My favorite Merman quote- Page 2

[Jimmcf]

Posted: 8/16/06 at 12:57pm

It is really strange...I am listening to my ipod shuffling songs - and when I opened this thread, and Ethel song came on...and now one from her disco album. Spooky!

Some more quotes:

"I wouldn't trust any man as far as you can throw a piano"

"I have plenty of invitations to go places, lots to do. If I'm not working, I go to have my hair taken care of and work at needlepoint"

[Smaxie]

Posted: 8/16/06 at 1:02pm

How about after losing the Tony for her performance in Gypsy to Mary Martin in The Sound of Music: "You can't buck a nun."

[peapod36]

Posted: 8/16/06 at 6:52pm

Just when I think these stories couldn't get funnier,they do.
They don't make em like her anymore.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 8/16/06 at 7:04pm

Ernest Borgnine was married to the Merm for a few days. The cause of the breakup? He said "How would you like to wake up every morning with a woman whose first words are (in 200 db) HEY ERNIE!!!!!"

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/16/06 at 7:09pm

But luckily, that short-lived marriage gave us the glorious Varla Jean!

[Gothampc]

Posted: 8/16/06 at 7:13pm

I always liked that even after she was famous, she went back to Astoria and played cards with the girls.

[philcrosby]

Posted: 8/17/06 at 8:40am

She also always did her own correspondance, and loved to shop at Lamson's which was a an old-fashioned 5 & 10.

Merm had a salty mouth, a total lack of pretense, was fiercely loyal to her friends, and just fierce to those she didn't like!

Re her autobiographies: Like all autobios, they need to be taken with a grain of salt. But it sure is her own distinct voice. And now that we have gotten the "trailer trash" bio of her out of the way, maybe someone will tackle a bio that really paints a well-rounded picture of her.

[madbrian]

Posted: 8/17/06 at 8:53am

Another story from Stritch in 'At Liberty': Stritch was stand-by for Merman in 'Call Me Madam' while doing 'Pal Joey' pre-Broadway in Connecticut. She'd check that Merman was on, then run up to CT for her 2nd act number ('Zip'). There was a snowstorm, so Stritch had to check with Merman early so she could get up to CT. Merman's response - "Oh Elaine, just go to New Haven and sing the fukcing song!".

[Kent]

Posted: 8/17/06 at 2:05pm

Can't swear this one's true, and I'm definitely paraphrasing:

Merman was working in a show with Loretta Young, and regularly spouting off in her famous potty mouth. Apparently Miss Young was offended by the language, or at least grew tired of it, so she placed a big glass jar backstage with a sign on it that read "SWEARING $1.00"). When Elthel saw the sign she turned to the actress and said:

Ethel: What the hell is this?

Loretta: It's a swearing jar, Ms Merman.

Ethel: You mean every time I swear I have to pay a dollar?

Loretta: That's right, Ms Merman.

Ethel: (reaching into purse) OK...here's a twenty...go f*ck yourself.



EDIT: Someone emailed me the actual name of the "young actress"

Updated On: 8/17/06 at 02:05 PM

[Kent]

Posted: 8/17/06 at 2:35pm

This one from my friend and fellow Merman fan, Randy:

"One of my favorite Mermanisms is that she apparently called Mervyn LeRoy (Rosalind Russell's husband, and the guy who directed both the screen version of 'Gypsy' as well as Judy Garland in 1939's most famous film musical) 'The Lizard of Roz.'"

[madbrian]

Posted: 8/17/06 at 2:43pm

Stritch also uses that nickname for LeRoy in "At Liberty" (he directed her in a show in LA and tried to curtail her drinking). She tells several Merman stories, but she doesn't attribute 'the Lizard of Roz' to Merman.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/17/06 at 2:49pm

Not quite. Roz's husband Freddie Brisson was the one Merman called "The Lizard of Roz," not Mervyn LeRoy.

Brisson had nothing to do with The Wizard of Oz, but Mervyn LeRoy was the director of Gypsy and a producer of The Wizard of Oz.

Freddie Brisson was referred to as a lizard by Merman and others because he snuck around and bought stage properties for Roz to make into movies.

Updated On: 8/17/06 at 02:49 PM

[SueSnell]

Posted: 8/17/06 at 4:22pm

When Anglea Lansbury had her triumph with GYPSY, a reporter said:
"Miss Merman, how do you feel about Angela Lansbury following you in GYPSY?"

And Ethel replied:

"The only thing Angela Lansbury can follow me with is a shovel."

Lansubry susequently gave an interview where she said she recalled coming to the USA and seeing the "Already established and mature Merman onstage."

Meow...

