Ethel Merman (1908–1984)

1 I Got Rhythm
2 Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries
3 Eadie Was A Lady, Parts 1 & 2
4 You're The Top
5 I Get A Kick Out Of You
6 Blow, Gabriel, Blow
7 It's De-Lovely
8 Make It Another Old-Fashioned, Please
9 I've Still Got My Health
10 Doin' What Comes Naturally
11 I Got The Sun In The Morning
12 Anything You Can Do
13 You Can't Get A Man With A Gun
14 Dearie
15 If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked A Cake
16 The Hostess With The Mostes' On The Ball
17 You're Just In Love
18 There's No Business Like Show Business
19 Some People
20 Everything's Coming Up Roses
21 Rose's Turn… (mehr)

I found Ethel's life story to be quite interesting, and enjoyed the anecdotes about her plays and films and music. The details about her life and family (she was born in either 1909 or 1912), and the world of Broadway theater, are engaging. Although she apparently left out quite a bit that was private, she did reveal enough to establish her character, values, and idiosyncratic personality.

Fun fact: Her family name is Zimmerman, which she shortened to Merman because her father objected to her chosen career as being not quite respectable at the time (1920s), although both her parents encouraged and supported her choice.

However, it was a bit disconcerting to discover that the songs & pIays remembered were not the ones that were most celebrated at the time, and that she considered the most important.

This is probably due to the dating, because her "prime" was 1930-1954, just before my childhood, we didnt' live near any of her live venues (many of her musicals went through multiple revivals), and once her movies left the theater they weren't available anymore.

My personal recollections are mostly from TV shows where she performed her most-requested hits, which I knew from seeing local revivals of the musicals (without Merman, of course).

This will be most interesting to people who still know who all the personalities are, or have an interest in nostalgia.

Another fun fact: the early musicals were mostly intended as "ads" for the composer's newest works, to see which songs might become hits with the audiences. The story lines were generally exercises in stringing the songs into a somewhat plausible narrative. Later, the stories were written first, and the music selected to fit the particular needs of the plot. Either way, the artists were often surprised that the public "voted" for different songs than they expected.

p. 92: "Reporters often used to ask me how I felt about movies in comparison to the stage. I now knew I preferred delivering my performance in person. I liked to be in control. You couldn't be in films. And I'd already learned that it was cold down there as the face on the cutting-room floor."

There's a catchy book title in that last phrase.… (mehr)