Was Merman Losing to Martin a Shock at the Time?

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 5/31/08 at 9:01pm

I still find it amazing that Ethel Merman lost the Tony for Gypsy to Mary Martin in The Sound of Music. Was this considered an upset, I mean I doubt they have pools and such as we do now, but was Merman the frontrunner?

[Dollypop]

Posted: 5/31/08 at 9:35pm

I didn't see Merman in GYPSY (I'm not THAT old!), however there are reports that her Rose was very well sung but her acting was wooden. Arthur Laurents claims that her "Roses's Turn" had to be larned to various beats. She had no idea what she was singing about. He says it was like teaching a dog in obedience school.

Also, Merman had a well-known dislike for Sandra Church and there was absolutely no on-stage rapport between the two actresses.

It's no wonder Mary Martin won.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 5/31/08 at 9:39pm

The Tony Awards were held in April back then. Gypsy opened in May and The Sound of Music opened in November. By the time the 1960 Tonys rolled around in April, 1960, Gypsy was almost a year old. In spite of Gypsy being the better show, then and now, I think Sound of Music was the newer, bigger hit. Also, there are the reports that Merman walked through later performances of Gypsy, so when time for voting came, it's possible that she was not being seen at her best. Whatever the reason, it is a shame that Merman wasn't recognized for her greatest performance in her greatest show.

[givesmevoice]

Posted: 5/31/08 at 9:40pm

and you can't buck a nun.

[Ludlow29]

Posted: 5/31/08 at 10:28pm

I was only about 8 years-old when I saw the original GYPSY, but it was not my first show. For instance, I was fortunate to have seen such classics as MY FAIR LADY and THE MUSIC MAN with their original casts (L'IL ABNER was the first show I attended).

To this day, I can't say I've seen any performance as electrifying as Merman in GYPSY. I saw Mary Martin in SOUND OF MUSIC and liked her, but can't say I found her especially memorable or convincing (Even as a child, it struck me as odd that this woman obviously older than my mother was supposed to be a young, virginal novice; let's just say Julie Andrews was a lot more believable in the movie).

Merman--especially as Rose--was not only right on-target, but the epitome of Broadway greatness. I've subsequently seen Lansbury, Daly, Peters, and Lupone and none had the same effect on me. Merman may not have been Helen Hayes, but she was damn convincing as Rose. And it's not just hindsight: you can hear her incredible impact on the OCR in ways that make other versions pale by comparison.
-Michael Colby

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 5/31/08 at 11:04pm

It was an open secret within the theatre community that Oscar Hammerstein was dying of cancer. (He was informed by his doctors while SOUND OF MUSIC was in rehearsals.) It was a huge sentimental vote in recognition of a many who had done so much to advance the musical theatre as an art form. I doubt SOUND OF MUSIC would have won the Tony otherwise.

Sharing it with FIORELLO was a curious move. If it shared with any show, you would think GYPSY, but GYPSY for all its musical comedy trapping is a dark show. As Sondheim says it is not a happily-ever-after fairy tale. The Tony voters probably were put off by its darker subtext.

Merman knew GYPSY was her best show and her greatest performance. She lost to Mary Martin who was one of her best friends. She never publicly complained about losing the Tony and covered up her disappointment with her crack "How are you going to buck a nun."

But for theatre junkies like us (and there no doubt were some back then) it was considered an upset.

[fflagg]

Posted: 5/31/08 at 11:10pm

GYPSY was a hit; THE SOUND OF MUSIC was a mammoth hit.

That along with the ill health of Hammerstein made it a lock to win. Although it was a surprise that it tied with a dull show like FIORELLO instead of GYPSY.

I have a tape of Merman's last show and it is phenomenal. Patti L. can pick her nose for what I care. The only perf to come close to Ethel's is Angela's.

Of course Ethel should have won; Mary Martin was 45 playing a 21- to 25-year-old.

This upset is the same as Barbra losing to Channing for the reason of "well, Carol has been around 20 years and Barbra is new. We will give it to her next time."

What next time?? :)

[Urban]

Posted: 5/31/08 at 11:13pm

I remember reading a couple of users posts here in the past stating that Mary Martin gave quiet often a well rounded and often multi-faceted performance as Maria while Ethel was quiet Wooden as Rose in parts.

*shrug*

[allofmylife]

Posted: 5/31/08 at 11:18pm

Plus, the show was very modern but the Tony voters had all achieved their status in the 40s and 50s, when Oscar and Richard were Gods on earth, so it may have been written....

