Ethel Merman
American actress and singer (1908-1984)
Ethel Merman (born Ethel Agnes Zimmermann; January 16, 1908 – February 15, 1984) was an American singer and actress. Known for her distinctive, powerful voice, and her leading roles in musical theater, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Variety claimed that she probably starred in more hit musicals than any other performer on Broadway starring in Girl Crazy, Du Barry Was a Lady, Panama Hattie, Anything Goes, Annie Get Your Gun, Call Me Madam and Gypsy. They also called her "one of the tiny handful of Broadway stars who had the talent, vitality, personality and drive to carry a show to critical and boxoffice success on her own." Among many accolades, she received the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance in Call Me Madam, a Grammy Award for Gypsy, and a Drama Desk Award for Hello, Dolly!
Merman introduced many Broadway standards, including "I Got Rhythm" from Girl Crazy, "Rose's Turn" from Gypsy, and the Cole Porter songs "It's De-Lovely" (from Red, Hot and Blue), and "I Get a Kick Out of You", "You're the Top", and "Anything Goes" (from Anything Goes). The Irving Berlin song "There's No Business Like Show Business", written for Annie Get Your Gun, became Merman's signature song.
She is also known for her film roles in Anything Goes (1936), Call Me Madam (1953), There's No Business Like Show Business (1954), and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963).
Early life
Ethel Merman was born January 16, 1908, in her maternal grandmother's house in Astoria, Queens, but she later insisted that the year of her birth was 1912. She was an only child. Her father, Edward Zimmermann, was an accountant with James H. Dunham & Company, a Manhattan wholesale dry-goods company, and her mother, Agnes (née Gardner) Zimmermann, was a schoolteacher.
Edward had been raised in the Dutch Reformed Church and Agnes was Presbyterian.
“Ethel Merman” enters the record as american actress and singer (1908-1984). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ethel, Merman and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q129087. VIAF identifies the subject as 22329860. The Library of Congress control number is n81120327. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1908, 1984, 1936 and 1953.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ethel Merman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.