Theater Talk- The Private Life of Ethel Merman (Full Episode)

coming up on theater talk you baby the interval is made possible in part by the CUNY TV foundation from New York City this is theater talk I'm the producer Susan Haskins and I'm Michael Riedel of the New York Post so Michael as you know Time Out New York released a list of the top 25 divas of all time and number one after all these years without a doubt is Ethel Merman she was born Ethel Zimmerman in Queens she studied stenography but she had a voice that was bigger than the Canadian brass band she became famous of course on Broadway in Annie Get Your Gun and most memorably in gypsy and we're going to talk about Ethel Merman tonight with two people who were very very close to her for much of her life we are joined tonight by our friend Tony Cointreau and Jim Russo welcome guys when Ethel Merman come into your life she came into my life in 1959 when she was doing gypsy and I was 18 years old now you do the math and you're dead meat I met heard heard I went to a teenage class at the Neighborhood Playhouse for teenagers who wanted to study acting and it was just a summer thing and I was sitting next to this girl and she said my name is Patti what's yours and at that time my name was Jacques Jacques on Hilo Bay hunt one male sequin toll Oh after this yeah I survived that that's why you fell in love Tony right forty-five years later um but we we the the girl Patti next to me she heard Jacques and she went ooh and there was a this sweet girl on the other side of her with this little dart big dark brown eyes and slick pixie haircut and she leaned over and she looked at me and she said well I think Jacques is a beautiful name well we became like that great pals a week later she comes to me she says Jacques said you want to go see mom's play I said yeah what's she doing she said gypsy moms Ethel Merman I thought I can do that so that Friday night we were at and afterwards miss Merman to me then took us to Sardis of course and I met an 18 year old you know theater enthusiast you know meeting all of showbusiness heaven was terrific and then Billy Rose the great producer drove us home in his rolls-royce not bad but on the way home because we dropped we dropped the two Ethel's off at the Park Lane we should sell Ethel's daughter was little at with a little Ethel named her daughter after herself first there was Ethel Agnes Zimmerman her mother Ethel came Ethel Merman and then Ethel Merman levitt her daughter so anyway you were saying they mr. rose was driving we dropped them off and he was driving me up to 79th and park and the most wonderful thing of it was that he was on in years especially compared to me and he was talking to me like as he would appear and he said you know that he had known the real mama rose and he said what you see on that stage doesn't even come near the real mama Rose he said she was truly psychotic that's mr. roses were those are mr. roses words on line um Jim yes we know you know the version of Ethel Merman as this credible voice the iconic figure yes Broadway sound exactly what was she like when she wasn't on stage it's funny I think of Ethel every single day of my life I never think of the performer I think of Ethel the friend she was she was vulnerable she was shy she was funny she was she was childlike in so many ways I just adored her when you say there was an insecurity there a vulnerability I mean there was a brassy Broadway personality there was an insecure still girl little girl from you think she was always the little girl from Astoria yeah and a secretary and a great star all at the same time and she lived with her parents until they died ya know she was she was married no she was very budget they were they were close by my parents were always close by they were always close close by yes I was close when she moved to the berkshire hotel she got an apartment for that there yeah you know it's ya know she kept and her best friends too are always the ones that she had way before the the Broadway years they really but she worked in Queens yeah that's cool yeah now you guys have when she died I know you I've seen these wonderful papers the the memorabilia have you have an amazing collection of Ethel Merman things and one of one of the stuff that I what I loved the most was her Buzard diary and notebook that has her dental records it is a telltale said well that was the secretary and he kept notes of everything everything and she had another little book that I can't find that had you see she was very spiritual woman and uh that's something else people don't know and she was my friend I have a book that will be coming out a memoir coming out at the end of the year and it's called Ethel Merman mother Teresa and me because these were the two women of my life who were the most important who were like mother's second mothers to me you were going to say that there was a record she kept that you can't follow well she had well what she had she she would she would find a spiritual sayings and she would paste them in a in a little booklet and you know it was you know and but the book that I saw it's it's a collection so fascinating book lection offered and she draws diagrams of her teeth yes and records everything that the