About Me
PERSONAL LIFE:
Born Ethel Agnes Zimmermann on January 16, 1909 in her maternal grandmother's house in Astoria, Queens, New York. Her father, Edward Zimmermann, was an accountant and her mother, Agnes Gardner, was a school teacher. As a youngster, she used to stand outside the famous Players-Lasky Studios and wait to see her favorite Broadway star, Alice Brady. Ethel loved to sing songs while her adoring father accompanied her on the piano. William Cullen Bryant High School in Astoria, New York named it's auditorium Ether Merman Theater. Merman was married and divorced four times: Bill Smith, theatrical agent, Robert Levitt, newspaper executive. The couple had two children, Ethel and Robert Jr.; divorced in 1952. Robert Six, airline executive, 1953-1960. Ernest Borgnine, actor 1964. Merman filed for divorce after just 32 days of marriage. She was predeceased by one of her two children, her daughter, Ethel Levitt (known as Ethel Jr. and Little Bit). After Merman was diagnosed with brain cancer in 1983, she collapsed and died several weeks following surgery at the age of 76 in 1984; she had been planning to go to Los Angeles to appear at the Oscars that year. On February 20, 1984, Ethel's son, Robert Levitt Jr., held his mother's ashes as he rode down Broadway. He passed the Imperial, the Broadway and the Majestic theatres where Merman had performed all her life. Then, a minute before curtain up, all the marquees dimmed their lights in remembrance of her.
CAREER:
Ethel Merman began singing while working as a secretary for the B-K Booster Vacuum Brake Company in Queens. She eventually became a full time vaudeville performer and played the pinnacle of vaudeville, the Palace Theatre in New York City. By the late 1930's she had become the first lady of the Broadway musical stage. Many consider her the leading Broadway musical performer of the twientieth century with her signature song being "There's No Business Like Show Business". Merman won the 1951 Tony Award for Best Actress for her performance as Sally Adams in Call Me Madam. Perhaps her most revered performance was in Gypsy as Gypsy Rose Lee's mother Rose. Merman introduced "Everything's Coming Up Roses". She retired from Broadway in 1970 when she appeared as the last Dolly Levi in Hello Dolly, a show initially written for her. Merman's film career was not as distinguished as her stage roles, though she reprised her roles in Anything Goes and Call Me Madam. She co-wrote two volumes of memoirs, Who Could Ask for Anything More in 1952 and Merman in 1978. In the latter book, the chapter entitled "My Marriage to Ernest Borgnine" consists of one blank page.
