Ethel Merman and Sondheim- Page 2
Ethel Merman and Sondheim
#25Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/25/15 at 11:20pm
From MentalFloss.com on Sondheim's birthday last week:
The Stories Behind 6 Classic Stephen Sondheim Songs
#26Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/25/15 at 11:44pm
"Next stupid troll-like question"
It sounds like you're the troll here. And I heard that she did hate Sondheim from a very reliable source thank you very much.
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#27Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/25/15 at 11:53pm
Special treat:
Ethel Merman sings Stephen Sondheim's LITTLE-KNOWN, ALMOST-NEVER-SUNG intro to "Some People" (also interpolating a little bit of "People"):
https://youtu.be/JafCKwav0FQ
#28Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 12:25amPalJoey is just about the most knowledgeable and articulate guy on here. Don't you dare call him a troll.
#29Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 12:29am
And I heard that she did hate Sondheim from a very reliable source thank you very much.
Apology accepted!
And no you didn't. Or your source is nowhere near as reliable as you thought he was.
#30Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 12:32am
well a very VERY reliable and knowledgeable person told me that Ethel did hate Sondheim. I was just asking a question...is that a reason to be called a troll??
I still trust her over you
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Updated On: 3/26/15 at 12:32 AM
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#32Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 12:36amLOL If only you knew who told me this
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Fantod
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/3/14
#33Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 12:37am
Was it the ghost of Ethel Merman herself, because I'm talking to her right now and she says you were throwing shade
Updated On: 3/26/15 at 12:37 AM
#34Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 12:38amLol. You do know PalJoey has worked with the creators of GYPSY and WEST SIDE STORY, right??
#35Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 12:38am
Was it Sondheim or Merman?
No one else is a reliable source. If the source was soooo reliable, why do you feel the need to ask us?
#36Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 12:39am
I think someone should email Sondheim and ask him. No i didn't know that about him, but the person who told me also did work with those people!!
icecream, i thought u blocked me?
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Updated On: 3/26/15 at 12:39 AM
#37Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 12:41amIf you can't give a name then it didn't happen.
#38Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 12:44amWhen I try to reply, I see your messages... NOT by choice.
#39Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 12:44am
I didn't know our very own PalJoey worked with Jerome Robbins! That's amazing! 
#40Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 12:48amthe person isn't really THAT famous or anything but she worked with Sondheim in the olden days. She came and spoke to one of my classes today :)
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Ed_Mottershead
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/20/05
#41Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 1:15amI've said it before on these boards, but as one who was lucky enough to catch Merman, Lansbury, Daly, Peters, and LuPone, Merman was the definitive Rose. The others, for the most part, had their virtues, but INMHO, LuPone was the only one who came close. And coming from the this old-timer, that is praise of the highest. But Merman's still and always will be Ethel's part.
BroadwayEd
#42Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 1:17am
So you latched onto this person who is not really THAT famous, she became your newest best friend/informant and now you want to be the first to spread some juicy gossip that has aboslutely no relevance to absolutely anything.
Next time you get some show-biz tit-bit, leave it in the class room where it belongs-lecturers love to impress the impressionables with 'I have worked with etc'.
Go practice your Sondheim audition song.
FindingNamo
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
#43Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 1:18am
Well, other people heard clips and their opinions are equally valid if not more so because they don't have the biases you had, like if you went out for a nice dinner after you saw Merman.
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#44Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 1:38am
I remember seeing her on one of those PBS Broadway-related shows, singing "Roses." It was quite spectacular, even for one who disliked her voice at that age. She generally sounded like she was singing a caricature of herself.
Anyway, what guy couldn't like Ethel after she did that cameo in Airplane!
#45Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 7:54am
I would guess there was no "hate" involved. Sondheim was likely wounded at not being allowed to write the score for Gypsy, but he did stick around to write the lyrics.
I never liked Arthur Laurents dissing of Merman. "Ethel was dumb". Come on, she was legendary in the the part. She was not dumb when it came to being up on that stage. She was a genius of a performer.
Also, by the time Sondheim's rise started Merman had basically retired. I'm sure Company, Follies and Pacific Overtures really wasn't her bag.
#46Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 8:00am
She came and spoke to one of my classes today :)
And told you lies. Or told you something you wove into an untruth.
But there are SO many rich and wonderful stories of the creation of that glorious show.
To reduce Merman's desire for an experienced composer into a tone-deaf statement like "Ethel hated Steve" is so reductive as to end up not only as wrong but as stupid. Merman and Sondheim were from two different worlds, but neither one of them "hated" the other.
The more interesting story is how two very brainy men--Laurents and Sondheim--started off feeling smug and superior to Merman as a Gorgon of Instinct and Sheer Vocal Power...and ended up having enormous respect for her as they watched her create a completely fearless acting performance.
So what we have left are conflicting comments from both Arthur and Steve: snarky putdowns about Ethel's lack of intellectual depth or sensitivity alongside Arthur and Steve's somewhat grudging expressions of awestruck admiration for the end result: perhaps the greatest performance in musical theater history.
That's the story your visiting teacher might have taught you.
But "Merman hated Sondheim"? Too inaccurate to even discuss.
#47Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 11:16am
The real question about "hate" is "Why did Arthur Laurents hate Jerome Robbins?"
The answer to that involves ego and genius and fear and rivalry and sex and love--and the Closet!--and politics and courage and cowardice--and naming names and the House Un-American Activities Committee--and anger and rage and resentment...and, ultimately, an act of revenge.
Now, THERE'S a story.
#48Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 10:27pm
PJ, is this the verse? The one Sondheim "lost" that was supposed to ease the transition into Rose's blaring opening, but Ethel refused to learn it? (If not, it seems to fill much the same function and do it admirably. I'd love to see it used in a production. [And, to be frank, some of the other verses to "Some People" in the traveling montage, but enough revisionism on my part.])
Also... seriously... if you don't write a memoir, at least do a book about Arthur and Jerry.
Formerly gvendo2005
Broadway Legend
joined: 5/1/05
Blocked: After Eight, suestorm, david_fick, emlodik, lovebwy, Dave28282, joevitus, BorisTomashevsky, Seb28
Broadway Legend
joined: 5/1/05
Blocked: After Eight, suestorm, david_fick, emlodik, lovebwy, Dave28282, joevitus, BorisTomashevsky, Seb28
#49Ethel Merman and Sondheim
Posted: 3/26/15 at 10:31pmPalJoey, your stories and anecdotes truly put a smile on my face.
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