Ethel Merman: A Life - Rilegato

Kellow, Brian

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0670018295 ISBN 13: 9780670018291

Casa editrice: Viking Pr, 2007

Riassunto

An authoritative portrait of the iconic Broadway star traces her Queens childhood through her sensational three-decade career, offering insight into her larger-than-life personality, her relationships with fellow celebrities, and her secret struggles with loneliness and vulnerability. 30,000 first printing.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

“A clear-eyed, perceptive take on the reign of Queen Ethel of Broadway.

An editor at Opera News and an entertainment reporter and biographer, Kellow nimbly sidesteps the booby traps other writers have hit while writing about Ethel Merman. Though he gives her temperament its due, he admirably avoids overloading his account with tales of a sometime-outrageous diva. He places Merman's ascendancy and success in the context of 20th-century New York City. Gershwin, Porter, Berlin and others provided the scores, and their confluence created such classics as Girl Crazy, Anything Goes, Annie Get Your Gun and Gypsy. Content at center stage on Broadway, Merman was less happy out of town. Hollywood, in particular, was not her place, as evidenced by the middling films she lensed at Warner Bros. and Paramount. She did score, at least with city audiences, with the film version of Call Me Madam, but losing the main role in the film adaptation of her Broadway triumph Gypsy to Rosalind Russell was a major career disappointment. For Merman, happiness clearly began when the curtain went up. A headstrong, outspoken only child, Merman, notes Kellow, saw only in black and white, a worldview that gave her considerable force onstage but sabotaged four marriages. Her melancholy demise found her down in the depths of the Upper East Side, alone with the ashes of her parents, one ex-husband and Ethel Jr., a daughter whose death may have been an "accidental suicide."

Kellow displays a keen sense of how and why Merman worked, and his profile of her personal life is an aching refrain worthy of the musical Follies.”
—Kirkus Reviews

L'autore:

Brian Kellow is the features editor of Opera News, where his column, “On the Beat,” appears monthly. He is the author ofThe Bennetts: An Acting Family and the coauthor of Can’t Help Singing: The Life of Eileen Farrell. A classically trained pianist, Kellow has also written forOpera and Playbill, among others. He lives in New York City.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Viking Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0670018295
• ISBN 13: 9780670018291
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 326