Critical Essay by
Tamiko Washington
Professor, College of Performing Arts, Department of Theatre
Chapman University
View Bio
Ethel Merman was born Ethel Agnes Zimmerman on January 16, 1908, in Astoria, Queens, New York City to immigrant parents Edward Zimmerman and Agnes Zimmerman. Her father was an accountant with the James H. Dunham & Company, a Manhattan wholesale dry goods company, and her mother was a schoolteacher.
Growing up, she never dreamed that the weekly and monthly performances scheduled by and accompanied by her father at the Long Island Republican Club, and civic, fraternal and philanthropic organizations such as Knights of Columbus, the Mason, and the Long Island Society for the Prevention and Relief of Tuberculosis would propel her into history as one of the most renowned legendary Broadway stars of the 20th century. Although her father taught her to read music and play the piano, she never had any formal voice training.
After graduation from Bryant High School in 1924 where she took courses in secretarial skills, she was hired by the Boyce-Ite Company as a stenographer. During this period of her life, she began performing at private parties and nightclubs and was eventually hired by Lou Clayton, best known for his comedic vaudevillian teaming with Jimmy Durante, at their speakeasy club the Club Durant. This is when her name was shortened to Ethel Merman as Zimmermann was too long for the club’s marquee.
In 1930, after being idle weeks upon signing a contract with Warner Brothers via Archie Mayo, she was able to negotiate a better deal with studio, which allowed her to perform in nightclubs until a desirable film role came her way. After being headlined in some of the most prestigious vaudevillian clubs on the Keith Circuit, she was cast in the Paramount musical comedy film Follow the Leader starring Ginger Rogers and Ed Wynn. This movie successfully thrust her name into the limelight when George and Ira Gershwin saw her perform and offered the lead role in the 1930s musical Girl Crazy in which she made “I Got Rhythm,” “Sam and Delilah,” and “Boy! What Love Has Done to Me! signature songs in the show. The musical ran for 272 performances at the Alvin Theatre and was catalyst for her stardom. Her next Broadway hit occurred in 1932 with Take a Chance at the 42nd Street Apollo Theatre with a run of 243 performances. Following the success of this Broadway run, she returned to Hollywood with Paramount Studios to appear in the screwball comedy We’re Not Dressing (1934), but she was dismayed by the experience due to several of her musical numbers being cut from the film. This prompted her to return to Broadway to star in the first of five Cole Porter musicals. The first being Anything Goes, which opened on November 21, 1934, at the Alvin Theatre and ran for 420 performances.
Despite her Broadway success, she faced numerous career struggles starting with not being cast in the film version of Anything Goes due to Bing Crosby wanting to cast his wife Dixie Lee in the starring role of Reno Sweeney opposite his role as Billy Croker; however, as fate has it, she played role when Dixie Lee unexpectedly dropped out of the film. The film was weeks behind schedule, thousands of dollars over budget, and received unfavorable reviews in the New York Herald Tribune and other newspapers. Her additional Broadway credits include Cole Porter’s Red, Hot, and Blue, Du Barry Was A Lady, Panama Hattie, along with Arthur Schwartz’ Stars in Your Eyes, which closed due to the popularity of the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
During this time, Ethel ended her long-time love affair with the famous Stork Club owner Sherman Billingsley and married her first husband William Smith, but the marriage lasted only two months. She filed for a divorce claiming he deserted her and married Robert D. Levitt, a promotion director for the New York Journal-American. This marriage was also racked with discontent and strife as she divorced him in 1952 due to his excessive drinking and erratic behavior. She had two children with Levitt; Ethel Levitt and Robert Levitt Jr.
In 1943, Ethel opened another Cole Porter musical, Something for the Boys, at the Alvin Theatre on January 7, 1943, with 422 performances. In 1944, she was pinned to star in the musical play Sadie Thompson, but the critics of time thought she eventually declined to perform the title character due to the dramatic nature of lyrics and the seriousness of the storyline. The show lasted for only 60 performances with the lead role being played by June Havoc instead.
