ABSTRACT
Ethel Merman, renowned for her brassy clarion voice, did three musicals during this ten-year-period: Annie Get Your Gun (1946), Call Me Madam (1950), and Happy Hunting (1956). She could have easily squeezed in one more had she not “retired” between the last two. Beautiful Voices were actively pursued to sell what were predicted to be a musical’s hit song. Rosalind Russell had a hit with Wonderful Town (1953) soon after Bette Davis had had a flop with Two’s Company. Harrison spoke-sang his songs, and the result seemed fresh, even innovative. Shelley Berman, who had made ten appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show in fifteen months prior to starring in A Family Affair (1962), was a Grammy-winner – not for singing, however, but for his comic monologs. In 1963, Jose Ferrer was tapped to play the romantic lead in The Girl Who Came to Supper.
