Ethel Merman, Gypsy Rose Lee Show, 1967 TV

some people get diamond bracelets for their birthdays all eternity this just arrived this is my birthday presents from Raskin and I'll bet you my guest has never received a present ever is my guesstimate we have roses for her but this is what they said to me [Applause] [Music] I thought you think back you got gold I noticed in the papers that you had yes well I do there's no reason for Apple being here there it is a full-page in the Sunday paper up here in San Francisco her son is here with the American Conservatory Theater you telling me yes movies saying he's not performing I mean he's a stage manager and I'm very very proud of him eventually he wants to direct one thing that I like to ask people in our theater because I talk to a great many people in show business who say I want my kids to have any part of it but if you had a dentist or if you were a man you had a grocery store and your kid got old enough to take over you change the name to Blackburn to Blackburn and son and nobody would think anything of it so how many people I mean it goes down from generation to generation so why shouldn't it with us if it's in his blood and he wants to do it let him do it because there's not much else oh because I would show mother wanted me to be a schoolteacher and I said forget it no I'm gonna go in the theatre and I started off you know not doing clubs and and I did it you know I had to wouldn't David Mary first decided to do what to do gypsy Beth was over my house one day and she said did you know I want to do this she said I have a feeling for this there's an awful lot in this book that is me this true yeah there really and truly is a point if I never had I never had a good fortune of meeting your mother but she must have been a fabulous person Oh everybody knew this thing my sister said opening night Juma backstage with me to congratulate Ethel to us were crying or there's a new June said oh and you were absolutely making it you want mother but you were methyl said what role can I never met your mother I think the best I could you know people have such different of pictures of their mother and I think I never thought of my mother as being Ethel Merman until I got to know you better during rehearsals really had nothing to do with the play well I mean she was really a driver as you know I mean but there was so much she had so much fun and whatever she did she did for the girls I mean all out so then they they were her life I have such funny reactions from people some people will say gee you must have hated your mother and I don't know where there could be one word in that script that would give a person that feeling because I love my mother deeply I don't know how anybody could say that but they hated a lot of letters for people really they say that I could never have written that book or that script if I had truly loved my mother and I've always thought of it as sort of a monument to my mother of course of course which will live forever they invited me to commit in Waterboro so they have some pictures taken and I can't go anywhere without my camera they didn't know I had my camera because would you ever forget that oh dear yeah because said nobody's hair was dressed and we had no makeup on no they were dressed for it nobody was really landing on a rehearsal well I was dressed the way do you see how I was because they told me come on over we have your picture taken took me three days to make up if Mario takes the second dolly for you to plug in the projector would you across the street from Minsky's the New Amsterdam Lander I took an elevator up to the roof and there on the very top floor they were rehearsing a play based on my life story i sat on the very back row of the fair and watched them [Music] the play was named gypsy at the Sandra church she was going to play me as young girl and Ethel Merman who was going to play mother no one else in the world would walk like that [Music] Jerome Robbins the choreographer and director in Sandra [Music] I thought maybe if I got up in the stage on my side of the footlights things would seem a more real but they didn't really somehow I felt like it goes to the banquet [Music] Stephen Sondheim wrote those wonderful lyrics and Julie Stein underscore and Ethel it was during these rehearsals and I realized that Ethel was really more like mother of the night then I thought she was yes Mother's energy her resourcefulness much more wonderful sense of nowhere I have a picture taken wasn't much else for me to do [Music] I went back out from the audience at the very back row of the theater was just as well because I never could watch any of this without crying the two little girls who played my sister and me as children the little girls late June had to have her hair bleached for the role so did my sister [Music] we're still easy to sit there in the darkness and imagine that I could always hear mother's voice calling out to me [Music] [Applause] you know there's all add up to that night in May 21st 1959 when he shut out the theaters cried all food people said how can you be crying when this is such a moment of triumph three I think that's why I was crying you know I never washed you once that I didn't cry [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Alan Eichler

Views: 73,052

Rating: 4.9405646 out of 5

Keywords: Ethel Merman (Theater Actor), Gypsy Rose Lee (Film Actor), Television Program (Media Genre), Music (TV Genre), Interview (TV Genre), Talk Show (TV Genre), Gypsy (Play)

Id: yqCgnX0s0M8

Length: 7min 40sec (460 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 02 2015