In August of 1945, Ethel received the role of a lifetime in Jerome Kern’s as Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun, which opened on May 16, 1946, at the Imperial Theatre, where it ran for almost three years with 1,147 performances.
In 1950, her incredible talents was finally honored with her winning the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical for the role Mrs. Sally Adams, an undiplomatic and unknowledgeable wealthy widow is appointed Madam Ambassador to the Grand Duchy to the fictitious county of Lichtenburg.
In 1953, she performed her signature song There’s No Business Like Show Business from the musical Annie Get Your Gun in front of a live NBC and CBS networks audiences of 60 million s viewers. In 1953, she also married her third husband Robert Six, the executive of Continental Airlines, who prompted her to perform the lead role of Liz Livingstone in Happy Hunting by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse in which she received a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical but lost to July Garland for her performance as Ella Peterson in Bells are Ringing. Happy Hunting closed after 412 performances. Her next project led her to perform her famous role of Molly Donahue and signature title song in the 20th Century Fox Irving Berlin’s film musical “There’s No Business Like Show Business in 1954.
The greatest performance of her lifetime came with the role of Rose Hovick in the musical Gypsy: A Musical Fable by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The musical opened on May 21, 1959, at the Broadway Theatre. She received critical acclaim for her role of Rose Hovick but lost the Tony Award to Mary Martin in The Sound of Music. After 702 performances, the show closed on March 25, 1961. A fun fact is that Ethel Merman earned an estimated $130,000 per year, plus an additional 10% of box-office receipts for Gypsy: A Musical Fable, based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee.
In 1959, Merman and Levitt separated, and eventually divorced in 1960.
In the 1960s, Ethel returned to the screen in It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World in a principal role of Mrs. Marcus, a loud-mouthed mother-in-law alongside Spencer Tracy, Sid Caesar, Jonathan Winters, Phil Sivers, Buddy Hackett, and Mickey Rooney. The film grossed $60 million dollars and was a box-office national and international hit. She also made dozens of television appearances hosted by Perry Como, Red Skeleton, Judy Garland, Dean Martin, Ed Sullivan, Carol Burnett, and talk shows with Mike Douglas, Dick Cavett, and Merv Griffin. She also starred or co-starred in episodes of That Girl, The Lucy Show, Match Game, Batman, Tarzan, and many others (including The Love Boat).
In 1964, she married her fourth and final husband, Ernest Borgnine, but Borgnine filed for divorce on October 21, 1964, who stated, according to Reuters, “The marriage broke up because fans paid more attention to him than her during their honeymoon.”
When she was 62 years of age, she joined the Broadway production of Hello Dolly on March 28, 1970, six years after the production opened. She performed 210 performances until it closed on December 27, 1970. She received the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance; however, this performance marked her final appearance on Broadway.
In the 1970’s, Merman worked frequently in many star and co-star roles in television episodes.
In 1979, she recorded The Ethel Merman Disco Album with fourteen of her signature songs being sung on the album to disco instrumentation. It is now one of the most highly sought vinyl copies by collectors.
Ethel Merman’s life was not without its professional and personal challenges, but she paved the way as a Musical Theatre pioneer who broke barriers for women on Broadway. Her prolific career, although tinged at times with harsh criticism, is legendary with a legacy of one of the greatest powerful mezzo-soprano voices that ever graced the stage. She is an iconoclastic performer whose unquestionable talent has left an indelible mark on Broadway, film, and the entertainment industry.
She was notorious for her brash demeanor and telling vulgar stories and dirty jokes at public parties, but this is only a testament of her unforgettable brand on the world.
And as Ethel Merman quoted, “I’ve made a wonderful living playing that theatrical character – the professional brassy dame.”
On February 15, 1984, she died in her Manhattan apartment home in New York City from brain cancer at the age of 76.
