Mary Martin

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen seventy seven, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:32

Our castaway this week is the American star Mary Martin. Mary, it's good to see you in London again. How long is it since you were here last?

Mary Martin0:40

I was actually here, Roy. Three years ago

Presenter0:43

Not to perform. ingested

Mary Martin0:44

Uh Yeah.

Presenter0:44

Yeah.

Mary Martin0:44

That's it.

Presenter0:44

You first played here in Pacific 1860, which reopened the Theatre Royal Drury Lane after the war. You hadn't seen London before.

Mary Martin0:51

I had never been to London.

Presenter0:53

What sort of impact did the place make on you first?

Mary Martin0:55

Well, it was the most amazing thing. I'm sure other people feel this way about seeing London and seeing England for the first time, but I came over with my husband and our little girl.

Mary Martin1:06

And um it was right after the war, so the Queen Mary was still a troop ship.

Speaker 21:11

Hmm.

Mary Martin1:11

And we arrived in Southampton, and Noel Coward met us at at the boat, and whizzed us through customs like you know, like no only Noel Coward can do.

Mary Martin1:21

and we drove into London in a beautiful long rolls or whatever, and having never been anywhere except Texas and California and Tijuana, Mexico, New York, I was pretty impressed, but I felt like I was coming home.

Presenter1:37

And I can't imagine a better guide to your first glimpse of London than Nero Kirk. You'll excuse us if we move you out of London to this desert island for a few years. Did you have trouble in picking just eight records to last that time?

Mary Martin1:51

Yes, because I liked music so very much and so many people that it was very difficult, very, very difficult.

Presenter1:57

What's the first one you have on your own?

Mary Martin1:58

The very first one.

Mary Martin1:59

Well, I think because I later came over in this particular show called South Pacific,

Mary Martin2:06

The first record I would take with me would be Ezio Pinza, the one and only Ezio Pinza, singing Some Enchanted Evening.

Presenter2:15

Oh, he of course sang it in New York.

Mary Martin2:17

Yes, he certainly did.

Speaker 12:19

Oh man.

Speaker 22:20

I'm finished. Yeah.

Speaker 22:23

Uh

Speaker 22:24

We see a screen joy.

Speaker 22:29

Miss Yesterday

Presenter2:31

Across a crowd.

Speaker 22:36

Right.

Presenter2:37

Come on.

Speaker 22:37

Come on.

Presenter2:41

Oh yeah.

Presenter2:44

That's all I didn't see

Presenter2:49

A song from South Pacific sung by Ezio Pinser. Now, Mary, you were born in Texas. Your father was a lawyer. Your mother a violin teacher. Did she teach you?

Mary Martin2:58

Yes. My mother did teach me at the age of five to play the violin, a very small violin, and it was so absolutely dreadful, the sounds were so ghastly.

Presenter3:02

Yeah.

Mary Martin3:10

that I just couldn't bear to study because I I she played so beautifully.

Presenter3:14

You really you you preferred to sing. That I know.

Mary Martin3:17

Of course I prefer to sing

Presenter3:18

But you switched from singing to dancing, you opened a dancing school.

Mary Martin3:22

Yes, I opened a dancing school in Weatherford, Texas, at the age of seventeen.

Presenter3:26

and very successful, too.

Mary Martin3:28

Yes, it was. Uh uh my sister taught me my first step. I I I had always danced, but I didn't know what you call routine, so she taught me the waltz clog. That was my first step. And it was that dancing school that first took you to Hollywood? It did, because I had three pupils

Mary Martin3:43

Uh the first week, thirty.

Mary Martin3:45

the first month and three hundred and three schools of dancing in three years. I had to learn to do more than the walls clogged, so I went to California every summer to study, and I I studied everything and taught everything.

Presenter3:59

And that gave you the idea, working in Hollywood briefly, of working professionally. Mm-hmm.

Mary Martin4:04

Yeah.

Presenter4:04

Yeah.

Presenter4:05

Back in Texas you began singing on the radio, but uh on sustaining time you didn't actually get paid.

Mary Martin4:10

Black

Presenter4:10

Uh

Mary Martin4:10

I never did get s

Presenter4:11

Okay. Oh, forever I didn't get

Mary Martin4:13

Alright.

Presenter4:13

Let's have another record.

Mary Martin4:14

Okay. I've been living in Brazil for many, many years twenty actually and I love the rhythms, and this is from Carnival Carnival, as they say Batucada Fantastica and it's the marvelous rhythms that they have there, and the funny noises you'll hear are whistles and gourds and things that they make.

Presenter5:36

A dance from Brazil Samba and Dantimento. During the next two years you earned the nickname Audition Mary.

