The singer Ethel Merman, who was a friend of Hoover's since 1938, said in a 1978 interview: " Some of my best friends are homosexual.

A version of the song set to a disco beat was recorded by Ethel Merman for her infamous Ethel Merman Disco Album in 1979.

Within two weeks of opening in Top Speed, Rogers was chosen to star on Broadway in Girl Crazy by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin, the musical play widely considered to have made stars of both her and Ethel Merman.

Ethel Merman ( January 16, 1908 – February 15, 1984 ) was an American actress and singer.

Zimmermann had been raised in the Dutch Reformed Church and his wife was Presbyterian, but shortly after they were wed they joined the Episcopalian congregation at Church of the Redeemer, where Merman was baptized.

After graduating from Bryant in 1924, Merman was hired as a stenographer by the Boyce-Ite Company.

One day during her lunch break, she met Vic Kliesrath, who offered her a job at the Bragg-Kliesrath Corporation for a $ 5 increase above the weekly $ 23 salary she was earning, and Merman accepted the offer.

Merman was hired as a torch singer at Les Ambassadeurs, where the headliner was Jimmy Durante, and the two became lifelong friends.

Soon after Merman underwent a tonsillectomy she feared might damage her voice, but after recovering she discovered it was more powerful than ever.

While performing on the prestigious Keith Circuit, Merman was signed to replace Ruth Etting in the Paramount film Follow the Leader ( 1930 ), starring Ed Wynn and Ginger Rogers.

" Merman was fairly blasé about her notices, prompting George Gershwin to ask her mother, " Have you ever seen a person so unconcerned as Ethel?

As soon as Girl Crazy closed, she and her parents departed for a much-needed vacation in Lake George in Upstate New York, but after their first day there Merman was summoned to Atlantic City to help salvage the troubled latest edition of George White's Scandals.

" Following the Broadway run, she agreed to join the show on the road, but shortly after the Chicago opening she claimed the chlorine in the city's water supply was irritating her throat, and Merman returned to Manhattan.

Despite working with a cast that included Bing Crosby, Carole Lombard, and Burns and Allen, under the direction of Academy Award – winning director Norman Taurog, Merman was unhappy with the experience, and she was dismayed to discover one of her musical numbers had been cut when she attended the New York opening with her family and friends.

Merman initially was overlooked for the 1936 screen adaptation of Anything Goes when Bing Crosby insisted his wife Dixie Lee be cast as Reno Sweeney opposite his Billy Crocker, but when she unexpectedly dropped out of the project Merman was given the opportunity to reprise the role she had originated on stage.

From the beginning, it was clear to Merman the film would not be the enjoyable experience she had hoped it would be.

* Ethel Merman ( 1908 – 1984 ), star of musical comedies on Broadway and in Hollywood, was born in Astoria and graduated from Bryant.

The rich orchestral accompaniment that became identified with the disco era conjured up the memories of the big band era — which brought out several artists that recorded and disco-ized some big band arrangements including Perry Como, who re-recorded his 1929 and 1939 hit, " Temptation ", in 1975, as well as Ethel Merman, who released an album of disco songs entitled The Ethel Merman Disco Album in 1979.

actress Ethel Merman,

* 1908 – Ethel Merman, American actress and singer ( d. 1984 )

Sondheim would have liked to write the music as well, but Ethel Merman, the star, insisted on a composer with a track record.

* February 15 – Ethel Merman, American singer and actress ( b. 1908 )

* May 21 – Gypsy: A Musical Fable, starring Ethel Merman in her last new musical, opens on Broadway and runs for 702 performances

** Cole Porter's musical Anything Goes, starring Ethel Merman, premieres in New York City.

* Together on Broadway: Mary Martin & Ethel Merman ( 1977 ) ( Broadway )

Many episodes featured people most British viewers had barely heard of at the time, such as Linda Ronstadt ; some featured veteran performers like Ethel Merman and Rita Moreno ; some featured well-known pop singers, including Elton John, Diana Ross, and Leo Sayer.

* Muppet Treasures-Hosted by Kermit and Fozzie as they once again clean out the attic, with guest stars Zero Mostel, Loretta Lynn, Paul Simon, Peter Sellers, and Ethel Merman.

The Big Broadcast of 1936 starred Bing Crosby, George Burns, Gracie Allen, Ethel Merman, Jack Oakie, and Bill " Bojangles " Robinson and also featured other performances by Dorothy Dandridge and the Nicholas Brothers, who would appear with Miller again in two movies for Twentieth Century Fox in 1941 and 1942.

