Rosalind Russell's actual singing in Gypsy, on YouTube- Page 2

[Calvin]

Posted: 7/1/08 at 7:30pm

An attack on Ann Jillian is an attack on me!

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 7/1/08 at 7:34pm

"Why didn't Merman play Rose in the movie anyway?" That is one of the most discussed issues in all of movie musical history. We've been debating that issue since 1962. My guess is that Merman wasn't a big enough name in the movies and that her magnetism just didn't always translate well to the screen (Call Me Madam being an exception). But it is CRIMINAL that Merman's performance was not memorialized. One of the great missed opportunities of all time!!!!

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 7/1/08 at 7:44pm

I ADORE Ethel Merman and I always have. (Talk about being the target of ridicule as a child...and a grown-up, now that I think of it.)

But Ethel was a stage actress, not a movie actress. I don't mean that in a critical way. I just don't think it was the right genre for her. On the stage she was electrifying, unsurpassed! But on screen, she just didn't seem remotely natural.

In my opinion, it is more important that the actress playing Rose can ACT the part. (I am not suggesting that it's okay for her to be "off-key" or anything like that, so don't anyone get your knickers in a twist.) But it is such a juicy role, and being able to belt out the songs is not enough.

I cannot judge Roz in the role because the movie itself is so FLAWED! It's all over the place! At least the Bette Midler version is all told from the same perspective!

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/1/08 at 8:32pm

Roz was one of the only movie stars that they knew could carry the part AND sell tickets. And she at least had the reputation of having won a Tony for a musical. And you're right, Miss Penny. They were thinking of this as a big "acting" movie, so they put three heavy-hitters in the leads. Roz had had 4 Best Actress nominations, Karl Malden was an Oscar-winner, and Natalie Wood had just come off of West Side Story AND her own nomination for Splendor in the Grass. Things didn't work out the way they had planned, but they probably knew Merman wasn't going to get them into Oscar consideration if she had played it.

They actually wanted Judy Garland for the part, and she campaigned heavily to get it. But no insurance company would issue a policy for her, sadly. And no studio would take a risk like that on Garland without a policy. She was devastated too.

Updated On: 7/1/08 at 08:32 PM

[agentpattycakes]

Posted: 7/1/08 at 8:33pm

The Rosalind Russell movie was my first exposure to Gypsy, so for that I will always hold it in a high place - flaws and all. Plus I love Natalie Wood. And isn't the debate always over who is the better Rose? Frankly, I love pieces and parts of them all.

I'm so intrigued by these original Russell tracks dubbed over the movie! I had heard the tracks before, but seeing them in the context of the film is so interesting. I'd love to see more of these.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/1/08 at 8:34pm

I'm really glad to see them too! Do more!

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 7/1/08 at 8:45pm

Are we really bashing LEGEND Rosalind Russell. I'm scared to read this entire thread. No, not much of a voice, but listen or watch her Ruth in Wonderful Town. She can, given the material, sell a song. I enjoy her lower notes in "Ohio" actually.

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 7/1/08 at 9:52pm

I loves me some Roz!

She said there was a little "Mame" in all her performances...including the ones BEFORE the book was ever written. So her Rose comes of a little too sophisticated.

As for her singing, she actually had the instincts of a singing actress... but, sadly, not enough of the pipes. Yet she often said the LOVED singing...even though she knew she wasn't very good.

I think she is most effective in the movie during the backstage scenes when she pimping out Louise.

Updated On: 7/1/08 at 09:52 PM

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 7/1/08 at 11:40pm

In my book, Roz can do no wrong. I don't even find her singing that bad!

For years and years, the movie was my only exposure to GYPSY, too, so I can never hate it. But after I saw stage versions of GYPSY and became more of a critical viewer, I recognized that the movie's weaknesses. I still don't think SHE is the problem with the movie. I don't think any of the actors are to blame!