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 5/31/08 at 11:18pm

SOUNF OF MUSIC was a not a mammoth hit on stage. It was a hit but didn't turn into a box office blockbuster until the move came out. It is also sometimes reported that SOUND OF MUSIC on stage got terrible reviews. They were mostly favorable although there was some carping about the saccharine book. (Still a problem but audiences don't seem to care.)

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 5/31/08 at 11:20pm

And there was no internet, Martin was a Broadway Sweetheart and much loved by everyone and not a Loud mouth pushy broad, even then politics played a part.
and sometimes History does repeat itself.

[puppetman2]

Posted: 6/1/08 at 1:20am

I saw Merman twice in Gypsy. She was OK on Broadway, but the only great thing was Rose's Turn. The rest of the performance was on one level- look at me, I'm MERMAN. When I saw her on tour in San Francisco, she was just phoning in the performance.

Martin was great in Sound of Music. She could play anything. She made a poor show such as Jennie into an entertaining experience. She was brilliant in I Do, I Do and incandescent in Peter Pan. I saw all of these and she was different in each. Merman was always Merman and the parts were tailored for her personality. She was better in films as she could not fight the studios as she did the Broadway producers.

[A Director]

Posted: 6/1/08 at 1:57am

Arthur Laurents claims that her "Roses's Turn" had to be larned to various beats. She had no idea what she was singing about. He says it was like teaching a dog in obedience school.

Arthur Laurents is such a class ass. He's little more than something you scrap off the bottom of your shoe. Laurents should grow like an onion -- with his head in the ground.

[dayao]

Posted: 6/1/08 at 3:56am

While it probably was a shock that Merman lost out to Mary Martin for the acting Tony, the musical FIORELLO, which tied with THE SOUND OF MUSIC for the Best Musical Tony was anything but dull and the bigger insult was that it had to share the Tony with any other musical. FIORELLO was one of only 7 musical plays that won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, an award so prestigious that it makes the Tony seem superfluous by comparison. FIORELLO was the third musical play to win this award, which usually goes to straight dramatic plays. The Sheldon Harnick & Jerry Bock score for FIORELLO is as brilliant as Gypsy and arguably far better than The Sound of Music.. As Robert J. Elisberg on The Huffington Post recently said: FIORELLO is “The Greatest Musical You've Never Heard Of”.

FIORELLO was a bigger hit than Gypsy (795 performances vs. Gypsy’s 702) but it has never been revived on Broadway since. Next year is its 50th anniversary. Like Gypsy and The Sound of Music, FIORELLO’s leading character is based on a real person, Fiorello LaGuardia, former mayor of New York City who defeated a powerful criminal political organization and restored honest government to the city, A World War I hero and US Congressman, who also had an airport named after him (yes, he’s that LA GUARDIA). The Original Cast Recording for FIORELLO is available on CD and is really worth checking out.

No musical since the beginning of the new millennium has won a Pulitzer (the last one was RENT in 1996).

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 6/1/08 at 7:12am

And there was no internet, Martin was a Broadway Sweetheart and much loved by everyone and not a Loud mouth pushy broad, even then politics played a part.
and sometimes History does repeat itself.

Ouch. I'm not sure everyone caught what you were saying there, but I did.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 6/1/08 at 7:15am

I think people were just trying to ignore Curtain's comment... I think. It wasn't that discrete.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 6/1/08 at 8:24am

I never claimed to be discrete.
It is an interesting analogy though.

[Hiram]

Posted: 6/1/08 at 9:45am

I saw THE SOUND OF MUSIC right before Mary Martin left the show. I was six and a half. I remember loving her and their are moments of her performance that are still with me. However, I was very young. I went with my Mom and Dad. My Dad really wanted to see it and he knew how much I loved singing along with the album. So he bought tickets. My Mom was not thrilled about going. She had never cared for Mary Martin. My Mom (a very savvy, discerning theatregoer) walked out a fan! She still talks about Mary Martin's Maria to this day and the incredible warmth she brought to the role. Ms. Martin was a great actress and there was nothing like seeing her on stage. Updated On: 6/1/08 at 09:45 AM

[RiffIt]

Posted: 6/1/08 at 9:45am

I know I'm going out on a limb here, but I can't imagine that the 1959 Tony mattered as much to Ethel or Mary as Patti or any of the nominees now.

That was the Golden Age of Broadway and Ethel and Mary both had indisputably colossal careers on stage which, at that time, made them tremendous mainstream pop culture icons in a way that Broadway success doesn't do anymore.