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 8/17/06 at 4:46pm

As a great Ethel Merman fan I have truly enjoyed all of these outrageous quotes. Here is my contribution with an anecdote from the Bob Thomas biography:"I Got Rhythm!"
A young actress in the CALL ME MADAM cast happened to be a protegee of Richard Rodgers. Whether by inexperience or over-
confidence because of her sponsor, the actress became sloppy in her stage deportment. During a performance she was late for her
cue, leaving Ethel standing alone on the stage. "Goddammit, I want that bitch fired!" Ethel stormed afterward. "How dare she
leave me out there with egg on my face." The stage manager cleared his throat and remarked, "You know, Miss Merman, that
Richard Rodgers is very much interested in the girl's career."
Ethel replied, "I don't give a damn. She's lousing up the show.
If she's late one more time, out she goes!" Ethel had no fear of Rodgers, though he and Oscar Hammerstein were then the most powerful figures in musical comedy. She remained angry at Rodgers for trying to force her to return from a vacation when the box office for ANNIE GET YOUR GUN started sagging. Well, the young actress did it again--left Ethel waiting on stage.
"That's it! Out! Out!" Ethel exploded. "She goes!" The stage
manager warily bore her ultimatum to Richard Rodgers. "Tell
that bitch to go to hell," Rodgers said. Ethel's instructions
to the stage manager: "You tell Richard Rodgers to go f**k
himself.That dame is fired."

There's no business like show business!

[2]

Posted: 8/17/06 at 4:50pm

^^Was she really fired? oh man, I love Merman!

[mike L G]

Posted: 8/17/06 at 9:34pm

I am also a huge Merman fan and got to see her perform
since I was a littleboy really o'kay here's one that has not been montioned. This also was the 77 show with mary martin (dyke) that's hallorois will anyeway Ethel was talking to the
sound man Ken Billington and she told him about mic's she used
at this time and saids to him I wair one on each tit and won
down here and I can sing all ****in night, maid him wonder
what the next week's were going to be like.
's

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 8/18/06 at 1:51am

No Sound Guy
is paid enough to put a mic
"down there"
Damn. thats why she never needed a mic.
The Merm had it all!

[mike L G]

Posted: 8/18/06 at 8:46am

A story I got right from Lauren Bacall because I sat next to her at the 77 show with martin, was she came back stage after applause and said She needed to use the grapper and when she came out she told her she was good. And bacall said I hope that she meant it.I can recall Bacall saying oboy boy oh boy sitting next to me when ethel use to talk about George & Ira Gershwin
and how they had the roof garden all to themselves as she used to
put it "all sewed up all to themselves"

[madbrian]

Posted: 8/18/06 at 9:01am

Not a Merman quote, but I loved her cameo in the movie Airplane. There's a scene where the leads are in a psych hospital (in a flashback), and there is another patient who is in there because he thinks he's Ethel Merman. It's actually Merman herself, who breaks into a few bars of There's No Business Like Show Business (I think) before she is sedated.

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 8/18/06 at 9:09am

Kent, the Loretta Young story has been around for a long time with lots of stars or directors (always male) the "F**k off, Loretta" role. This is the the first time I've heard Merman's name attached to it.

[Horton]

Posted: 8/18/06 at 9:17am

Merman was also in Its A Mad Mad Mad Mad World

[Gothampc]

Posted: 8/18/06 at 9:31am

On the site that shall not be named, there is a clip from Lucille Ball's show where she is trying to teach Ethel Merman to sing.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 8/18/06 at 11:50am

Fans cherish HAPPY HUNTING because it has one of the stupidest books of all 1950s musicals. (The basic plot is solid enough but the dialogue is very amateurish.) The songs, while not top drawer Broadway, are lively and catchy and Merman is in great voice on the cast album. She was a big enough star that despite the critical boos for the book and score, they wrote raves about her performance and the show ran a year.

At the first reading Fernando Lamas stopped to ask if he was going t read his lines to Miss Merman while she read hers to the audience.

A hush fell over the room. "Mr Lamas" she said "I want you to know that I have been playing scenes this way for 25 years on Broadway."

Lamas, who made his only Broadway appearance in HAPPY HUNTING, replied, "That just means you're old!"

From that point on it was World War Three backstage...and on. At one point Lamas began wiping off her kisses in full view of the audiences.

Years later Merman was making talk show rounds promoting her autobiography. One interviewer asked her if she would be sending Fernando Lamas a copy. "I wouldn't even send him a postcard," she said, adding, "He Knows what I think of him!"

[Jimmcf]

Posted: 8/18/06 at 1:29pm

The stage manager for Gypsy (cast full of children) was talking to the guys backstage in very "colorful" language, when Merman came up to him and said, "Hey, you, don't say 'f**k*' in front of the k-i-d-s!"
________

Cole Porter once gave her a painting as a present - but she decided the colors in the painting didn't go with her decor, so she gave it to a relative.

Years later Cole asked her whatever happened to the Grandma Moses painting.

Updated On: 8/18/06 at 01:29 PM

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 8/18/06 at 2:42pm

Posing outside the Broadway theatre where they did their one-night only concert in May 1977, one photographer called out "Mary, take your hand away from Ethel's chin!" Ethel muttered "Shut up! She's holding up my face!"