Was Merman Losing to Martin a Shock at the Time?

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.

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and you can't buck a nun.

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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.

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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*

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.)

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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.

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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).

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

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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

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.

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.

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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.