Free Broadway Babylon by Boze Hadleigh Page B

Merman had taken it upon herself to diagnose the bloody passenger. “What the hell are ya laughin’ at? I’m a
good
nurse,” she informed Channing. “I volunteered to serve at Roosevelt Hospital for every Thursday.”
    Carol would write, “Now I ask you, if you were strung up in RooseveltHospital, wouldn’t you dread Thursdays? I mean, this woman walks into your room … and screams, ‘Ah’m your nurse! Roll over.’ Wouldn’t you? Dread Thursdays?”
    While filming the
Love Boat
episode, Ethel’s jowls were alleviated by hidden rubber bands that pulled her lower face up and gave her a perpetual—until they were released—smile, which made her less intimidating to coworkers. One day, Merman was installed under a large, heavy hair dryer in order to give her extra curls. (Flouncy hairdos and dresses helped mitigate her innate manliness.) A few minutes later, Ethel barked, “Hey, I’m burnin’ up. Come here, you bitch. Get me outta here.” But since she was still smiling, attention wasn’t immediately paid. The upshot was that Merman’s ears got singed and were red and swollen for about a week.
    Channing noticed that Ethel’s once “brilliant, electric mind” couldn’t comprehend script changes—for example, two additional lines. Nor could she remember that Channing’s character’s name was Sylvia. “ ‘Hey! Cybill! Sophie! Shirley! Come here, ya dumb cunt!’ And I would come … just like any of us would once we experienced her onstage.”
    In 1983 Merman suffered a massive stroke. Tests revealed a malignant brain tumor, and ten months later she died. Friendly rival Mary Martin stated publicly, “I
had
to be glad that she was gone, because Merman without performing or without sound would never make Merman happy.” She’d deteriorated fast and terribly, cruelly frustrated by her immobility and a limited ability to communicate—also by the cortisone that swelled her face and the chemotherapy that cost her her hair. Carol Channing recalled,“ I went from Ethel’s [room] straight to my lawyer to make out a living will. No one should suffer like Ethel did.”
    A WAY FROM THE LIMELIGHT , Merman’s life had often been anything but a bed of roses. Her only daughter died from a drug overdose that Merman insisted was not a suicide. Her only son’s wife, actress Barbara Colby—best remembered as the prostitute Mary meets in prison in
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
—was mysteriously shot to death. And Robert Levitt, Merman’s second husband, with whom she had two children, killed himself after eventually remarrying.
    Merman asked friends if she wasn’t a terrible mother. While her children were growing up, she strongly favored Robert over Ethel Jr. (Yet how many mothers name their daughter Junior?) Toward the end of her life, when Merman had to fly to Rio de Janeiro, she telephoned Robert to ask if he’d like to fly down with her. Perhaps unwilling to endure a long flight together, he replied instead that he’d be glad to
meet
her there. “How do you raise a son so he understands?,” she asked. Mother and son had many ups and downs, but were reconciled when Ethel’s terminal illness was discovered.
    Career had long come first and had delayed her getting married, which she did for the first time (in 1940) after breaking off with a married family man. For thirty years Merman was the queen of Broadway, ending on a high note with the popular and critical success of
Gypsy
(1959). Her Broadway career, which she intermittently resumed, ended in 1970 when she took over the lead in
Hello, Dolly!
, to carry that production to its 2,844th performance, and the “longest-running Broadway musical” title (held for nine months, before
Fiddler on the Roof
surpassed it). Merman made her first film in 1930 and her last in 1980, yet she never made many and never became a movie star. She was too large, too
much
for that close-up medium.
    “Ethel was never a beauty,” said Ben Bagley, “and had neither the