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[0:00] Paul Lazarus: Hi, this is Paul Lazarus. In the 1980s, I produced and hosted a radio series called Anything Goes, a celebration of the American musical theater. Now the Broadway Podcast Network is bringing back these shows. This tribute to Ethel Merman originally aired in 1986 and takes a look at the remarkable career of the queen of musical comedy. Ethel Merman was unstoppable. At 71, she released a disco album of her greatest hits.

[0:54] Paul Lazarus: This is Anything Goes, a celebration of the American musical theater, past, present, and future. I'm your host, Paul Lazarus. Today, a tribute to the all-time best of the Broadway belters, Ethel Merman. For 30 years, from Girl Crazy to Gypsy, one great show tune after another by Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Stephen Sondheim, and Julie Stein was introduced to the world by the clarion voice of Ethel Merman.

[1:44] Paul Lazarus: George and Ira Gershwin's Girl Crazy was Ethel Merman's first Broadway musical, and she stopped the show not once, but twice. In a recorded tribute for a 1962 benefit, Ira Gershwin looked back at Merman's sensational debut on Broadway.

[3:08] Ira Gershwin: Unforgettable singing of I Got Rhythm, Sam and Delilah, and Boy, What Love Has Done to Me. Although you Ethel were appearing in Girl Crazy for the first time on any stage, your assurance, your timing, your delivery, both as a comedian and as a singer, with a no-nonsense voice that could reach not only the standees, but the ticket takers in the lobby. Convinced the opening night audience they were witnessing the discovery of a great new star, which continues to shine ever so brightly.

[3:48] ♪ Musical number: "I Got Rhythm" — performed by Ethel Merman ♪

[5:07] Paul Lazarus: After Girl Crazy came George White's Scandals and Take a Chance, and then one of the biggest musical triumphs of the 1930s. My next extravaganza was a show called Anything Goes, which was a big milestone in the American theater due to the fact that the writing team of Lindsay and Krauss first got together in double harness. When those two boys do a duet on a typewriter, everybody listens and likes what comes out. And with the great songs that Cole Porter laid on my music rack, well, I had everything going for me. In Merman, Cole Porter found the perfect interpreter of his songs. It's not like a voice, it's like another instrument in the band, and absolutely true on pitch. She can sharp a note, a flatter note for effect. She knows that much. There's one word I always put in, and that's the word terrific. She can make terrific really terrific.

[6:08] ♪ Musical number: "You're the Top" — performed by Ethel Merman ♪

[7:17] Paul Lazarus: Anything Goes contained a classic Cole Porter ballad written for Merman.

[7:47] ♪ Musical number: "I Get a Kick Out of You" — performed by Ethel Merman ♪

[9:30] Paul Lazarus: Porter's Red Hot and Blue in 1936. Team Merman with Bob Hope.

[9:36] Bob Hope: You couldn't have picked a greater artist or a greater gal than LaBelle Merman, and I know because I've played with her, sorry, worked with her many times. And when we played together in Red Hot and Blue at the Alvin Theater, she hit such high notes that ferry boats answered back. She's one of the big talents, one of the big voices of our business. I call her the mouth that roared, but she also has a heart that roars for everything good. And I'm happy to join in this tribute to her. Thank you.

[10:05] ♪ Musical number: "It's De-Lovely" — performed by Ethel Merman ♪

[11:21] Paul Lazarus: Stars in Your Eyes, with a score by Arthur Schwartz and Dorothy Fields, was Merman's next Broadway vehicle. A somewhat creaky vehicle, as it started out as a satire on left-wing politics, and changed on the road into a show about the sex life of a Hollywood star. But Merman made it work with songs like A Lady Needs a Change.

[11:41] ♪ Musical number: "A Lady Needs a Change" — performed by Ethel Merman ♪

[12:59] Paul Lazarus: Like Edie, de Barry was a lady, which coincidentally was the name of my next show. In this lavish Frenchie production, I was beaucoup gussied up as Madame de Barry. And although I had all the good songs, the great comedian Bert Lahr was très magnifique. In an interview, Merman told Gene Shalit about her onstage antics with comedian Bert Lahr in De Barry Was a Lady.

