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Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman

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Finally, a worthy biography of Ethel Merman, one of the 20th century's greatest performers, has been published -- two, in fact, in honor of the 2008 centenary of her birth. They supersede all previous attempts. The question now is, which to buy? I've just read both. Here's my take.

If you had the books in front of you, the first thing you'd notice would be the difference in length. "Ethel Merman" by Brian Kellow is 326 pages, including the (rather incomplete) index. "Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman" by Caryl Flinn is a much-weightier 542 pages, including a more-detailed index. That's indicative of their very different approaches. Kellow adeptly hits the highlights of Merman's personal and professional lives, and places them in historical context. Flinn, a university professor, goes for the comprehensive and scholarly approach. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

Here's an example. Flinn spends five paragraphs sorting through all the stated dates for Merman's birth, before settling on the correct one: 1908. Kellow simply notes the right date. And that points to Flinn's main shortcoming: Having obviously done a tremendous amount of research for the book, she's loath to exclude anything.

I got the sense while reading Kellow's that he wants to convey the woman behind the image (he succeeds). As a professor of women's studies, Flinn seems to care more about how Merman was perceived, specifically as a woman in a certain time period. If Kellow and Flinn had decided to collaborate on a single book, we might have had the ideal Merman biography.

As it is, Flinn at times tends to overreach in an attempt to deconstruct, as in this doozy after a Merman quote: "Again, this seems less the real Ethel Merman talking than the voice associated with 'Ethel Merman,' the public production, whose iconoclastic toughness was being extended to her body itself, almost a Deep Throat avant la lettre." Ironically, Flinn's book is an intellectualized approach to an admitted non-intellectual. If Merman would have lived to read this, I imagine she would have said something like, "What the hell is she talkin' about, anyway?"

Where Flinn's approach works better than Kellow's is in giving details of Merman's professional productions. For example, she meticulously covers each of Merman's movie shorts, including plot synopses -- that's valuable and interesting information, particularly since the shorts aren't all readily available for viewing (something one can only hope an independent DVD company will eventually rectify). Kellow hardly touches on them at all. On the other hand, as features editor for Opera News, Kellow has a better grasp of the evolution of Merman's vocal style.

Interestingly, despite Flinn's greater focus on the details, Kellow is also the one to set the record straight on certain stories. For example, he convincingly puts forth what he's found to be the real reasons why the "Anything Goes" book by P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton was rewritten by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. In this case, Flinn seems to accept the version put forward publicly at the time. In other cases, she tends to list all opinions as to what occurred in a certain situation, rather than try to figure out what actually happened. Again, my sense is this is because, to Flinn, perception and reality carry equal weight.

As you might expect, Kellow and Flinn share many of the same sources. Flinn had at least one advantage: access to Merman's scrapbooks (compiled with her father). They are referenced constantly, but they really add little of note.

In the appendix of his book, Kellow lists Broadway appearances, film appearances, and television appearances. This is where one would like to see more detail. Surprisingly, Flinn's appendix is hardly more extensive. Under stage work, she adds the musical numbers by act, and then she has a filmography.

In the end, Kellow's book is the one to get. But if you're a fervent Merman fan, then you'll also want to get Flinn's for the extra details (albeit too many) and cultural perspective.

Nobody really expects a snappy read from a scholarly-looking tome like this where every other paragraph contains numerous citations to indexed references in the back; one assumes that's the price of accuracy.

But despite it's lofty intentions, this hefty cradle-to-grave (and beyond) examination of the Broadway legend's life contains a surprising amount of misinformation, something that becomes apparent to anyone familiar with Merman (and show business in general) just through a cursory skim.

Among other things, author claims It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World was produced by Universal (actually it was United Artists), wrongly credits Universal with creating the Cinerama process (that studio never even released a picture in this process), screws up names of a number of plays/movies (it's Under the Yum Yum Tree, not The Yum Yum Tree and so on) and provides the erroneous information that Marlo Thomas produced her That Girl series (on which Merman appeared several times) under the pseudonym Danny Arnold--which will come as a big surprise to anyone familiar with the work of TV veteran Arnold and a number of other very real producers who worked on the show over the years. How much else is wrong? Who knows? And these are mistakes I discovered while just casually leafing through the book.

