Ethel Merman, Agnes Moorehead--1973 Interview With Songs

of all of her but it seems like almost all of her great songs and if you're feeling down in the dumps this record will get you out of them its Ethel Merman and her voice is one of the landmarks of show business we're gonna talk her into singing tonight we think Gershwin and Cole Porter and Irving Berlin and all of them said that she was just the greatest singer of her time and this album has them all collected on it but she also is right here herself the great Ethel Merman you you even kiss loud you kissed me on the air and I read your ear to me you didn't give me your mouth I know I turned my ear I don't next be a bad instinct man there must not be a wine glass left in your house that's not fair shattered I ran a thing man it's clear this up for me once I read that it said mermen there is Claudia bourbon yes uh never bothers to practice or warm up fuel doesn't rehearse ever between shows you just open your mouth and it comes out and voice teachers have said this is nonsense this can't happen there's no organism that can do what I've been doing something wrong for an awful lot of years you don't focus I wouldn't have a vocalize day you read music today yes I can read music yeah yeah but I don't know how to vocalize I mean they say you have to one keep it warm no I think just the opposite I think have you warming up then you get it tired you don't I mean no but it's been every time I want to use it it's for mayor so I'll knock quick I hope it's there oh okay yeah we finally got actual wood put in but we're knocking plastic and you're falling apart uh uh Cole Porter I ran across the quote city I'd rather write for Ethel Merman than anyone alive and I don't know how many of those you got but one like that would be an answer on my knee oh boy yeah that must have made Mary Martin feel wonderful well I've done a few more songs a few more shows than the Mary had maybe that your head by one answer yeah few more uh what have you ever been in a flock uh well no well I was in the show called stars in your eyes with Jimmy Durante and that had what we considered a short run that was in 1939 and that ran for about six months but I don't know they said it was a good show was an excellent show and but they said the World's Fair killed it I don't know but that was that was a shortest one of all oh and then I I was in a musical version of rain and Rouben Mamoulian was directing it and the lyrics were very very bad the man who wrote the mike shall go nameless remember some of them no I don't really want to forget them and so it was about the second week of rehearsal and he wouldn't change him and I wouldn't sing him because I didn't understand them would you do home opening night what I didn't I didn't open that's what tries it Oh so I rehearsed for about a week and a half and then by mutual consent I left the show and June Havok went in to the show in my place and it came to New York and lasted thirty two performances at the Alvin said it was a musical version of her with those lousy lyrics yes where the raindrops keep falling on my head well no I remember one no no no when one lyric said I have some but a black pencil on my peepers and some Malmaison on my lips well I don't know Malmaison we won't go into that right but I mean said well hmm anyhow but well I didn't know what Malmaison you've Malmaison on my lip you got me I don't well it's house it's bad house or something isn't it that male mezzo measles oh yeah look so then I said well what does that mean if I don't know what it means how does a the audience know what it means and he said everybody knows what that's it that's the name of the very famous lipstick in Paris in Paris I'm singing in New York I mean well anyhow by mutual consent I get out of it and that's the only show that I backed out but Jun havoc went went on this journey yeah it's already two performances once tempted to call her up and say it's a turkey doing good no I play gypsy after that you know and she was well that's right she was one of the characters yes yes yeah so but you've generally had an unending string of hits it looks like yes fortunately were in great the composers to sing this song that was I was fortunate Tuesday are you generally happy for as the other people you know in show business who have had great success are you among those who are happy or are you miserable do you cry yourself to sleep you hate live feed oh no I love live person you seem that no yeah very happy person yet your voice will lift the the lowest spirits I I put this thing on this afternoon tonight look at me I'm all no I'm very proud of that album I'm going back to London at the end of March to do another one everybody ought to get get hold of it uh well wait I'm not allowed to actually sell things like this some reason violates something violates my morals or something that will be right back after this message gone wide world of entertainment this kid came in this afternoon and auditioned and sang for us just give her a break Ethel Merman you come on in here Alexander's right time back come on a deer come on in here it's the best land there's a lion they can leave your football like a never heard before so natural that you want to go to on that's just the bestest fan what I am oh my honey laughs come on along come on along let me take you by the hand to the man to the man who's the leader of the band and carry the swanee River lady right here come on it here Alexander's ragtime band oh honey better hurry and lets me answer it go oh honey let me take you to Alexander's fan coming along come on a deal Alexander's ragtime band here come on here it's the best band in the land they can play if you perform like it ever so gentle like you wanna go to war that's just a bestest fan I am Oh Marlo come on along come on along let me take you by the hand up to the man to the man who's the leader of the band if you can't hear the swanee River ladies come on come on this is another foolish dare I've accepted tonight I got to tell you this we did a song we ran through it at rehearsal because I'm my knees are actually trembling at this moment and I have developed psychosomatic type throat and so but I will try this please go right in and tell us what to do with ideas like this but anyway you may have