The golden age of Broadway musicals is considered 1943-59. Its reigning divas were Ethel Merman (1908-84) and Mary Martin (1913-90). In Some Enchanting Evenings: The Glittering Life and Times of Mary Martin (St. Martin's, $29.99), David Kaufman assesses the life and brilliant career of the fiercely ambitious, talented "tomboy" from Weatherford, Texas. He also suggests that she may have had lesbian affairs with film stars Jean Arthur and Janet Gaynor.
Encouraged by her doting, upper-middle-class parents, Martin was performing as a child. At 18, she gave birth, possibly out of wedlock, to future television star Larry Hagman. She left the infant with her mother while she pursued stardom. It came in Cole Porter's 1938 show Leave It to Me. Martin memorably sang "My Heart Belongs to Daddy." Paramount signed her, and from 1939-43 she made nine undistinguished movies. Arthur was then a major star, and they became "close friends."
Martin returned to Broadway for 1943's One Touch of Venus, a big hit. But in 1946 she had two failures: Noel Coward's Pacific 1860 in London, and Lute Song, which introduced Yul Brynner, but closed after 142 Broadway performances. That same year, Merman had a smash with Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun, a part Martin longed to play. So she starred in the 1947 national touring production to great acclaim. Merman was among those praising her.
Martin, who had refused Laurie in Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's Oklahoma!, accepted their offer to star in South Pacific (1949), a mega-hit, which she also took to London. Eager to prove herself in a non-singing role, she co-starred with Charles Boyer in Norman Krasna's disappointing Kind Sir, which eked out a short run, although she got excellent reviews. Then came the Broadway role for which she is best remembered, Peter Pan (1954). It was televised that year, repeated in 1955, and again in 1956, drawing record audiences. Another, slightly longer production aired in 1960. Martin earned an Emmy, and endeared herself to a national audience.
In 1953, she and Merman, billed equally, teamed for Ford Motor Company's 50th Anniversary television special. Aired on all three major networks, it was a ratings and critical success. The stars became friends and subsequently performed together. In 1954, Martin had refused My Fair Lady because she didn't care for the two lesser songs then written. The next year she joined Helen Hayes, George Abbott, and the young Don Murray in a limited-run Broadway revival of Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, playing Sabina, the saucy, sexy maid, a part created by Tallulah Bankhead in 1942. Martin got excellent notices for this non-singing role. She was miscast in 1956's television version of Born Yesterday. The next year, she starred in revivals of South Pacific and Annie Get Your Gun in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The latter, filmed for television, was a critical and ratings hit.
She had another smash with the gooey The Sound of Music (1959), earning a third Tony. She followed in 1963 with the Arnold Schwartz-Howard Dietz musical Jenny, a major flop. It ran for a humiliating 82 performances. Critics liked her, however.
In 1965, she took over the lead in Hello, Dolly! on Broadway, and would star in the London production. Ironically, Merman, for whom the show was written, had turned it down. Martin would also reject it. When Merman finally played it on Broadway, two songs written for her but cut for Carol Channing, who created the part, were restored. Martin would have another success, opposite Robert Preston in 1967's I Do, I Do, a musical version of Jan de Hartog's The Fourposter, which ran for a year before they toured with it for another year. Critics dismissed it, but the stars earned accolades and drew audiences.
In 1940, Martin married former New York theatre critic Richard Halliday, who was gay. Most people found him abusive �" he drank heavily, was often rude, but he managed his wife's career with unswerving dedication. He made all the demands so that she could usually appear pleasant, but he did nothing without her consent. They had a daughter, Heller, who, as a child and teenager, performed with her mother. Hagman also often worked with his mother. They became close, but he and the "flamboyant" Halliday fought constantly. Halliday died in 1973.
In the 1950s, the Hallidays bought property in a remote part of Brazil, next to the home of Gaynor and her husband, couturier Gilbert Adrian. Servants reported seeing the two women sunbathing in the nude and mutually applying tanning lotion. Suggestions of greater intimacy were prevalent.
In the early 1980s, Martin had a successful syndicated television talk show, Over Easy. In 1982, she, Gaynor, her second husband Paul Gregory, and Martin's manager Bill Washer were involved in a dreadful taxicab crash in San Francisco. Gaynor never fully recovered and died two years later. In 1986, Martin and Channing toured the country in James Kirkwood's Legends, but it never got to Broadway. Four years later, she died at her home in Rancho Mirage.
Kaufman would agree with theatre historian Ethan Mordden that Martin was the greatest American musical comedy star. She was probably the most popular because, unlike Merman, she toured often, and because of her television successes. She was also more versatile. Merman only toured with her last triumph, Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim's Gypsy (1959), considered by many the finest American musical. But unlike Martin, she never had a flop. Merman also introduced more Great American Songbook tunes than anyone else.
Nonetheless, Kaufman makes a compelling, well-researched case for Martin. An occasional error slips in. Elizabeth Taylor was married to Nicky Hilton, not his father, Conrad, as Kaufman states. The many photos are terrific. Kaufman speculates intelligently about Martin's relationships with Arthur and Gaynor �" hard evidence doesn't exist. In short, this is a highly readable work about a major figure in Broadway history.