dentist has told her and done to her and then the next phase it'd be a recipe and here her menus when she was married I assume into two bob seasons she she was quite the little housewife and had all the hair German meatball dish Wow I'd like to try that someday and the next page next page would be Richard Rogers and hey the next page is a recipe and the next page then is her day-by-day diary of being in Annie Get Your Gun right and where she's furious with Richard Rodgers because he's having an affair with some chorus girl in the show yes oh Ken here we go Annie Get Your Gun out of the room all the rest and then notes on on Annie she kept Diaries on these things and and if she had a little tiff with someone went in there notes on call me madam and what she was doing also she recorded Deary with ray Bolger during that time and been a vacation she left New York da-da-da-da-da probably how much how much it cost and opened a National Theatre Washington DC closed and didn't miss one performance and have you ever considered publishing this stuff of hers because it really is a historical record of these great shows you know these things were all put in to our possession by her son Bob Levitt who's a wonderful man and he considers us the as in his words the Brothers of his heart and I would never do anything without his permission or as I'm waiting to find out what you know we we have her ashes I know I in the closet oh yeah we you helped them you have the entire Brad them in your arms we have the whole family the other mom-and-pop zimmermann little Ethel Bob Levitz senior the father of her children right right and I think that's it how come we missed mother Teresa words if I ever hear a lock of her hair look let's close we're gonna scar char I want to ask you though very sad moment in Ethel mermans life was when her daughter died Oh God little little Ethel what did little Ethel die of and you remember when that happened well this this this nearly killed big Ethel nearly killed her you know in those days we were not that savvy about drugs and one doctor would prescribe to a teenager let's say barbiturates to sleep another one and feta means to lose weight another one would would give you tranquilizers I knew women who had gold and tranquilizer pills on their charm bracelets in those days you know I mean it was just nobody knew and nobody knew then that the mix with alcohol was and it was accidental I was with Ethel the day she got the coroner's report a burgundy ow I have never I've never you know to a mother's total despair and he had brought every it was a couple of months after her daughter had died that was you know horrific enough but this brought it all back and it said accidental overdose there wasn't enough of anything in there but it was the liquor it was the vodka on top of all the things that have been prescribed and Ethel said after that she said I won't even have a an aspirin in my house but she had a she had a candle that she lit 24 hours a day and a lock of her daughter's hair and a picture on a table in her bedroom and she said if janeth if john f kennedy can have an eternal flame so can my Ethel and it was very important to hurt to know that little Ethel hadn't committed suicide yes very yes absolutely Catholic don't know no it was official but the poor know the point was I think it was it was not a religious thing it was as much as just to you know suicide versus accident I can understand the papers kept saying suicide suicide suicide which every time it was like a stab in her heart Jim what were her final years like when you spent time with her and the career was kind of over then there were no more Broadway show that well there were no more Broadway shows but she never stopped doing things she did the Philharmonic she did she always kept her name out there she did the Johnny Carson show and labo The Love Boat exactly and you know a wonderful thing everything that that she did was the best thing was the most exciting thing I think the Love Boat was as exciting as gypsy to her everything was exciting and that was that again a childlike quality yeah you know it was all wonderful to her already go to a restaurant she go I think they're going to give us a good table I mean she really didn't expect she wasn't she wasn't entitled she'd ever felt entitled she was just did you ever get the sense that she wished that people were writing musicals for for her still what knows and she didn't know she'll regret she's no bitterness my Hello Dolly was written for her Wow and the greatest disappointment of Jerry Herman's life and jenny was there and when he told us I mean it was when when a David Merrick and Jerry Herman called her up and said we got your next show and she said sorry boys but I'm hanging it up really and she wouldn't she wouldn't she wouldn't do it but she closed and she closed he closed it she closed it yeah and made it the longest-running Broadway show at that time that's right anyway so you described the crowds just going crazy they did go crazy oh you were you were there for the original opening night we were there and so when she came out the place Oh oh my god you know that she told me that um after having been on Broadway 40 years she said it was the first time when the