Mary Martin

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Mary Virginia Martin (December 1, 1913 – November 3, 1990) born in Weatherford, Texas was a Tony Award winning American star of (mainly stage) musicals. Among the roles she originated were Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Maria in The Sound of Music. She was also a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 3 Personal life, marriages, relationships 4 Trivia 5 Stage Appearances 6 Television Work 7 Filmography 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Early life

Her life as a child, as Martin describes it in her autobiography My Heart Belongs, was secure and joyful. She had close relationships with both her mother and father, as well as her other siblings. Her autobiography details how the young actress had an instinctive ear for recreating the sounds heard in the musical world.

Mary Martin’s life began in Weatherford, Texas on December 1, 1913. Her father, Preston Martin, who she deeply admired, was a lawyer and her mother, Juanita Presley was a violin teacher. Although the doctors told Juanita that she would risk her life if she attempted to have another baby, she was determined to have a boy. Instead, she had Mary, whom ironically became quite the tomboy. Mary’s birth was an event as all of the neighbors gathered around Juanita’s bedroom window, waiting for the raising of a curtain to signal the baby’s arrival. “It must have been a good omen—curtains have been going up for me ever since” (16).

Martin described a joyous childhood in Weatherford where her family had a barn and orchard to keep her entertained. She played with her older sister Geraldine (who she calls “Sister”), climbing trees and riding ponies. Martin possessed an extreme adulation for her father. “He was a tall, good-looking, silver-haired, with the kindest brown eyes. Mother was the disciplinarian, but it was Daddy who could turn me into an angel with just one look” (19). Martin, who said “I’d never understand the law” (19) began singing outside the courtroom where her father worked every Saturday night at a bandstand where the town band played. She sang in a trio of little girls dressed up in bellhop uniforms. “Even in those days without microphones my high piping voice carried all over the square. I have always thought that I inherited my carrying voice from my father” (19).

Mary Martin’s childhood taught her a lot. She went to a voice teacher who at first thought she was too young but gave in because she never stopped singing. As a child, she remembers having a photo genetic memory for words, making it easy to memorize songs, as well as get her through school tests. She got her first taste of singing solo at a fire hall, where she soaked up the crowd’s appreciation. “Sometimes I think that I cheated my own family and my closest friends by giving to audiences so much of the love I might have kept for them. But that’s the way I was made; I truly don’t think I could help it” (20). Martin’s craft was developed by seeing movies and becoming a mimic. She’d win prizes for looking, acting and dancing like Ruby Keeler and singing exactly like Bing Crosby. “Never, never, never can I say I had a frustrating childhood. It was all joy. Mother used to say she never had seen such a happy child—that I awakened each morning with a smile. I don’t remember that, but I do remember that I never wanted to go to bed, to go to sleep, for fear I’d miss something” (20).

As she grew older, Martin dated Benjamin Jackson Hagman while in high school, before being sent to finishing school in Nashville, Tennessee. Besides imitating Fanny Brice at singing gigs, she thought school was dull and felt confined by the strict rules. She was homesick for Weatherford, her family and Benjamin. During a visit, Mary and Benjamin convinced Mary’s mother to allow them to marry. They did, and at 17, Martin was legally married, pregnant with her first child (Larry) and forced to leave finishing school. Martin was ecstatic to leave this treacherous place behind and begin her new life. However, she soon learned that this life was nothing but “role playing” (39). Their honeymoon was at her parent’s house, and Martin’s dream of life with a family and a white-picket fence became extremely jaded. “I was 17, a married woman without real responsibilities, miserable about my mixed-up emotions, afraid there was something awfully wrong with me because I didn’t enjoy being a wife. Worst of all, I didn’t have enough to do” (39). It was “Sister” who came to her rescue, suggesting that she should teach dance. “Sister” taught Martin her first real dance—the waltz clog. Martin perfectly imitated her first dance move, and she opened a dance studio. Here, she created her own moves, imitated the famous dancers she watched in the movies, and taught “Sister’s” waltz clog. “I was doing something I wanted to do—creating” (44).

