Ethel Merman and Sondheim — Page 2

"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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PalJoey is just about the most knowledgeable and articulate guy on here. Don't you dare call him a troll.

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

LOL If only you knew who told me this

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Lol. You do know PalJoey has worked with the creators of GYPSY and WEST SIDE STORY, right??

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

When I try to reply, I see your messages... NOT by choice.

the 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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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.

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!

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.

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Updated On: 3/26/15 at 08:00 AM

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.

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