audience went so bananas she was the first time that she ever lost her concentration real yeah amazing and then she had the she had a stroke how did she how did she know she had a brain tumor right glioblastoma but it's struck just like that you mind describing that incident well she she was getting rid of the car was waiting for her downstairs to go to take her to the airport because she was going to sing the nerving berlin medley on the Oscars on the academy award show and she called me and she said well I'm going I'm cars downstairs I'm going to go to Beverly Hills Hotel and I'll call you when I get there then I'm going to Mary's Mary Martin's she was going to stay with Mary Martin for a few days and you know we'll be in touch to our armor by but what she did was in the last year she had been screwing up words and then she'd say Oh lime all right then she'd say it correctly this time on the phone she screwed up a word she said a lime all right and she screwed it up again and he just kind of I just stood just felt uncomfortable and the next thing she did she went to the mirror ah to put on her lipstick before going downstairs and it just struck a seizure the the tumor just went that little bit too far into her brain I don't know how that works and she went to the phone all she could do was holler because she couldn't speak and she had to crawl to the door to to unlock it so that you know because I knew in the hotel that where it came from that it was her and I got a call from her lawyer 7:00 in the morning the next morning saying that Ethel had had a stroke she was in the hospital and then a few minutes later I got a call from a nurse and Ethel had brought her her telephone book with her I made sure through all of this shatters all and she kept pointing to my name and she wanted the nurse to call me so the one I didn't hear from her that day I wouldn't be worried right she was still thinking of me and then she couldn't speak I didn't know that then and we went we went to the hospital and not to be able to communicate someone who was such a communicator it was great as always of all time real yes but she was she was a communicator and so many ways she she was on the phone five ten times a day she'd write postcards from if she went to New Jersey she read it postcards with everything everywhere everywhere did you ask my boys so she was just in general a great communication and prep this happened well was she ever able to speak again before well they gave her a lot of prednisone and that and some radiation but they knew that it was only a matter of giving her a little more time and she when she couldn't speak she was in the hospital and we had a when she was a little girl a little Ethel Agnes Zimmerman she was built as that in the foot when she'd sing for the troops in the First World War right and mr. Zimmerman her father would play the piano and little uh she'd sing well there were two songs she did this one I would kill to hear it's called when Maggie Dooley did the Huli Huli however you ever find we lost Michael or Susan well I want to I want to be the first one to hear when Maggie Dooley did it over Lully sung by Ethel Zimmerman yeah little levels it 11 right and the other song that she would do is she's me pal which she do a sing to her mother in the front row and of course a lot of those soldiers were wiping a tear away at that but when she was she couldn't speak and we had Jimmy had a little needle needle fillings pillow made that said she's me pal so we went to the hospital and she started to cry and she put the pillow up to her cheek and she started to sing and she sang that song perfectly really and that was probably the last performance Ethel Merman ever gave mmm amazing um you have a Christmas tree we do have a sorcerer history in your apartment we deals with mystery look at the Christmas tree out every day all year long all year long it it was our Christmas tree that she loved and that had it all year long and we have it all year long now - we lighted every night and she's always there with us it's a it's when she when she died Bobby said anything of moms that you'd like her son yeah Bobby her son yeah anything you would like and we both thought individually the tree because that was her that was her spirit to us in and gave her such joy all of her life that we thought that's the thing that we'd like to have it it like personified thing personified fo to us you know and it was just it's just a small little artificial Christmas a little artificial but but to her it was really she she loved she loved little things she'd got such a kick out of out of it you know you'd go to restaurants she said she go look at the table it then there take us to her but she never did took any we go to a movie you didn't stand in line you know she never took anything for granted and just you can tell I adored her I must say up when when I was looking through some of these papers with you guys there were a couple things which I almost passed out when I looked it up for example there is her script for gypsies yes and the line is you mean the first a first line the first line out to four before you start Louise that's right so so here it is so so this is the script and this is what's written her script it