Wanting to learn more moves, Martin went to California to attend a dance school, where she opened a new dance school in Mineral Wells. She was given a ballroom studio under a certain deal—she had to sing in the lobby every Saturday. Here, she learned how to sing in a microphone and how to phrase blues songs. One day at work, she accidentally walked into the wrong room where auditions were being held. They asked her what key she’d like to sing “So Red Rose”. Having absolutely no idea what her key was, she sang regardless and got the job. She was hired to sing “So Red Rose” at the Fox Theater in San Franscisco, followed by the Paramount Theater in LA. Although there would be one catch—she was to sing in the wings. Nonetheless, Martin scored her first professional gig, unaware that she would soon be center stage. Soon after, Martin learned that her studio had been burnt down by a man who thought dancing was a sin. She began to express her unhappiness—she needed to let go and be free. Her father gave her advice, saying that she was too young to be married. Martin, leaving all behind including son Larry, went to Hollywood while her father handled the divorce for her. In Hollywood, Martin plunged herself into auditions—so many that she became known as “Audition Mary”. Her first professional audition and job was on a national radio network. She sang on a program called “Gateway to Hollywood” and was told that her job was “sustaining”. Little did she know, “sustaining” meant unpaid. Among one of Martin’s first auditions in Hollywood, she was “determined to give them everything I could do,” before announcing she’d like to sing “in my soprano voice, a song you probably don’t know, ‘Indian Love Call.’” After singing the song, “a tall, craggly man who looked like a mountain” told Martin that he thought she had something special. He added, “Oh, and by the way, I know that song. I wrote it.” He was Oscar Hammerstein II (58-59). This marked the start of her career. (All quotes are taken from Mary Martin: My Heart Belongs)

[edit] Career

Mary Martin struggled for nearly two years to break into show business. She was nicknamed "Audition Mary" because she auditioned so often. As a struggling young actress, Martin endured humorous and sometimes frightful luck trying to make it in the world, from car crashes leading to vocal instruction, unknowingly singing in front of Oscar Hammerstein II, to her final break on Broadway granted by the very prominent producer, Lawrence Schwab.

Using her maiden name, Mary Martin began pursuing a performing career singing on radio in Dallas and in nightclubs in Los Angeles. Her performance at one club impressed a theatrical producer, and he cast her in a play in New York. That production did not open, but she got a role in Cole Porter's Leave It To Me. In that production, she became popular on Broadway and received attention in the national media singing "My Heart Belongs to Daddy". Martin's career then took off at a rapid pace. She received the Donaldson Award and the New York Film Critics Circle Award in 1943 for One Touch of Venus. In 1955 and 1956, she received, first, a Tony for Peter Pan, and then an Emmy for appearing in the same role on television. She also received Tony Awards for South Pacific, and, in 1959, for The Sound of Music.

Although she did a few films early in her career, she was generally passed over for the filmed version of the musical plays in which she starred. She herself once explained that she did not enjoy making films, because she did not have the "connection" with an audience that she had in live performances. The closest she ever came to preserving her stage performances were her famous television appearances as Peter Pan (she had starred in a musical version on Broadway in 1954, and this production was subsequently performed on television in 1955, 1956 and 1960). While Mary Martin did not enjoy making theatrical films, she did apparently enjoy appearing on television, as she did frequently.

[edit] Personal life, marriages, relationships

• In 1929 she married the lawyer Ben Hagman. They divorced in 1936. Their son is actor Larry Hagman of Dallas and I Dream of Jeannie fame, who once appeared with his mother in South Pacific as a member of the chorus.

• She married a second time in 1940 to Richard Halliday, and they had a daughter, Heller Halliday, who is Larry's half-sister.

• It has been claimed by author Boze Hadleigh that Martin had a longtime intimate lesbian relationship with Oscar winning actress Janet Gaynor, who quoted, in his 1994 book Hollywood Babble On, actor Robert Cummings as saying: 'Janet Gaynor's husband was Adrian, the MGM fashion designer. But her wife was Mary Martin...' This claim is echoed, with differing strengths of conviction, on various websites - ([1], [2], [3]), but it should be noted that neither Mary Martin nor Janet Gaynor was interviewed by Hadleigh nor was either of them alive at the time of the book's publication, and that Gaynor's last husband, Paul Gregory, denied the rumors/claims.

