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Word: merman (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
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Usage:

Inside U.S.A. (Thurs. 8:30 p.m., CBS-TV). Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy. Guest: Ethel Merman...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Radio: Program Preview, Dec. 19, 1949 | 12/19/1949 | See Source »

Dead Cherokee. Essentially, the show is a platform for the display of Merman's singing voice, which ranges from a 100-proof whisper to a strident bellow, her theater-born gift of timing, and her immaculately correct intonation for every funny line. With this bristling arsenal, Ethel puts starch into the feeblest jokes; her rowdy, slam-bang personality is nearly as full-bodied on the air as it was in such Broadway smashes a Annie Get Your Gun, Something for the Boys and Du Barry Was a Lady...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Radio: Female of the Species | 8/15/1949 | See Source »

...opening show she managed to inject a few bars of her favorite song. I Got Rhythm, and gave the full Merman treatment to three others. She portrayed a fight announcer ("Tiger is fighting back! He throws a left - a right - another left. Now he's bringing a right uppercut from the floor - now they're bringing Tiger up from the floor."). She played every character in a "Pageant of American Womanhood" that included Queen Victoria, Florence Nightingale and a hilarious Joan of Arc, as well as such authentic native daughters as Barbara Frietchie, Ruby Foo and Miriam...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Radio: Female of the Species | 8/15/1949 | See Source »

...Defeat. This is Merman's second try at radio. Back in 1935, she went on the air with a program broadcast at the same time as Major Bowes' Amateur Hour and went off, defeated, twelve weeks later. She is leery of television: "I did two shows with Milton Berle. On both of them he had horses in the act - and everything that goes with horses. We were so cramped backstage that I had only a screen for costume changes and an electrician practically held a light over me while I changed." She added reflectively: "There must...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Radio: Female of the Species | 8/15/1949 | See Source »

Since Ethel Merman has earned more than $1,000,000 in ten Broadway musicals (Lindsay & Grouse are at work on an idea for a new one), making a living is presumably not a major worry. One of her friends, puzzled by her offstage venture, asked, "What do you expect to get out of your radio show?" Merman answered shortly: "A sponsor...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Radio: Female of the Species | 8/15/1949 | See Source »

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