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I preferred delivering my performance in person. I liked to be in control. You couldn't be in films.

Ethel Merman

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Ethel Merman
Age: 76 †
Born: 1908
Born: January 16
Died: 1984
Died: February 15
Actor
Actress
Film Actor
Singer
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Writer
Ethel Agnes Zimmermann
Couldn
Control
Film
Preferred
Persons
Delivering
Person
Performance
Liked
Performances
Films

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I take a breath when I have to.
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Cole Porter wrote Anything Goes and four more hits for me
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I wasn't straining at the bit to become a movie star any more than I had plotted to get out of vaudeville and into Broadway musicals
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At a flea market I always head for the junk jewelry table first.
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The only things I read are gossip columns. If I read three pages of a book, I'm out like a light. When I pick up the book again, I've forgotten what I've read and have to start over again. By page three, even if I've just awakened from a nine -hour nap, I fall asleep again. So if anyone gives me a book, it had better have lots of pictures.
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I attend surprisingly few shows. The type of theater that is popular today just doesn't appeal to me.
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Always give them the old fire, even when you feel like a squashed cake of ice.
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The slapdash way producers used to assemble a show seems a little unbelievable when we talk about them now
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Mom and Pop were proud of my popularity, but from their point of view, show business was no way to make a living.
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My beloved Mom and Pop always rated tops with each other, and that's the way it will always be
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Broadway has been very good to me. But then, I've been very good to broadway.
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When I'm asked how to succeed in show business, I always say I haven't the foggiest
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I've never suffered stage fright. That fascinates people.
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There have been people who have tried to take advantage of me. They want to be linked to me just because I'm Ethel Merman.
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If I feel in need of sleep, I just open a book or turn on the television. Both are better than any sleeping pill.
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In my case, things have pretty much been handed to me
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I have been ambitious to be a somebody from the time I was 5 years old
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I've made a wonderful living playing that theatrical character - the professional brassy dame
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I told her that there was something about Christmas carols that always brought tears to my eyes. I added that I also cry at weddings. To me weddings are very solemn occasions. I should have cried at a couple of my own.
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You'll never prove you're too good for a job by not doing your best.
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