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

sweat. Merman, by contrast, scarcely realized what had happened. After the
show, she took the subway back home to Astoria and the next day, October 15, returned to the city for a luncheon date at the Gershwins'. Entering
the penthouse, she saw that newspapers were scattered everywhere, covering the piano, the floor, furniture. Had she seen the reviews? No. They read
them to her: "Miss Merman's effect ... was such that there was every reason to believe that they would make her sing it all night"; "... Ethel Merman, whose peculiar song style was brought from the night clubs to the
stage to the vast delight last evening of the people who go places and watch
things being done." The New York Daily Mirror reported that Merman
"tied the proceedings in knots," predicting "this girl bids fair to become the
toast of Broadway.""

    Critics struggled to compare Ethel with other singers or to find the words
to describe this "musical fire engine."" "Without losing her personal quality,
she combines a number of the virtues of Libby Holman and Ruth Etting."14
Yet Merman was "not mournful and lugubrious like Libby Holman," not "tearstained and voice-cracked. Rather she approaches the sex in a song with something of the philosopher. She rhapsodizes, but she analyzes. She seems to aim
at a point slightly above the entrails, but she knocks you out all the same."is
    For Time, Ethel was simply the show's "biggest asset."16 Of the show, Baird
Leonard opined that it didn't "come within a mile of the score ... [and] just
when you have made up your mind that you are in the wrong theatre, a little
girl, Ethel Merman by name, strolls casually in singing about Sam and
Delilah ... and Girl Crazy becomes what it is, a good show. Miss Merman's
other big number, `I Got Rhythm,' puts her at the head of the class of those
girls who chant in our odd, modern manner."17 Pop pasted the glowing reviews into his scrapbooks, albums that seemed filled with a new mission: documenting the ascent of a Broadway star.
    Every Broadway historian and serious Merman fan knows the stories
about Girl Crazy's opening night and Gershwin's advice against singing lessons. Merman told and retold them to reporters for half a century. Both stories helped solidify her image as an untrained natural, her Broadway success
a matter of being discovered, like prospectors digging for gold. Later, she
claimed she "had it easier than Cinderella," her gifts recognized by no less a
prince than George Gershwin. Equally crucial factors were the sustained note
and the force and clarity of her voice while sustaining it. With such colorful
descriptions as the Olympic pool remark, the press was turning the biglunged Ethel into a force of nature, one that was nearly superhuman.
    In addition to the voice, there was also Merman's commanding presence
and her rather stunning self-confidence. Guy Bolton recalled in 1960,
"Ethel ... had the same confident stage presence, the same trumpet-toned
voice that she has today. "is Her son remembered in 2004, "She always would
say how much she loved her work, and that she took enormous pride in what
she could do, but she never wanted to be seen as `full of herself.'
. . . What I
would call being full of an appreciation of herself, she'd simply call selfassurance or self-confidence. "'9
    The idea of Ethel's overnight discovery resonated deeply with contemporary audiences. It made sense: during the Depression, the fantasy of leaving
one's socioeconomic station and hitting the big time was utterly compelling.
Of course, that myth had long been pivotal to the American success story,
one in which pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps determination-material conditions be damned-was all it took. In this narrative, success was a matter of individual resolve, not collective action. That ethos was reflected in the
popular nineteenth-century boys' stories of Horatio Alger, in tales of upward
mobility whose heroes were made of determination and hard