Free Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman by Caryl Flinn

and his brother Ira were writing at the time. As Ethel later told
Pete Martin, "It was like meeting God.... Not only was I meeting the Gershwins," she said, "but I had never seen such a tall building before. I was
just a kid, from Queens."' After taking the elevator all the way up to their
rooftop floor at 3r Riverside Drive, she auditioned with "Exactly Like You"
and "Little White Lies," songs that she had been performing at the Brooklyn
Paramount. Then George Gershwin "auditioned" for Ethel the songs he
wanted her to sing from Girl Crazy: "I Got Rhythm," "Embraceable You,"
"Bidin' My Time," "But Not for Me," "Sam and Delilah," and "Boy, What
Love Has Done to Me." After this, the great composer said, "Miss Merman,
if there's anything you'd like to change, I'd be happy to do so." Stunned, all
she could say was, "They'll do very nicely." Later, Gershwin would give Ethel
part of his original penciled score of Girl Crazy.

    A new Gershwin show was a guaranteed event in New York. But Girl Crazy
was anticipated for its talent in other departments as well. Gershwin regular
Allen Kearns was the male romantic lead (this was Kearns's third musical with
them); the dancing stars were the De Marcos (Rene and Antonio); and the female lead was a nineteen-year-old dancer named Ginger Rogers, whom the producers signed on at the salary of fifteen hundred dollars a week. Recalls Roger
Edens, "That was big stuff-she was nice looking, she could act some, but she
couldn't sing-and you have to have somebody to sing a Gershwin score."2 (It
was while working on Girl Crazy that Fred Astaire first met Rogers. Aarons called
on Astaire, playing in a show down the street, to help with the choreography for
"Embraceable You.") Roger Edens accompanied. The main comic part went to
Yiddish veteran Willie Howard in a role originally planned for Bert Lahr, whose
work in Flying High kept him from accepting. Ethel came onboard via the
Palace, where Gershwin had booked her: "Edens says he was only rehearsing,
but they went up there and signed you and found Al Siegel to play for you."3
    John McGowan and Guy Bolton wrote the book, whose story follows
Danny Churchill (Kearns), a girl-crazy New York heir whose father sends him
off to the old Buzzards Ranch in Custerville, Arizona, which Dad assumes will
hold no distractions in the form of wine, women, or song. Danny turns the
place into a dude ranch, stuffing it with the very urban vices his father had
tried to preempt: alcohol, gambling casino, and imported New York chorines.
Predictably, Danny meets the love of his life, G-rated postmistress Molly Gray
(Rogers). Ethel portrayed Molly's jaded, experienced counterpart, the worldly
Kate Fothergill, a nightclub singer and the long-suffering wife of a hopeless
gambler-a character type that would stick to her for a decade.
    Thematically, Girl Crazy, like many musical comedies of the time, reflected
a country of immigrants, with stories of Americans-in-the-making. Like a
western, it opposed urban communities and values to rural ones: there is New York and there is the frontier West; there are Jewish cab drivers and there are
gentiles. Danny, for instance, travels from New York to Custerville in a taxi
(fare: $742.30), driven by Yiddish-speaking Gieber Goldfarb (Howard). At
one point Goldfarb speaks Yiddish to a completely comprehending Native
American in an ethnic crossover that may have been less offensive to audiences
then than it might seem to twenty-first-century sensibilities.4

    Ethel was still engaged at the Palace when rehearsals began. She ran from
one job to the other, just as she had done when working at Booster Brake.
The press took note of her pace, reporting that Miss Ethel Merman didn't
need to take vitamins, but perhaps they might consider taking her. When
Girl Crazy went to Philadelphia for tryouts, the audience response was extremely encouraging, and the group was convinced it had a good show on its
hands. Still,