everybody else you're not well accepted but she was one of my most favorite people because her voice was so different from anybody else you got a wonderful review and the New York Times and thank you for doing well thank you very much it's very nice she was different you're right and that was actually one of the part of the impetus for starting the book I thought isn't this amazing that this woman I mean she was not a beautiful woman it was not a voice for all tastes mani quest that she became the queen of Broadway it was a different time I think it was it was an age of personalities that we don't have anymore I think the Broadway musical I don't like a lot of what I see I just don't I don't I don't like the Lloyd Webber shows I think maybe those are kind of behind us now I think that is crested oh I just saw just until he's writing Phantom 2 so there goes that theory I was a great lover of Sondheim I've always been I think he's a fascinating musician but I don't like a lot of what I see for one thing I don't like this gross amplification where you cannot tell who is singing on the stage you cannot tell where the sound is coming from and I've been to show us where I just it was an assault on my hearing on my brain however I do have to say I in the past couple of years I've seen two things that were absolutely remarkable one was Adam kettle's the light in the Piazza one of the finest things I ever saw fresh original beautiful and the other which a lot of people did not like was Grey Gardens which had one of the most amazing performances I've ever seen by christine ebersole and and another one by Mary Louise Wilson and so I think there's a lot of good work being done but whether or not it makes it to Broadway you know is another question so yes and I went to see The Magic Flute and at one time I had sung the Queen of the Night I had studied with Roberta Peters teacher with William Herman and I was so thrilled to go back and see the deeds of aflutter but I have to tell you I was appalled at the staging at the grandiose effect sound effects and technicalities and I love Mozart and I thought why does the Met need to do this and someone turned to me and she was German she says well I think they are trying to make a Broadway production out of it I was appalled because the singing was not what I heard with Leeza delicas and all those wonderful singers and chairs of evil entity and all of them and it would it seemed to me it was just out of out of proportion the second thing that I wanted to tell you about was Eileen Farrell I loved her and the first time I met her is when I was a young student at the conservatory in Cincinnati and she had come to Cincinnati to do the big Bicentennial with a large concert that they they do every year and I was chosen to sing with her in one of the the Bulgarian repertoire that she was doing and I was just absolutely how can I say I was mesmerised by her but I was rather shy and scared to death and she was so wonderful she just said my dear sing do you love to sing and I said yes miss Farrell I do and shortly afterwards there was there a bit of people in what they call the Gold Room going up to her and this young student who is a colleague of mine from the conservators at miss Farrell now tell me what how do you place your soft palate and he was going through all the anatomical things and this is her first her humour that I saw full force and she said hell boy I just opened my mouth and sing what do you do and now I would like to have a coca-cola had to share that that's my girl she was wonderful and her jazz I went to hear her sing jazz one evening in New York at one of the clubs and she sang Satchmo was there all of those people you would never have known that two days before you know she had sung of Abner in Opera and here she is she did not sing Judy can a cutie tikka now he has tried to sing jazz and she sounds like cutie taken our the opera star but Beryl did not when she was no other idiom no she she really it was it was an entirely different thing it's it's funny I Owen other-- of my favorite stories about Ilene was told to me by uh someone who was a student of hers at Indiana University where she taught for many years in the 1970s and I leaned like Ethel didn't like to talk about how she did it vocally Ethel when somebody asked Ethel how she breathes she said necessity and Eileen was it was very much the same way she had this this student that she had one day wanted to engage her in a very very complex discussion about vocal technique and the for the placement and the hard palate and the soft palate and this and Eileen let her go for a while and then one day she said honey I got to be honest with you I don't know you soft palate from a hole in the ground so that was that was the way that went yes he was mermans son in the theatre is the question he began in the theatre Bobby began in the theater backstage he was interested in directing he was interested in he was a stage manager for a number of years he worked on the technical side of things and he taught acting for a while at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco but he hasn't been in it for quite some time no I wouldn't I I think that is a cheat I think I did the book I mean I would expand certain things that are in the book already but I will if you read if any of you read the New York Times Sunday book review carefully the participation of Ethel Sun in a competing book that came out at the same time was mentioned and not at all favorably and I've been very lucky Eileen Farrell's children in no way tried to impose their vision of anything on me and I I had the cooperation of all the Bennett the next generation of Bennett's and they neither did they I wouldn't want I think to get into this particular yeah I it's my book it's I've done it the way I envisioned it and I'll leave it at that anyone else Thank You mr. Cole I think we have time for one more you've already done was there someone over here yeah you mentioned at one point in her career she was making $30,000 a week which at the time was a phenomenal amount of money Constance Bennett I was wondering what type of person she was with her for finances Constance Bennett excuse me Constance Vanna you mean yes constance bennett was was making $30,000 a year $30,000 a week for a period in the 1930s what kind of person was she with her finances she was terrible with her finances she spent every dime she made and and her entire life was really a struggle to keep up financially she made a lot of bad investments she wasn't a very good money manager unfortunately she told a reporter at once that she who was asking her about this that asking if she had spent her entire fortune as was rumored and she said well I couldn't spend that kind of money if I used Herman for toilet paper but in fact she did she went through it all anyway if you have any further questions I'm going to be signing books and I'll be happy to answer them on a one-on-one basis but thank you again very much you

Channel: Boston University

Views: 9,176

Rating: 4.6862745 out of 5

Keywords: Archival Research Center, HGARC

Id: vEPaiMmLC9A

Length: 81min 41sec (4901 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 01 2010