says count to four before you start Louise crossed out in Ethel Merman Ethel crosses oh yes she writes sing out Louise right and you I been very ethical berminat I don't know maybe Arthur Warren strange who knows but this is the line count to four before you start Louise crossed out and then next from Herman's handwriting sing out Louise yeah an iconic line and the other thing that you have which is extraordinary is you have her lyric oh yeah heat for um roses turn at the end right and she has notated Jerome Robbins directions to her curtain up right hand up right hand up like the lights laugh at the hand up she is a lot both hands down it's right and then there's a cross - to - to arch to proscenium arch grind preserver yes I'm all there it's unbelievable one of the greatest musical of all time you actually see being created Jerome Robbins is telling you and she's the sacrum that she's in left hand up right hand up it's really remarkable um you're a lasting memory something she said to you above somewhere you went with her that will always stay stay with you well there were a lot of there were just so many memories we did we did so many things but ordinary things going to flea markets and I had a Roosevelt field you know and uh things things like that's that's the way I remember Ethel I I acknowledge of course the great star I she was extraordinary on stage but going to Roosevelt Field and and shopping you're looking for what was she looking for in the shoes she would buy notepads with someone else's name on them and we'd say but Ethel that has surely was shilts or something like that it she that's okay that's okay I just I just make notes on it anyway it just there was such a childlike quality to her a lasting memory you have of something she said a moment you were with her well you know I saw real theater magic and a human being in action and I'll try to make this brief when she was divorcing Bob's six and she her daughter and I went out to dinner and we thought well because she was very depressed now with her husband or sick I was number three number three and she she was she was very upset so we thought well after dinner we'll go to the theatre she was doing gypsy we'll go to the theater and we'll see if she wants to go have have you know have a bite to eat afterwards or what and I we went we were standing backstage and was just time for for the curtain calls and I saw this she wasn't a very big woman I saw this little lady and she was looking down at the ground and I swear to you Michael Susan this was one of the saddest faces saddest demeanors I have ever seen in my life and everyone was taking their curtain II know the chorus and da da da and Jack Klugman everybody when it came time for her to step out there it's as though someone switched on every light on the Christian New York's and the Christmas little garage and it just the electricity was flowing and it was like that it was magical it was true theater magic something that had kept theater audiences enraptured since 1930 and I saw that magic happen in an instant that's I never met I never talked to her about it but I held it dear to my heart to see this this moment yeah fascinating and there's one other memento in your collection I think it's is it Josh Logan who's invited you to invited her Todd it was it's about 1980-81 yeah yep and Katz is about to open and - Logan sends Ethel an invitation in you know fancy embossed river house you know come to my apartment in honor of Andrew Lloyd Webber and she sends well no one who well he wasn't that well known he was doing he's going to do Katz was going to open on Broadway so she sends it to me and with a note that says want to go who the hell is he quite quite a woman and it is really remarkable as Susan started this interview off by saying that she's been dead since 1984 84 still timeout magazine the hipster downtown right right yeah it really says the number one Broadway down boil time well they shoot a full mark um Tony Cointreau Jim Russo friends of ours and great friends of Ethel mermans been a real pleasure thanks for roulette you insights into into a remarkable woman and I'm so much like thank you Susie it's been a pleasure this is a telegram from Billy Rose the great producer to Ethel Merman after she did not win the Tony for he says I adore Mary Martin but she wasn't entitled to the Tony Award this year yours was far and away the most skillful and talented performance Billy rose you can sign up for viewer updates at theater talk org or you can Twitter us our thanks to the Friends of theater talk for their significant contribution to this production theater talk is made possible in part by the Frederick Loewe foundation the Eleanor Naylor Dana Charitable Trust the Allan escort foundation the Corey and Bob Denali charitable fund Kerry J fries that Dorothy straussman foundation the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the arts a state agency you we welcome your questions or comments for theater talk thank you and good night

Channel: Theater Talk Archive

Views: 79,702

Rating: 4.8378377 out of 5

Keywords: Theater, Talk, The, Private, Life, of, Ethel, Merman

Id: S88hhsk1UUM

Length: 26min 17sec (1577 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 16 2013