to sing a little louder cuz you're a woman and thank you don't let me don't let me yeah but you know write over it or anything all right now if I can just know my first note cuz that's where this personal why did you make - I hear singing and there's no one there I smell blossoms and the trees are bare all day long I seem to walk on air I wonder why I want I at night and what's more I'd lost my head but title stars that used to twinkle in the skies are twinkling in my eyes I wonder why it is not so surprising that you feel very strange but nice the ACOs in a matter I know just what's the matter because I've been there what why drop down with a velvet whoa there is nothing you can take to relieve that resin eight you're not 16 driving blossoms and let free Oh Oh as a section of the audience that didn't get seen during the station break in there well I had to you were whining in the oh dear okay that's all you you never stop you've got all kinds of things going now you're doing a student some kind of in Sullivan Show that I heard about Ed Sullivan special which we taped on January 20 shown March 16 aren't you bouncing around the country tonight well I did a Texaco commercial and then I go back to England the end of March to do the Annie Get Your Gun album with the big band sound would Stanley Black in the big office to achieve and then I think we're gonna I'm gonna do concert with the Stanley Black Orchestra people around the yes my favorite number of years with Zippity zip code so you remember doing that a bit doing that yeah the zip code everywhere we did that for the post up my next guest I first saw in the flesh in Lincoln Nebraska she was doing a tour but it was done one in hell um in Lincoln Nebraska sounds like an anti-climax but she's one of those tremendously skillful gifted versatile actresses that well if she'd only been in Citizen Kane she would have had a nice career but she's done so many great things and staged screen films every medium radars they used to say an old nightclub act will you welcome please the remarkable Agnes Moorehead in all of you what is he who you are a singer basketball player working I'm auditioning for other jobs you're those three weeks enjoy to feel a little like Milton Berle here I'll be getting into a dress next there's a market for everything let's do it we haven't seen you for such a long time you know Los Angeles you don't know how long in Jenny many years yeah but I first saw you before you saw me I saw you in Lincoln on the stage in the drama quartet remember toured before went to Broadway Charles Laughton ceedric Hardwick Charles boy a-and you and Don Juan inhale oh that was I was very young then that was 20 years ago what was I an old bag I was probably got your mother's knee no I was fighting I was about 13 and I went around backstage I hung around in that there was Charles Laughton and boy and your your baggage didn't arrive lately at props he only had a microphones microphone stand in books and they've gotten on wrong rail way Carson yes yes and Lawton came out and entertained the audience for a while until 12 o'clock they stayed until we did it another two hours then it was one of them not I came back and met you you would remembered I said I want to meet all his people and then I could sell my little friends at school I was talking with Agnes Moorehead and Charles Laughton everything things like that and you said beat a kid who get a fail I never did but it was wonderful that tour was it was really quite an exceptional tour because we toured for years and then we toured in Europe yeah and it was very exciting and of course I've been out with it again you know a just 27 weeks I've been on the road and then we played here wonderful a limited time Ricardo Montalban everyone thought was a sort of a second b-movie actor you know and he get such seriously wonderful notices I mean they knew you could act and all of that but I thought that was nice when somebody gets a recognition like right yeah I've directed him about 14 years ago and the same thing they wanted to take a group of them up to various towns and they asked me if I would direct it then they asked me about the Don Juan and I said why don't you try Ricardo Montalban he might be very good and I thought then that he had great possibilities it was Mary Astor and Reginald Denny and Kurt Casner and Ricardo Montalban and then this time when they asked me if I would go out they asked me again if I would suggest somebody who would do the dolphin role and I said why don't you try Ricardo Montalban and they had never thought of him and he was just absolutely was really marvelous through the whole career not being thought of for certain things it's a great he says is the greatest role he's ever played but of course it's longer than Lear and Hamlet together you know any he did it with with great artistry I think say so your friend recently Orson Welles oh yes you were an even Magnificent Ambersons and Citizen Kane we talked about that one so that on the show my quicker Doris for 17 years in the Mercury Theater was he um when he made the films was he a perfectionist did he do things over and over was a meticulous or did he just have a kind of freewheeling way of getting it right the first time no I've been there's a there was a scene you want me tell you but I'm seeing that he directed it was a scene in Magnificent Ambersons that was by the boiler scene it was a very hysterical scene and I think I went through about three or four rooms with it and of course we never cut we never stopped the camera because the camera was on little tracks and it would stop for a close-up or it would stop for a tattoo or it's you know and it followed the actor it was the audience and it was very very difficult and of course we didn't know too much about the technique of moviemaking and it was it was terribly interesting but very difficult and I remember this particular part that I was doing he said to me now I want you to pet like a little girl and of course that wasn't the characterization that I had made up my mind to do at all so I played it well we went through it the second time he said I want you to play it like an insane woman and I played it like an insane woman and then the next time he said I want you to play it like she's absolutely inebriated and