• Richard and Mary spontaneously wed in Las Vegas and moved into his home in LA (which was down the street from hers). Halliday lived extravagantly with antique furniture, maids and drivers. This caused tension and Martin tried to live up to his lifestyle. She didn’t believe she was the image for him; she was simply a country girl. However, she soon learned that what Halliday loved about her was that she was a normal girl. “He surrounded me with the pampered, protected life that a star is supposed to have, but he expected me to behave like Mary Martin from Weatherford, Texas. Which is the only way I have ever felt, or ever will” (105 Martin). The couple ended up having a child together and named her Heller, which in Texas means “a lively person who raises Cain” (107 Martin). This sparked more headlines—“How Does Mary Martin Name a Child Heller?” Nevertheless, Martin was ready to move on and begin a new life in New York.

• “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” catapulted her career and became very special to Mary—she even sang it to her ill father in his hospital bed while he was in a coma. While singing that song during one of the shows, it hadn’t gone over like it normally would—the audience was dead. After the show, Martin learned that her father had died. Headlines read “Daddy Girl Sings About Daddy as Daddy Dies.” Because of the show’s demanding schedule, Martin couldn’t even attend her father’s funeral.

• She died of colon cancer in California in 1990, aged 76.

[edit] Trivia

• Mary Martin was offered the role of Nellie in the movie of South Pacific but she preferred the stage over screen.

• The Canadian band The New Pornographers pay tribute to Mary Martin in their song, The Mary Martin Show.

• Martin dubbed Margaret Sullavan's singing voice in the 1938 film The Shopworn Angel.
• She was in her forties when she played a boy in Peter Pan.

[edit] Stage Appearances

• Leave It to Me! (1938) (Broadway)
• One Touch of Venus (1943) (Broadway)
• Pacific 1860 (1946) (London)
• Lute Song (1946) (Broadway)
• Annie Get Your Gun (1947) (national tour)
• South Pacific (1949) (Broadway)
• Kind Sir (1953) (Broadway)
• Peter Pan (1954) (Broadway)
• The Skin of Our Teeth (1955) (Broadway, Washington DC, and Paris)
• The Sound of Music (1959) (Broadway)
• Jennie (1963) (Broadway)
• Hello, Dolly! (1965) (world tour)
• I Do! I Do! (1966) (Broadway and national tour)
• Together on Broadway: Mary Martin & Ethel Merman (1977) (Broadway)
• Do You Turn Somersaults? (1978) (Broadway and national tour)
• Legends! (1986) (national tour)

Preceded by Nanette Fabray for Love Life

Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical 1950 for South Pacific

Succeeded by Ethel Merman for Call Me Madam

Preceded by Dolores Gray for Carnival in Flanders

Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical 1955 for Peter Pan

Succeeded by Gwen Verdon for Damn Yankees

Preceded by Gwen Verdon for Redhead

Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical 1960 for The Sound of Music

Succeeded by Elizabeth Seal for Irma La Douce

[edit] Television Work

• America Applauds: An Evening for Richard Rodgers (1951)
• The Ford 50th Anniversary Show (1953)
• The General Foods 25th Anniversary Show: A Salute to Rodgers and Hammerstein (1954)
• Producers' Showcase: Peter Pan (twice, in 1955 and 1956)
• Annie Get Your Gun (1957)
• Magic with Mary Martin (1959)
• Peter Pan (1960)
• Mary Martin: Hello, Dolly! Round the World (1966)
• Mary Martin at Eastertime (1966)
• Valentine (1979)
• Over Easy (host from 1981-1983)

[edit] Filmography

• The Great Victor Herbert (1939)
• Fashion Horizons (1940) (short subject)
• Rhythm on the River (1940)
• Love Thy Neighbor (1940)
• Kiss the Boys Goodbye (1941)
• New York Town (1941)
• Birth of the Blues (1941)
• Star Spangled Rhythm (1942)
• Happy Go Lucky (1943)
• True to Life (1943)
• Night and Day (1946)
• Main Street to Broadway (1953)

[edit] References

Martin, Mary (1976). My Heart Belongs. Morrow. (ISBN 0-688-03009-2). 

[edit] External links

• Photos of Mary Martin, hosted by the Portal to Texas History
• Mary Martin at the Internet Movie Database