Free Broadway Babylon by Boze Hadleigh Page A

with her habits.
    “What she didn’t have was tact,” explained Prentice, who appeared in
Gypsy
but became known as the handsomest of
The Boys in the Band
. “Merman could be humorous, she could even compromise, but diplomacy she did not have.… To be fair, she was a perfectionist. She worked damn hard and expected others to. But she did turn off so many people with that confrontational manner.… It didn’t scarcely matter. She didn’t have to refine herself or mend her ways, as it didn’t really hurt her career.”
    Nonetheless, the lack of like from many of her peers and the theatre establishment meant that a theater was never named after her, as with Helen Hayes, Lunt and Fontanne, female impersonator Julian Eltinge (after whom an American battleship was also named), and even critic Brooks Atkinson. Elaine Stritch was quoted in the book
It Happened on Broadway
, “She made a lot of enemies because she wanted to get it right. She was a selfish old broad. Still, it’s a sin that they haven’t named a theater for her.”
    “D ESPITE IT ALL —and the fans didn’t know the half of it in those days,” believed record and revue producer Ben Bagley, “fans couldn’t help admiring and relishing Ethel Merman. Belting out a song or just owning the stage, no one could touch her.” Strangely, in one of her two memoirs she asserted that her voice was inimitable. On the contrary, hers became one of the most imitated—by women and men, then and now—of singing voices. “Merman wasso wrapped up in herself,” said Bagley, “she couldn’t be a good judge or objective about herself.… She knew she wasn’t overly cultured, very educated, but she thought she was a reasonable, regular person.”
    Besides her at times scalding tongue, the Merm was very competitive, blunt, and childishly crude. After viewing the unique, not-yet-a-star Carol Channing in
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
(1949), Ethel mirthfully informed her, “You walked like you hadda pee.” Carol was dumbfounded: “That was her complete summary of my portrayal of Anita Loos’s monumental character Lorelei Lee.” In her memoirs, Channing repeatedly professed a fan’s adoration of Merman, who was apparently oblivious to her own impact on others, particularly her often unintentional humor. She would often ask Carol, “What the hell are ya laughin’ at?”
    Long after, when Channing was a hit in
Hello, Dolly!
, she fell out of Merman’s good graces. At one public function, Carol said, “Hello, Ethel,” to no response. Columnist Radie Harris asked, “Don’t you answer Carol when she says hello?”
    “Carol who?” said Merman, while Channing thought, “Maybe she doesn’t like hit shows that she isn’t in?”
    “Did you see
Hello, Dolly!
, Ethel?” asked Radie.
    “Yeah, I turned that show down,” which was the first Carol heard of it. (Jerry Herman had written it for Merman, who wasn’t interested in working anymore.)
    Another time, Carol was invited to Sardi’s restaurant to help hang someone’s caricature in front of the press and photographers. She and Ethel were to do the joint honors. But the Merm declined. “Nope, no picture. Not wit’ Carol.”
    Many years after that, the two would work together in Los Angeles on a
Love Boat
episode. They re-met in a limousine en route to the studio. Channing found that Merman now bore a striking resemblance to silent-movie star Harry Langdon. Silent, however, she was not. In the backseat, she yelled, “Hi, Carol!” then enthused, “I had the strangest airplane trip out here. A passenger was bleeding from the rectum.”
    Carol pondered, “Now that’s the first thing she’s said to me since 1964,” and wondered why Ethel was suddenly so chatty after such a long estrangement. Explanation was ventured by Mary Martin: that Merman’s eventually fatal brain tumor had been growing for nobody knew how long. However, Channing thought Ethel’s behavior had never really changed at all.
    In any case,