Nitpicking? Perhaps. But even if everything else IS correct, whatever made Merman such a legendary character is buried under such a mountain of minutiea that her magic is lost. Skip this one and read the far more enjoyable Ethel Merman: A Life by Brian Kellow instead. With the exception of Merman's famed lungpower, big isn't necessarily better.

Flinn's book is terrific -- a compelling, accessible, and very readable biography of the first lady of the musical theater. The book is extremely well researched. Flinn has brought to light much new information that even Merman fans may not have known and separates fact from fiction, once and for all. Flinn interleaves the story of Merman with the story of the American musical theater in a fascinating and engaging way. This book is a must-read for Merman fans as well as all musical theater enthusiasts.

Just finished the two new bios on Ethel Merman, and while both have a lot to offer, this one, written by Flinn is the one to read if you only wanted one. While Kellow does admirably in his take on the Merm and his linear is better constructed, Flinn really seeks out more details, not only from her personal life, but from her career as well. Especially well done is her research on her two most famous films, CALL ME MADAM and THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS. While Kellow devotes only a few pages to SHOW BUSINESS, Flinn devotes a whole chapter, noting the changes that took place from the stories inception to the end product. Very well researched and interesting to read. She also goes into all of her TV appearances in much more detail, as well as her two failed pilots. If one wants to know about Merman, one wants details on her work and Flinn wins with flying colors. Flinn also details more of Mermans marital problems than Kellow. For instance, he never mentions anything about Six's abuse of her, where Flinn goes into it quite a lot. There are many other facets that Kellow either ignores or doesn't know about that Flinn dwelves into. However, Kellow goes into bit of detail about her feud with Fernando Lamas and his apparent upstaging her by wearing tight white pants to accentuate his "crouch" area. She was fumming mad. Flinn doesn't go into this at all. She also doesn't go into the Ernest Borgnine marriage fiasco as well as Kellow. He mentions his script girl as living with them and his affair with her. They both hint at the physical abuse aspect. A shame these two wonderful authors didn't colaborate on just one book. That would definately be the essential Merman biography.

I've always been kind of a Merman fan, but after reading this beautiful bio/analysis by Prof. Flinn, I realize that this woman was FASCINATING. She was also a bundle of contradictions -- a feminist before her time but also a lady who just wanted a good husband and a happy family life. As a performer she was a consummate professional. AND she was a gay icon. It all comes together in this great book. I couldn't put it down.

How about this? A biography of Ethel Merman that really tells the true story of her life. Not all the made up bitch-diva tales that chorus boys have dished about for years, but instead a revealing portrait of an immensely talented, supremely confident and remarkably shy woman.

Ethel Merman...Shy? Yes. Her way of dealing with that shyness was to create the character Ethel Merman: Big Brassy Broadway Belter. Even in the first page of her autobiography she recalls a TV Talk show host asking her if she cried easily. She replied, no not particularly although there was something about weddings that always brought a tear to her eye. But then she added "I should have cried at a few of my own," breaking up the host and convulsing the studio audience and reinforcing her image as the professional brass diva. A more personal and compelling appearance was when Ralph Edwards surprised her on This Is Your Life. A tearful Merman graciously thanks Edwards at the end revealing the side that she seldom showed in public.

Carol Finn does a remarkably thorough job reconstructing the events of Merman's life right down to the moment she collapsed from a stroke caused by an undetected brain tumor. Merman was only 76 when she died in February 1984, spending her last few months as an invalid barely able to speak. Up until then she was going strong and in fact was booked with her concert tours for the next three years. It seemed impossible that her energetic life would be stopped so suddenly and without any warning.

Finn was fortunate to have had the cooperation of Merman's son Bobby who shared may revealing and personal reminiscences of his mother, and she makes extensive use of the Merman scrapbooks. She doesn't gloss over the negative stoies but goes to great lengths to debunk some of the Merman myths. Of the four biogreaphies published since Merman's death, this one gets closer to the real woman beneath that "Brass Diva" exterior.

As Merman herself would often say "How about that?"

Cannot recommend; she was an enigma or a self absorbed uneducated diva. The portrait painted by this book did little to enhance her appeal. A bore about a boor.