'Granny' Get Your Gun

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/9/15 at 10:49am

In 1966, when she was too old to play Annie Oakley, Ethel Merman did a revival of Annie Get Your Gun at the Broadway Theater, produced by Lincoln Center. Bruce YArnell was her Frank Butler and Jerry Orbach was Charlie Davenport.

It was big, overblown mess, but this clip from the Ed Sullivan show is still kind of astonishing.The choreography is by Danny Daniels.

There was a TV production of it, but it's kind of rare.

 

[Auggie27]

Posted: 5/9/15 at 1:20pm

I saw this production at the National Theatre, Washington DC, summer I was a Freshman in high school. I most remember "Old Fashioned Wedding," brand new to the show with that edition (unless I'm wrong) stopping it, cold, in a new ll o'clock spot.  Whatever one feels about the Merm's age in the first act (when she met the 8 feet tall Yarnell, at least next to her, she just stood still, looked up, Fay Wray at King Kong, and dropped her mouth, hang-jawed, silent movie style), at a certain point it didn't matter.  "Wedding" took the roof off.  

Updated On: 5/9/15 at 01:20 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/9/15 at 1:47pm

Were you chillin' with Frank Rich at that theater, Auggie?

[Patash]

Posted: 5/10/15 at 8:52am

I saw that production on the Thanksgiving Day matinee at The Broadway Theatre.   When at the beginning of the show, she says "these are my brothers and sisters", someone in the audience yelled out loud "Ha! Grandchildren".  Ms. Merman stopped dead in her tracks, looked into the audience a very long time, then repeated her line under her breath, mumbling.   She proceeded to just "walk" the show, absolutely no emotion, no expression, and not giving a bit of energy.  People left at intermission in droves.   I remember her "cleaning her fingernails" during one number.  In Act II when they got to the Old Fashioned Wedding number, however, she poured it on -- giving a full blown performance and getting the various encores.  It was as if she were punishing the audience saying "see?  This is what you could have had if you weren't such a____s."  Actually, after than number she gave about half a performance, but still nothing like she could have done, and a far cry from the "walking" she did of the entire first act. 

 

 

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 5/10/15 at 12:11pm

She is such a legend, even at her worst she was still better than most 

[madlibrarian]

Posted: 5/10/15 at 6:31pm

Does that "rare" NBC-TV production even exist? I have read that the videotapes were erased and no copy survives. If anyone has an old copy, for God's sake let us know!

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 5/10/15 at 9:57pm

Merman was scheduled to take ANNIE on tour after the NYC engagement. But after so many reviews made nasty references to her age, she changed her mind and took CALL ME MADAM on the road instead.

So we in South Florida saw her recreate Miss Sally Adams (with Russell Nype also reprising his original role in the show). I know MADAM isn't the classic that ANNIE is, but at 13, I didn't mind. I saw her once in Fort Lauderdale and then again in Miami.

Both performances were brilliant (and absolutely identical) and her age fit the story just fine.

As Paul Harvey would say, "and now you know the rest of the story."

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 5/10/15 at 11:19pm

Some production shots:

 

[JoseLee_]

Posted: 5/11/15 at 1:06am

She is a Broadway Icon.

[Musical Master]

Posted: 5/11/15 at 1:22am

Ethel Merman was a great Broadway Legend but those pictures of her in 1966 as Annie Oakley sure didn't do her any favors in that production. She was too old to play Annie at this point in her life.

Updated On: 5/11/15 at 01:22 AM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/11/15 at 1:30am

She doesn't need any favors any more.

[Broadwayhunk]

Posted: 5/11/15 at 5:35am

Such blatant ageism on this board.  One would think people in the "theata" would be a bit more enlightened, but one would be wrong.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 5/11/15 at 7:52am

Well, Merman was 58 in 1966. It's not ageism to find it odd that she has small children for siblings. Few people at the time of the play lived long enough to have children in their sixties (assuming the kids are the offspring of Annie's father and a younger second wife.)

But as for the photos, maybe (probably) they've been touched up, but I don't think she looks so bad. She was never a beauty.

In CALL ME MADAM, she and her character's love interest, "Cosmo Constantine", are both middle-aged people who seem to have been married to their careers.

[inception]

Posted: 5/11/15 at 9:59am

I've only seen the film of Call Me Madam.  How much does it follow the stage version?