Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #132310 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-01
• Released on: 2007-11-01
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

From Publishers Weekly
With dueling Merman biographies being released just prior to her birth centennial in 2008 (see review above of Caryl Flinn's Brass Diva), Kellow's slimmer tome is the livelier of the two with new interviews with friends, family and co-workers bringing vibrant life and clarity to even familiar anecdotes. Kellow (The Bennetts: An Acting Family) is less interested in digging for psychological insights and bluntly paints a more temperamental portrait of the Broadway belter, but readers will be swept up in the colorful eyewitness accounts of her stage triumphs (Anything Goes; Call Me Madam; Annie Get Your Gun; Gypsy; Hello, Dolly!) and her less successful attempts to move from stage to screen (There's No Business Like Show Business; It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World). With four failed marriages (including a legendarily short one to Ernest Borgnine—she flew back alone from their honeymoon after just two days), a distant relationships with her son and daughter (who died of an accidental overdose in 1967) and volatile personality, there's plenty of diva drama. She found a younger audience with appearances on Love Boat and a show-stopping cameo in Airplane!, but an inoperable brain tumor finally silenced the bombastic singer in 1984. Testimonies from those who were there during her decline bring an emotional wallop to her final days. Photos not seen by PW. (Nov. 5)
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Customer Reviews

This Merman bio is MASTERFUL
This is a masterful bio of Ethel Merman. Worthy of 5 stars! After you have finished reading it you will feel like you know "The Merm" as never before. Author Brian Kellow has created what is the definitive work on Ethel Merman. Kellow recreates the world of Broadway in which Merman thrived and by so doing allows the reader to understand just how such a wonderful performer came to exist. Merman is very much a product of her era and vice versa and Kellow clearly tells us why.
The later years of Merman's life are particularly well handled by Kellow and the reader will finish the book quite moved.

Reading this bio has greatly increased my enjoyment of the many Ethel Merman recordings, as we now know the woman behind the music. And Kellow has interviewed scores of people who worked with Merman and we get a glimpse of what it is like to be in a hit Broadway show with such a great star.

Unlike other books on Merman's life, this one is highly accurate, well researched, has great photos and above all is an INTERESTING READ!
I highly recommend this book. You will not be disappointed!

Horrid!
This book reads like a PlayBill blurb all the way through. Facts, dry facts, with no hint of the personalities or the motivation of a potentially facinating actress included. I was so completely disappointed in this book that I'm writing my first review in order to warn others. Do Not Buy, don't even bother to read. It's dull, dull, dull.

There's No Buziness like Merman's Business
I have been in Show Business all of my life. Still am doing it at 72 years and Merman is one of the very best Show Business Bio's I have ever read. I knew a lot about her Life and Career but this Book tells it all. Great Read.
Mark Carroll