{"id":846,"date":"2016-08-02T01:03:04","date_gmt":"2016-08-02T01:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mgs.performerstuff.com\/?p=846"},"modified":"2018-08-23T18:45:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T18:45:00","slug":"diva-alert-1-ethel-merman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/performerstuff.com\/mgs\/diva-alert-1-ethel-merman\/","title":{"rendered":"Diva Alert #1 : Ethel Merman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Diva Alert\u00a0#1\u00a0: Ethel Merman<\/h3>\n \"\"<\/a><\/span>

Written by Jackson Upperco<\/p>\n

August 1, 2016<\/p>\n<\/font>

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Welcome to “Diva Alert”, Performer Stuff\u2019s newest series on Great Dames from the Golden Age of Broadway. In these posts, we\u2019ll take a look at some of the American Musical Theatre\u2019s most legendary ladies, along with their seminal stage triumphs. We open now with the Queen herself…<\/p>\n

She had the voice of a clarion and the mouth of a sailor. Hailed as the First Lady of the American Musical Theatre, she personified every notion we have today of the great Broadway dame: brass, bravado, and belt. She had all the top composers of the time clamoring to write original scores just for her, and she gave her diva successors a sound they would long strive to emulate. But no one could do it like her. No one could do it like Merman.<\/p>\n

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Ethel Merman was a 22-year-old stenographer from Queens when she was cast in a new Gershwin musical that made her \u2013 quite literally \u2013 an overnight sensation.\u00a0 Over the next forty years of her career, Merman would open thirteen\u00a0original musicals, five of which were composed just for her by Broadway\u2019s most erudite songsmith, Cole Porter. Her biggest theatrical success, however, came in 1946 when she played sharpshooter Annie Oakley in Irving Berlin\u2019s classic Annie Get Your Gun<\/em>. Yet audiences today remember Merman best for her turn as Madame Rose in Gypsy <\/em>(1959), a performance that is now the stuff of theatre folklore.<\/p>\n

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La Merm had a reputation for tolerating no B.S. She rarely missed performances, could let out a string of expletives like a pro, and rarely held back what was on her mind. She was also a TV favorite, appearing quite frequently to promote projects like The Ethel Merman Disco Album<\/em> (1979), a collection of her greatest hits set to a funky disco beat. It\u2019s now a camp classic. She died in 1984 at the age of 76 after a battle with brain cancer. In her own words: \u201cBroadway has been very good to me. But then, I’ve been very good to Broadway.\u201d That, Miss Merman, was an understatement.<\/p>\n

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Merman Roles You Should Know<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Kate Fothergill in Girl Crazy <\/em>(1930)<\/h4>\n