Like her or hate her, Patti's career trajectory has been, at least in her eyes, or the eyes of we, her rabid fans, one of as many slap-in-the-face tragic and egregious injustices as glorious triumphs. Even Bernadette Peters has to forrage for roles, often playing parts for which she is ill-suited just to stay on the boards. And of course much of both of their work has been in revivals and flops. This Tony means something for Patti.

Then, if you think about Kelli, Jenna and Kerry, a first Tony obviously means more than a late-in-career Tony could have to to Ethel or Mary in 1959. Faith has one, but obviously falls more into the Patti category than the Merman/Martin.


Updated On: 6/1/08 at 09:45 AM

[ljay889]

Posted: 6/1/08 at 9:52am

So far Patti has was the


Outer Critics Circle Award
Drama Desk Award
Drama League Award

I don't think we should be getting too nervous or too excited about her losing.

[LuPonatic]

Posted: 6/1/08 at 11:47am

I would have liked to have seen that Fiorello revival with Jason Alexander. Roundabout considered it? or am I going crazy...

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 6/1/08 at 12:03pm

I first saw Ethel Merman in GYPSY when I was 18, close to the beginning of the run. I saw additional performances both at the Broadway Theatre and later when it moved to the Imperial. Furthermore, I saw the opening of her tour of GYPSY in Rochester, NY when I was in college there. I, too, have heard stories of Merman walking through her performances or "phoning in" performances as the run progressed, but I did not encounter that. She was always the star, giving her all, and acting her part well, not in a "wooden way". I agree with Ludlow's assessment of her performance when he saw GYPSY as a youngster. She was a powerhouse, both as a singer and as Rose, the character.

As for Arthur Laurents describing working with her like training a dog, Laurents did not direct her, Jerome Robbins did. Merman knew that this show was her first chance to really get down to some serious acting, and she followed Jerome Robbins's direction explicitly. She called him "Teacher".

As to answering the specific topic of this thread, others have addressed this well in their posts. Merman had already received a Tony as the leading actress in a musical for CALL ME MADAM, in 1951. And Mary Martin WAS a friend. It was Merman who responded, "How can you buck a nun?" Her real and angry disappointment occured when the movie part of Rose went to Rosalind Russell, who in my opinion was terrible, as was the whole movie, except for Natalie Wood, and Paul Wallace as Tulsa, repeating his stage role.

Incidentally, I saw both Mary Martin in THE SOUND OF MUSIC, and Tom Bosley in FIORELLO, and thoroughly enjoyed both musicals which were both excellent as theatre works. They just were not up to GYPSY's higher plane as musical theatre.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 6/1/08 at 12:22pm

I want to second dayao's praise of FOIRELLO!

This show has a tight well-crafted book and a score that is well integrated into the text. So well that few of the songs achieved any kind of popularity outside the show.

The cast album is STILL available on Broadway Angel after 15 years - so it must be selling decently, as they deleted 90% of their Broadway classics series by now keeping only the big hits (MUSIC MAN, FUNNY GIRL, FOLLIES, FORUM, KISS ME KATE.)

Encores did this show their first season (1994) but since then I have not heard any rumors about a full-scale revival.

One note: FIORELLO spent most of its run in the Broadhurst Theatre, while GYPSY played the Broadway and later the Imperial theatres. So while FIORELLO ran 93 performances more it did so in a theatre 2/3 the size.

GYPSY opened at the Broadway May 21, 1959 and continued there until July 9, 1960 when it suspended performances for 5 weeks while Merman took a vacation. It resumed August 15, 1960 at the Imperial Theater. (I often wondered if this interruption hurt the show's momentum at the box office.) T

HE MUSIC MAN moved from the Majestic to the Broadway from October 17, 1960 to April 15, 1961. THEN, Hal Prince moved FIORELLO from the Broadhurst to the Broadway. They had won the Tony and the Pulitzer and gotten rave reviews, so he figured with the larger seating capacity they could scale the tickets at lower prices ($5 top instead of $7) but in the end, it did not increase the weekly tickets sold at all. They were selling the same number AND at a lower price. FIORELLO ran to October 26, 1961.

FIORELLO! - Original Broadway cast

[jv92]

Posted: 6/1/08 at 12:32pm

While Fiorello! is a lovely show, it is not nearly as superior as the brilliant She Loves Me or even Fiddler on the Roof. However, it is far from dull. There are some charming songs in it and the book is quite good.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 6/1/08 at 1:48pm

Can we please not victimize Patti LuPone?
Her career has not been marked by tragedy or disappointment, at least not any more than the one of any other stage actor. She has had a glowing career, is one of the few Broadway names who can sell tickets, and a Tony doesn't make her career (or her Rose) any more or any less significant.