Presenter5:43

What had happened to the dancing school?

Mary Martin5:46

Well, I closed it.

Presenter5:47

Right.

Mary Martin5:48

After three years and three hundred students, they all were looking like me and talking like me and acting like me and I couldn't bear to see it anymore. So I went back to Hollywood and auditioned for two years. With the occasional job. What was the first break you had? Well, actually after two years of auditioning, I started singing in the Hollywood Hotel in the bar and finally one night had the big, big audition.

Mary Martin6:15

It was like a like a talent night. Do you have them in England like that?

Speaker 16:18

Uh

Presenter6:18

Oh yeah.

Mary Martin6:19

And uh it was at the Trocadera nightclub on a Sunday, and my entire life changed and uh I was discovered and taken to New York.

Presenter6:30

to a show called Leave It to Me. You didn't

Mary Martin6:32

You didn't have a very big part, did you? No, uh, no. Uh actually, and I was just so thrilled, and my name was Dolly Winslow.

Mary Martin6:40

And I had a song in the in the show called My Heart Belongs to Daddy. Cole Porter had written this song.

Mary Martin6:47

And this was the beginning of my

Presenter6:50

My

Mary Martin6:50

My

Presenter6:51

Real career.

Mary Martin6:56

I I was pretty Angenu.

Presenter7:00

Well, you're one so.

Mary Martin7:01

I wasn't acting very much.

Presenter7:03

This brought the Talent Scouts running, a Hollywood contract with Paramount.

Mary Martin7:07

Mm-hmm.

Presenter7:08

You made some pretty good pictures, lightweight musicals with Bing Crosby and Jack Benny and

Mary Martin7:12

Bim Jack.

Presenter7:13

Fred Allen

Mary Martin7:14

Yeah.

Presenter7:15

And

Mary Martin7:15

and Dick Powell of Brancho Tone.

Mary Martin7:19

I made about twelve

Mary Martin7:21

Or twelve or fourteen pictures, I can't remember. Loathed them all.

Mary Martin7:25

But the the greatest thing that happened to be in Hollywood

Mary Martin7:28

was meeting my husband.

Mary Martin7:31

My RICHARD, my Richard Halliday, and he was story editor of Paramount.

Mary Martin7:36

And uh his life work was cut out for him for the rest of his life editing me.

Presenter7:42

Why is it that all that spell in your life meant so little to you? All those Paramount pictures, they they were pretty good, they they were successful.

Mary Martin7:50

Well, they they said so. I just thought they were dull. And, um, I didn't like making movies. I love an audience.

Presenter7:59

Yes.

Mary Martin7:59

I'm so glad you're sitting there. You're my audience. Get it, baby.

Presenter8:01

You're my audience, goody goody.

Presenter8:03

Well, soon came your first starring role on Broadway. That was One Touch of Venus, right?

Mary Martin8:08

Mm-hmm.

Presenter8:08

which never came over here, neither unfortunately did the next one, Lutzong and then you did come to London for Noel Card Specific, eighteen sixty.

Mary Martin8:18

Well, what happened is no old coward saw me in One Touch of Venus, and I was a soprano at that time.

Mary Martin8:25

Hi, not very good. And um

Mary Martin8:28

He decided to write this show for me called Pacific Eighteen Sixty.

Mary Martin8:32

And we came

Mary Martin8:33

and found out after we had he didn't tell us. He said, We won't start the show for about three months because the Drury Lane has been bombed and we don't have the the permit to build it back.

Presenter8:45

Oh, Johnny.

Mary Martin8:47

Oh, what a lovely time because I saw all the shows and saw Iber Novello. The Iber Novello show was the very first one.

Presenter8:50

And s

Mary Martin8:55

That I ever did see in London. And seeing that fabulous man and hearing Vanessa Lee sing.

Mary Martin9:03

Someday my heart will awake.

Speaker 29:09

Feel my heart will be a little bit more.

Presenter9:14

One day the morning will break, music will open.

Presenter9:32

Vanessa Lee in the Iber Novello show King's Rhapsody.

Presenter9:37

Now, Pacific, eighteen sixty.

Mary Martin9:38

How long did it run?

Mary Martin9:40

We had a wonderful time, but the show was not madly successful. Drury Lane was too large for it in the first place. But the score really was beautiful.

Mary Martin9:50

And uh I didn't have a song, really, for my kind of singing, except my my exciting one was There's nothing so exciting as the one two three, a one two three and a hop.

Mary Martin10:01

Well, that w that wasn't madly exciting, you know.

Presenter10:03

There was one one of the songs you turned down.

