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February 16, 1984 OBITUARY Ethel Merman, Queen of Musicals, Dies at 76 By MURRAY SCHUMACH
The Associated Press Ethel Merman at a New York hotel during a "salute to Ethel Merman" celebration. thel Merman, the musical-comedy star whose belting voice and brassy style entertained Broadway and movie audiences for 50 years, was found dead in her Manhattan apartment yesterday. Miss Merman, who was 76 years old, had undergone surgery to remove a brain tumor last April. The Medical Examiner's office reported yesterday that she died of natural causes. The singer's booming voice was first heard on a Broadway stage in 1930 when she brought down the house singing ''I Got Rhythm'' in the Gershwin musical ''Girl Crazy.'' Her last major appearance in New York was in 1982, when she took part in a Carnegie Hall benefit concert. Miss Merman's most memorable shows included Cole Porter's ''Anything Goes'' and ''Dubarry Was a Lady,'' Irving Berlin's ''Annie Get Your Gun'' and the Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim musical ''Gypsy,'' which she considered her best. Her 14 movies included ''Alexander's Ragtime Band,'' ''There's No Business Like Show Business'' and ''It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.'' Beginning in 1930, and for more than a quarter of a century thereafter, no Broadway season seemed really complete unless it had a musical with Ethel Merman. In that period, the chunky, aggressive star with the clarion voice, brash personality, shrewd comic sense and steel nerves was the darling of such master songwriters as George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and Jule Styne. | |
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