I played it that way and again he said now I want you play without absolutely just a an absolutely vacuous mind and by the time I thought myself what did the world's he want and after about the fifth time I began to realize what he wanted and I did it 11 times different characterizations 11 times and then the twelfth time after he was absolutely satisfied but the technical part of it he said to me now play it and it had a little bit of the hysteria it had a little bit of the insanity it had a little bit of the little girl and he had he had mixed it all up in my mind so that the characterization that I played had a little bit of all of these and it was terribly exciting did you he isn't he was marvelous because he was he never played the obvious he never directed obviously he always directed in some stranger blind way but you didn't you thought well he is it that that isn't bright at all but if you put your your career or the role whatever it was in his hands he loved to mold you the way he wanted and it was always much better than you could do yourself did he film all those takes do you think was he absolutely no that was just way to be hiking you know just rehearsal yeah I know I remember they the grips and they and they are a lighting and the men said to me aren't you just exhausted and I said no because I was saying it was just so exciting to do it that way he was the most exciting director uh that you could possibly imagine and of course I loved him dearly because he was very very great to me was very kind to me and he had great confidence and everything that I would do which I did a word or two yeah I think the only thing that would be the thing the opposite of that would be working for an actor who thinks he's a genius that must be irritating working for director who thinks he's a genius and he isn't clearly yeah I don't know what they've always seen that yeah you know but I have worked with great many directors who are just wonderful as matter of fact very creative but never as exciting or as wild really an undisciplined as Orson Charles Laughton was another exciting director but he was a disciplined director he was a York Sherman and he knew the value of the dollar Orson didn't Orson could ride beautifully if he didn't hey you know if there if you didn't have to work think about the Treasury as far as that's concerned I remember one time we were we were doing that the wonder show did he ever tell you about the one to show that he did a magic show Soumya oh dear well I played the Calliope outside and dressed all of the people and packed all the pigeons and all that kind of thing backstage and at the very end he called the meeting toward of course it goes Joe cotton and Orson and I were the organizer of the Mercury Theatre Joe was president I was vice president and and Orson was treasurer there was never any money in the Treasury all of a sudden Lawson said you know we have forty-five thousand dollars in the hole and I thought of all the things that I was going to be sued for you know I know I was frantic and it just so happened then Universal had a segment about it a magician and he said I said take it Orson take it and and ask for forty five thousand dollars and we'll get out of the hole which he did yeah and he got $45,000 and we were out of debt then she also was like thinking things that he that he was that was paid for he put right back into the into his work yeah yeah really loved it if it when he works now he does it just a grid of film cutting room and keep working there something oh he's he's one if anybody doesn't do it just to buy a cigars or whatever we have a message we'll be right back this is decades the network wherever millions of people it's your turn call now oh we're back yeah when did you first lay eyes on on master orson welles well maybe my years ago I used to spend my holidays with my aunt who was quite an affluent gal and lived at the Waldorf Astoria the old Waldo and one time there was a little boy with her who came in with a gentleman who wore a Stetson hats and and he would had little white trousers on and a blazer and so forth and he was Ted he was explaining about a concert to two old dowager's and I I was just fascinated with this little boy and I said to my aunt listen to his vocabulary did you ever hear such old kabuna in your life and and I was awestruck with this youngster well anyway during the time that I was there we went into the drugstore and I was having a chocolate soda and he sat beside me and I said I hear you went to the concert the other day and he said yes I wanted to hear more about this and we talked and talked well all right years pass everything you know okay I get here to New York and and and every once in a while in meeting Orson and we work together of course in radio I would think it seems to me that I've seen you before somewhere I've seen you and then it would pass well we were out on the set that's a citizen can and they had just done a story about him in The Saturday Evening Post and he said have you seen this me toss the magazine over to me and I opened it and there was a picture of the little boy and I said to Morrison did you ever spend your holidays in New York City and he said yes I said where did you stay at the Waldorf Astoria and I said I told him the story and he said what to think aggi that I knew you when I was seven years old so every time you ask awesome you know how long he's done me since I've known ever since I was seven years old you say I got together with Eddie said that's what he always talks about his life sometimes he says it's as if he lived in adults life as a child he told me when soft off-camera that he consciously decided to avoid the whole teenage part of his life he just left that out he just became an adult well I didn't Tina Grier's because he did not want to go through teenage yes believe that and did I meant to make that decision be able to bring it off let's know that easy we have a message we'll be right back call 802 one three seven three four seven I'm not sure miss Moorhead were you in the war of the worlds' the radio show that terrified the most of New Jersey and part of the Cantina it's so funny they played it on radio since and they talked about it once when Wells was here but been listening to it the time sequences is impossible