Article: Ethel Merman, RIP.

Ethel Merman, RIP

SHE WAS BIG, brash, and strong. It was her first Broadway show. She was 21 years old. The song was George Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm.' Ginger Rogers was the star. But on the second verse, Ethel Merman hit the high C and held it--held it for 16 long bars while, as she recalls, "the orchestra played the melodic line--a big tooty thing' and the audience went wild. At length the curtain went down and, as they said in all those corny movies of the Thirties, she went out a nobody, she came back a star. An excited Gershwin rushed backstage: "Don't ever let anyone give you a singing lesson. It'll ruin you.' That was good enough for Ethel Merman, who ...

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