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Mary
Martin
is -- next to Merman -- the name
that pops into most people's heads when they hear the term "The
Golden Age of Broadway." She was shot to stardom over night when she
performed a strip-tease singing "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" at a
Siberian train station in Cole Porter's musical Leave it to Me!
After that, she played a statue of the Goddess of Love come-to-life in
Kurt Weill's hit musical One Touch of Venus, introducing to the
world such standards as "That's Him" and "Speak Low."
From there, she was the original Nellie Forbush in Rodgers &
Hammerstein's South Pacific and Maria von Trapp in The Sound of
Music, but she also appeared in flops like Lute Song and Jennie.
She starred opposite Robert Preston in the two-person musical I Do! I
Do! and she appeared on national television broadcasts of such
musicals as Peter Pan and Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun.
A little known fact about Martin: she appeared in the title role of Jerry
Herman's Hello, Dolly! in a special production that was flown
overseas for the troops in Vietnam by the USO. |