I mean a guy says I'll come right to Princeton New Jersey and in 30 seconds he's there and yet people believe took it as real even with the fact that he would have to dematerialize and pop over there we answered so many phone calls you know is there and it was so exciting and I remember one phone call I said this woman said to me their little bean men in my backyard shared little green men I said madam it's just a story it is I see them I've seen them what am I going to do about it well it was they were hysterical all these phone calls what did you recommend me she never spray just because they're you a farmer yes I don't that that they don't look like if I was gonna I can plow the lower 40 in that outfit I'd like to see this outfit but you really are a farm girl yes I have a farm in Ohio and I'm now looking around by two white mules anyone I'm very anxious to get a pair of new white white me license oh I don't know they seemed more romantic than dark mule somehow hey you're right been rollin yes yes of course use them and work them on the farm you're right you can write annual catcher oh yes they're broken for saddle and they're the little ones are the dearest little things you've ever seen in your life they're all ears of course but they're just they're just darling but they're so affectionate and I think the reason they're so affectionate this nobody cares about them you know and they're very intelligent extremely intelligent they're like pigs you know pigs are very intelligent did you know that they are yes some of them you tend to underestimate them when you mean yes and they want to be pleased if you get down below the surface what is a mule actually is a mule a castrated no that's a gelding what is a mule a mule is well i'ma see you will is is uh I think it no wait a minute but I don't want to say something about a jackass because that is that's that is seems to me when a donkey up know when a mule is bred with a horse it seems to me and and isn't that it or is it vice versa it's quite complicated what is it I know Robert what I heard it what I knew all this I'm not sure but I think when I was bred with a horse yeah the progeny can't procreate ersatz right you can get a sexless animal yes and his right it still that is strange there there oh there but they make up for their being very interesting they are indeed yeah there's nothing is good where's your time but you need to precise address but no it's about it's about 65 miles south east of Columbus Ohio a nice rolling carpet you put up your hair and yes well it's trying to talk like I know something about the farm and I really do I have about 60 head of Black Angus and we of course now we've had to buy a great deal of feed no but we have a good we had last year we had a great crop of corn did you lose anything in this bad winter well I they won't be able to raise much hay I don't think because of the rains rain to know that was devastating it and you know the farm life is quite a terrifying life in a way I mean the you let the word mercy of the elements and all that oh yeah says a man this sounds funny but it said in Nebraska that I know of recently who because of the soft ground he had just bought a giant combine and the thing sank into the mud and they tried to pull it out and they pulled it in half i neva shot himself oh dear I mean people who know farm life that isn't so surprising I mean it would just be a really great tragic and so it's there but you're always putting money into a farm until it begins to show some profit my my palm is not shown any profit up to now but it will I'm quite sure you still have your beautiful home in Beverly Hills that's right yeah that's right oh what a house she has Wow yeah it never stops yeah yeah it's beautiful are the rascally rambling on Mediterranean house it was Sigmund Romberg house become part of the composer yes it's really high Braddock a desert song comes out every corner the music look at yeah yeah um what was it gonna say Oh what is your accent you have none of course but I mean what would you have had when you started at we are you from the Midwest as kill no no trace of it I was born a Boston and my father's English my mother and seeing fish and Irish and we had that kind of atmosphere around us all the time my father was a stickler for good good English and he was a quite literary and he would correct us all the time didn't think you went into a sinful profession the stage do you mean because it was a minister yeah no no he was very understanding the only thing he told me he said up I want you to have an education and then after you graduate you can try your wings wherever you want to that's all right I understand but he said you must promise me that you must promise me that you'll go through school and I thought was a waste of time but I went to school I must say that it hasn't been a waste of time after that you could do as long as the one thing you have is the one thing my father made me promise and that was all do you know a late playwright George S Kaufman I did hear his father's advice to him he said sample everything in life except incest and folk music on that note we have a message in here Friday decades looks back on famous animators and their car throw online it gets if de Wacom I think I mentioned it's Manik the producer of the program the American family and American family will be here an American family they don't claim to be the American family and the entire loud family Lance mr. mrs. loud and I don't remember all with children's names but I will know them by this time tomorrow night Thank You Ethel Thank You Agnes if I may call you those names thank you mr. Cedric Robert and we'll see you tomorrow and we have will swiv later this week Robert Morley Jerry Lewis Jack Benny Bill Cosby and Joe Frazier and the Harlem Globetrotters gonna come back get even see good night

Channel: Alan Eichler

Views: 176,964

Rating: 4.8732548 out of 5

Keywords: Ethel Merman (Performer), Agnes Moorehead (Performer), Irving Berlin (Composer), Orson Welles (Director), Alexander's Ragtime Band (Composition), You're Just in Love (Composition), Interview (TV Genre), Music (TV Genre), Television Program, Broadway Musicals

Id: 4jobppR1MPs

Length: 32min 52sec (1972 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 15 2016