The rest of the cast included humorist Fred Allen, singers Mindy Carson and Frankie Laine, stage musical performer Ethel Merman, actors Jose Ferrer and Paul Lukas, and comic-singer Danny Thomas ( about to become a major television star in his own right ).

She considered combining Ethel with Gardner or Hunter, her grandmother's maiden name, but finally abbreviated Zimmermann to Merman to appease her father.

* Ethel Agnes Zimmermann, birth name of Ethel Merman ( 1908 – 1984 ), German American singer and actress

On Friday nights the Zimmermann family would take the subway into Manhattan to see the vaudeville show at the Palace Theatre, where Merman discovered Blossom Seeley, Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, and Nora Bayes.

" Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are " I Got Rhythm ", " Everything's Coming Up Roses ", " Some People ", " Rose's Turn ", " I Get a Kick Out of You ", " It's De-Lovely ", " Friendship ", " You're the Top ", " Anything Goes ", and " There's No Business Like Show Business ", which later became her theme song.

During a two-week engagement at Little Russia, a club in midtown Manhattan, Merman met agent Lou Irwin, who arranged for her to audition for Archie Mayo, a film director under contract at Warner Bros.

He offered her an exclusive six-month contract, starting at $ 125 per week, and Merman quit her day job, only to find herself idle for weeks while waiting to be cast in a film.

Upon hearing her sing " I Got Rhythm ", the Gershwins immediately cast her, and Merman began juggling daytime rehearsals with her matinee and evening performance schedule at the Palace.

The New York Times noted Merman sang " with dash, authority, good voice and just the right knowing style ," while The New Yorker called her " imitative of no one.

During the run of Girl Crazy, Paramount signed Merman to appear in a series of ten short musical films, most of which allowed her to sing a rousing number as well as a ballad.

It opened on November 21, 1934 at the Alvin Theatre, and the New York Post called Merman " vivacious and ingratiating in her comedy moments, and the embodiment of poise and technical adroitness " when singing " as only she knows how to do.

Merman returned to Broadway at the behest of her third husband, Continental Airlines executive Robert Six, who was upset she had chosen to become a Colorado housewife following their wedding in 1953.

Merman acquiesced to her husband's demands, although she clashed with the composers from the start and soon was at odds with co-star Fernando Lamas and his wife Arlene Dahl, who frequently attended rehearsals.

Merman was devastated at this turn of events and called the loss of the role " the greatest professional disappointment of my life.

No use trying to pick a hit tune, for all the tunes are hits ... Ethel Merman is at her lusty, free and easy best ... She is now able to develop a consistent characterization and stay with it to the show's end.

Among those performers who made early film appearances in Vitaphone shorts filmed at the Flatbush studios include Al Jolson, Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Stewart, Spencer Tracy, Jack Benny, Sammy Davis Jr., Sylvia Sidney, Pat O ' Brien, Ruth Etting, Mischa Elman, Betty Hutton, Burns and Allen, Giovanni Martinelli, Xavier Cugat, Bill Robinson, Lillian Roth, Joan Blondell, Ethel Merman, Abbe Lane, Eleanor Powell, Helen Morgan, The Nicholas Brothers, Milton Berle, Bob Hope, Jane Froman, Jack Haley, Phil Silvers, Judy Canova, Nina Mae McKinney, Marjorie Main, Rose Marie, Joe Penner, Ethel Waters, June Allyson, Shemp Howard, Lanny Ross, Lionel Stander, and Cyd Charisse among others.

Ethel Merman performed in Call Me Madam at the Kenley Players in 1968 ( as well as appearing at the Parker Playhouse and Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami earlier that year ).

The Banff Merman, similar to a Fiji Mermaid, on display at the Indian Trading Post

Banff " Merman " on display at the Indian Trading Post

With George Balanchine, he choreographed Jones Beach at the City Center Theater in 1950, and directed and choreographed Irving Berlin's Call Me Madam, starring Ethel Merman.

Other notable actors who performed at the theater over the years include Dick Van Dyke, Grace Kelly, Ethyl Merman, Angela Lansbury, and Walter Matthau.

The Playbill distributed at each performance humorously noted that " neither the character of Mrs. Sally Adams nor Miss Ethel Merman resemble any person living or dead.

In 1949, Merman and her family were vacationing at the Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs with Howard Lindsay and his wife Dorothy Stickney.

Stritch understudied Ethel Merman for Call Me Madam, and, at the same time, appeared in the 1952 revival of Pal Joey, singing " Zip ".