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.

Merman was born Ethel Agnes Zimmermann in her maternal grandmother's house located at 265 4th Street in Astoria, Queens, in New York City in 1908, though she would later emphatically declare that it was actually 1912.

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.

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.

During this period Merman also began appearing in nightclubs, first hired by Jimmy Durante's partner Lou Clayton.

Raoul Pene du Bois was hired to design sets and costumes, although the wardrobe worn by Merman was the responsibility of Mainbocher.

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

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

The area has been visited by actor Alan Alda, Sen. Jacob Javits, Sen. Robert Kennedy, singer Ethel Merman, actor Donald O ' Connor, and Governor Nelson Rockefeller.

* January 16-Ethel Merman, actress, singer ( died 1984 )

They include Leslie Uggams thinking lemonade was hot cocoa, singer Anne Murray and a magic eggnog container, Oscar adopting a kitten with a broken leg who was never seen again on the television series ( which is out of character for Oscar, even on Christmas ), and Ethel Merman calling Imogene Coca an idiot.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 ".