Remember that Roz made GYPSY after fighting a grave battle with breast cancer and surviving a radical double mastectomy and treatment. The desperation she projects as Rose was an extension of her real-life determination to live.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 7/1/08 at 11:56pm

I love the original theatrical film, and detest the television version. Roz does not come off anything like Auntie Mame. She's completely different, imo. I have no issue with the songs by her. It's Lisa Kirk's singing with which I take issue. There's just no there, there.

[dayao]

Posted: 7/2/08 at 7:36am

This information was given to me by several people who worked under Ray Heindorf in the Warner Bros music department at the time of the 1962 filming of The Music Man & Gypsy and although I cannot be absolutely sure of its complete accuracy, it does shed some possible light on the casting of Rosalind Russell rather than Ethel Merman in the proposed film.

After Warner Bros purchased the rights to the 1959 musical hit GYPSY it was decided to make a purely dramatic film, along the lines of what had been done a year earlier with Joshua Logan’s highly successful nonmusical film of Harold Rome’s “Fanny”, with songs from the Jule Styne & Stephen Sondheim Broadway score confined to the theatrical sequences. Leonard Spielgass based his screenplay on the Arthur Laurents musical book and Gypsy Rose Lee’s memoirs and it was realized early on that to tell the screen story in such detail with the musical numbers intact would cause the resulting film to run over three hours and Warner Bros & director Mervyn LeRoy wanted a 2 hour film. Rosalind Russell was chosen for the starring, but non-musical role of Mama Rose along side Natalie Wood as Gypsy Rose Lee. This was reported in Earl Wilson & Sheila Graham’s columns at the time and was the reason given for Mervyn LeRoy’s decision to rethink his original plan to have Ethel Merman repeat her stage role. Without Mama Rose’s songs to sing and given her limitations as a dramatic actress, Merman would have been a liability to the planned film. However just as this version of GYPSY began filming, THE MUSIC MAN opened in theatres and scored a huge hit. It was then decided that GYPSY should be filmed as a musical follow-up to THE MUSIC MAN. The production closed down and was revamped as a musical. Rosalind Russell could sing but not in the style her role demanded (all of Mama Rose's songs in the Broadway production were written in the original Mama Rose, Ethel Merman's vocal style). It was decided to bring in singer Lisa Kirk to assist Russell with the vocals rather than re-cast the role. The end result is a film which is a hybrid of the dramatic and musical concepts for the film and that is why the off stage musical numbers are not as well staged and filmed as they would have been if the production had been planned initially as a film version of the original stage musical. The paring down of key scenes planned for the purely dramatic version to keep the musical version under 2 and a half hours resulted in some choppy continuity which still shows in the finished film. If Gypsy had been planned as a film version of the musical, Mervyn LeRoy probably would have kept his promise to allow Ethel Merman to repeat her stage role but the film he ultimately decided to make was not supposed to be a musical until later events made LeRoy and Warner Bros change their minds about it.

The real musical stars of the 1962 film of Gypsy are the magnificent 65 piece Warner Bros Studio Orchestra with its unsurpassed brass section, and orchestrator-conductor Frank Perkins, who play this music so magnificently it makes the more recent Bette Midler TV version sound anemic by comparison. Although it is impractical to use such a large orchestra for a stage production, I would love to hear a concert performance and/or recording of Gypsy using these superior expanded orchestrations.

[agentpattycakes]

Posted: 7/2/08 at 9:04am

That's very interesting information! Thanks for posting that.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 7/2/08 at 10:43am

I don't think that story is true. In the first place, Jack Warner wanted Judy Garland and Ann-Margret for the two leads. It seems doubtful he would have wanted them for a non-musical film, although it is possible. LeRoy, who had just worked with Russell in A Majority of One, wanted her for the role. Both Judy Garland and Ann-Margret were unavailable (Judy was filming A Child Is Waiting and Ann-Margret was finishing State Fair and starting Bye Bye Birdie) and the studio did not want to wait, so went with LeRoy's choice. That's what I always heard, going all the way back to when it was being made.

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 7/2/08 at 12:11pm

Judy would have been amazing. And, at least from what I understand, if it was something she wanted badly, she showed up and was much more bankable than in other things.