[13:24] Ethel Merman: A funny thing happened. He used to chase me across a big king-size bed, you know. And he had on, as Louis XIV, he had on his nightgown, and he had the cap on with the tassel. I mean, not the tassel, but the balling of it. But he was so slow, you know, he chased me. And one night, we go over the bed, and he was here, and I came around, and I passed him. And they said, leave it in.

[13:54] Ethel Merman: It was the biggest laugh of the show. I kept going around and around, and passed right by him, say, hi. Oh, he was a great artist.

[14:09] ♪ Musical number: "Friendship" — performed by Ethel Merman ♪

[14:45] Paul Lazarus: This is Anything Goes with Paul Lazarus. In 1946, Ethel Merman came up with a blockbuster to top even Herb blockbusters. If you take Rodgers and Hammerstein as producers, add music and lyrics by Irving Berlin, then fold in a witty story by Dorothy and Herb Fields, and stir well with Josh Logan's direction, you've got to come up with something atomic. It happened with Annie Get Your Gun.

[16:06] ♪ Musical number: "I Got The Sun In The Morning" — performed by Ethel Merman ♪

[16:56] Paul Lazarus: There were more than half a dozen hit songs in Irving Berlin's score for Annie Get Your Gun, and Merman established herself once and for all as the leading musical comedy star of her generation.

[17:06] ♪ Musical number: "They Say It's Wonderful" — performed by Ethel Merman ♪

[18:10] Paul Lazarus: Merman followed up Annie Get Your Gun with Call Me Madam and Happy Hunting, musicals tailor-made to fit her talents. And then in 1959, she surpassed herself by appearing in Gypsy, the landmark musical written by Arthur Lawrence, Julie Stein, and Stephen Sondheim.

[18:24] Paul Lazarus: The best damn musical I've ever seen, said Walter Kerr.

[18:54] ♪ Musical number: "Everything's Coming Up Roses" — performed by Ethel Merman ♪

[19:06] Stephen Sondheim: When we wrote Gypsy, none of us had any idea that Ethel could act as well as she could. And so when we came to the end of the first act, and Arthur had written this very stirring speech for her, when her daughter has run away, it obviously had to be topped with a song, but I had to work on the assumption that Ethel couldn't act, because I had no idea that she could; I'd only seen her play her traditional roles. And so I, very pleased with myself, I thought rather cleverly, wrote her a blow-Gabriel-blow kind of song, which was designed for the other two people on stage to act, the other daughter and the man, could act in horror while she sang this very uptune. And I thought, well, that'll be effective, and that protects us from the fact that she can't act.

Well, of course, it turned out that Ethel Merman could act perfectly marvelously, and she invested that song with so much more feeling. If I knew now, if I'd known then what I know now, I don't think I would have written Everything's Coming Up Roses; I would have written something more difficult. By that, for example, Rose's Turn was written after we were in rehearsal. By then I knew how terrific she was.

[20:09] ♪ Musical number: "Rose's Turn" — performed by Ethel Merman ♪

[24:30] Paul Lazarus: Madame Rose in Gypsy was Merman's last original role on Broadway. She explained to Gene Shalit why she decided not to create another great part, Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly!

[24:41] Ethel Merman: Gypsy was two years and then nine months on the road. That's when, after I was almost finished with the Gypsy tour, that's when I was approached to do Hello, Dolly! And I didn't want to go into another show. I mean, two years and nine months is a lot of work, you know? And then nine months traveling, living out of suitcases and so forth and so on. So I turned down Dolly. And then in 1970, David Merrick approached me and asked me would I do three months of Dolly. So I said, okay. Jerry Herman gave me two new songs for Hello, Dolly, which he had written for me if I had done it originally. Yeah. But no Dolly before me ever sang those songs.

[25:32] ♪ Musical number: "World Take Me Back" — performed by Ethel Merman ♪

[27:11] Paul Lazarus: Ethel Agnes Simmerman from Astoria, Queens, singing World, Take Me Back, written especially for her by Jerry Herman. Special thanks for this tribute to Ethel Merman go to Steve Cole, Jean Shalit, Ira Weitzman, and the Theatre Collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

[27:41] ♪ Musical number: "There's No Business Like Show Business" — performed by Ethel Merman ♪

[28:32] Paul Lazarus: Special thanks for this tribute to Ethel Merman go to Steve Cole, Jean Shalit, Ira Weitzman, and the Theatre Collection of the Museum of the City of New York.