I actually didn't hate Russell on "Some People." Acting wise she was a fine Rose, but the movie itself just falls flat for me. The pacing was just off for me.

[Wildcard]

Posted: 7/2/08 at 12:20pm

That Gypsy movie would've been wonderful with Judy Garland as Mama Rose. Ofcourse, it needs Lorna Luft as June and Liza as Louise. What a movie that would've made!
Judy as "Rose"

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 7/2/08 at 12:31pm

First off, don't get me wrong about Roz -- I've ALWAYS loved her, back to when I saw her in the stage version of Auntie Mame. One of the happiest experiences of my theater-going life. One point re: her singing in Gypsy, however, as compared to Wonderful Town. With WT, the score was written with her in mind (including vocal limitations) -- so she was able to carry it off brilliantly. With Gypsy, the score was already in place, having been written with Merman in mind (a formidable task in itself). I was very interested in the posting about Gypsy having originally been planned as a non-musical movie and it makes a lot of sense.

[marknyc]

Posted: 7/2/08 at 1:18pm

A hit show with a juicy role for an older actress was not about to escape the notice of producer Frederick Brisson, who was married to Rosalind Russell. He had previously cast his wife in film versions of "A Majority of One" (1961), which Gertrude Berg had written and starred in on Broadway, and "Five Finger Exercise" (1962), which he had produced on Broadway with Jessica Tandy in the lead. To edge out the competition, he optioned the screen rights to Gypsy as well (though Russell would vehemently deny this in her memoirs), then passed them on to Warner Bros. with his wife as part of the package. Although Merman and her fans were devastated, most Hollywood insiders accepted the fact that Russell's name had more marquee power.

Though she had starred in the stage musical "Wonderful Town" ten years earlier, Russell's voice didn't have the power required for the score. After listening to her recording of the numbers, even Russell had to agree that she would need to be dubbed, though she would deny this, too, in her memoirs. Russell's voice was used only for the patter portions of the numbers. For the real singing, Broadway belter Lisa Kirk, who had starred in the original stage production of "Kiss Me, Kate," modulated her voice to a near perfect match for Russell's.

[sondheimboy2]

Posted: 7/2/08 at 1:23pm

marknyc5, you have made my day. Thank you.

I don't know if it makes it funnier or sadder that her diction is so perfect. "livinG life in A livinG rooM" "here's your haT"

Would I be right in guessing that Karl Malden's voice was dubbed, too?

I've always liked Roz's version of "Gypsy" even with all of it's flaws. I like her "Rose's Turn", during her strip, you can see madness in those eyes.

But, to combat all the Roz bashing that's been going on, here are some clips of her in "Wonderful Town":

"Conga"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiaUpFRxFB0&feature=related

"100 Easy Ways to Lose a Man"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsK0LhMwIdE&feature=related

"Swing"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qlT9XFSPIA&feature=user

[marknyc]

Posted: 7/2/08 at 1:30pm

As soon as I got these unreleased tracks, I had to snych them up. I'll do the last one (Small World) tonight.

I'm quite sure that is Karl doing his own singing, and he does it quite well.

We all love Roz - it's just kind of fun to know that our gods have feet of clay!
Updated On: 6/14/11 at 01:30 PM

[marknyc]

Posted: 7/3/08 at 9:22am

Here's "Small World":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e-2EqV1XbA

Here's "Everything's Coming Up Roses"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyX0x7HeSuE

And "You'll Never Get Away From Me" (from the CD):

https://vimeo.com/127453915

Updated On: 11/1/17 at 09:22 AM

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/3/08 at 10:12am

I wouldn't get too obsessed on sync issues, marknyc. Remember Roz was lip-syncing to her own playback, even if it was her voice during the filming. It wasn't recorded live, so there might be issues simply because she didn't do it perfectly to the playback (most singers can't do it flawlessly).

[marknyc]

Posted: 7/3/08 at 12:36pm

Very true, but turned out there was a synch problem with my original clip that seem to be exacerbated by YouTube.

I love the lyric mistake in "You'll Never Get Away From Me" - I wonder how that happened?

Updated On: 6/14/11 at 12:36 PM