Mary Martin10:06

Well that yeah and and I really was pretty stupid to have done it. It was called Alice is at it again. He's marvelous singing it, but well not for me. Anyway, he had this absolutely beautiful song called This is a Changing World, sung by Sylvia Cecil, who has another fantastic voice, and she sang it to me.

Mary Martin10:25

And, you know, I I would have given anything to be able to sing that song, which I couldn't. Is Sylvia Cecil going to sing the song now? The record that we have.

Mary Martin10:34

is Noel singing it, and I didn't realize how well he sang it.

Speaker 210:39

Yeah.

Presenter10:39

Uh

Speaker 210:39

Uh

Presenter10:40

Baba Smith Oh's of yester year, when winter's done.

Speaker 110:47

Thanks for no regrets.

Presenter10:52

Are worth a dear We're living in a changing world, my dear

Presenter11:05

Noel Card, one of his songs from Pacific, eighteen sixty.

Presenter11:09

The plan was that um after Pacific 1860 you were going to play Annie Guetragun in London. What went wrong with that? No, they wanted me.

Mary Martin11:16

Need to play any get your gun in London.

Mary Martin11:19

But I really wanted to go back home. Uh no one had ever given me parts like this. You see, this was Ethel Merman's show. Yes. And it's you know, she was the sensational Annie of all time. But I really wanted to play that kind of part. So I went back to the United States and did uh Annie Get Your Gun y for a year all over America. I had a ball, I loved it. But my voice got lower and lower and lower because I was singing belting songs.

Mary Martin11:48

I like Mermans. Uh I mean, they they were written that way.

Mary Martin11:52

Cell

Mary Martin11:53

Then I had to do everything on earth to get it back together, and I studied voice again in New York. South Pacific came next in New York.

Speaker 112:04

In New York?

Mary Martin12:05

I played New South Pacific in New York for two and a half years, and they said, Would I go on the road? And I said, No, I want to go to England. So I came to England again to the Drury Lane.

Mary Martin12:15

And then I sang South Pacific for a year in London.

Presenter12:20

As big a smash here as it had been on Broadway.

Mary Martin12:23

It was pretty exciting. It was thrilling.

Mary Martin12:26

And so then I had the

Mary Martin12:28

fabulous good fortune of studying with

Mary Martin12:31

Dino Bargioli. In London. In London. Because I was very tired. This is now three and a half years of singing.

Mary Martin12:39

Uh, I'm in love with a wonderful guy at full blast, you know?

Mary Martin12:43

So when I went to have an audition with Dino Bargioli,

Mary Martin12:46

He said, What do you do?

Mary Martin12:49

And I said, I I s I sing in a show.

Mary Martin12:52

He said, uh, what show?

Mary Martin12:54

I said South Pacific. Oh, new thing. I said, uh

Mary Martin12:59

I said, Do you know Richard Rogers? No.

Mary Martin13:01

Oscar Hemmingstein? No. See, I was way out of my depth. So he said, Sing a scale. I said, uh, all right. So I sang a scale, rather uneven. And I said, But perhaps you'd like to hear how I sing in the show. So then I put that blast on Wonderful Guy, and he he went right off the piano stool and ducked under the piano.

Speaker 113:21

Danny.

Mary Martin13:22

I don't think it's ever coming up.

Speaker 113:22

I didn't make it.

Mary Martin13:24

Anyway, I talked him into letting me study for for that period and I stayed over another year and really studied and I learned to sing Boheme.

Mary Martin13:34

In English. Now, I have a record of his, and it's so beautiful, and this glorious, glorious voice, pure voice,

Mary Martin13:43

and what you call an artist singing, because you can have a glorious voice, but if you don't have the heart, it means nothing.

Mary Martin13:52

So O del Mio Amato Ben with Dino Bargioli.

Presenter14:18

Yeah.

Presenter14:25

Yeah.

Presenter14:28

Odel Mio Mato Ben sung by Dino Borgioli.

Presenter14:32

Now, Peter Pan, that's a part you've made very much your own in the United States. Yes.

Mary Martin14:38

Well, yes. I mean, I I just adored it, and that's probably the happiest moments of my life in the theater.

Presenter14:44

Now we've got as far as nineteen fifty-seven and we come to another big one, one especially written for you by Rogers and Hammerstein, inspired by a German film, was it not? Oh, Sound of Music, yeah.

Mary Martin14:54

Oh, sound of music, yes, that's right. And that I played that for two and a half years.

Mary Martin15:00

And uh

Mary Martin15:01

In that one, I always think they wrote the national anthem for children, Dore Me.

Mary Martin15:07

And then one day Oscar said, All right, Mary, what else can you do? you know, he because by this time I'd try anything. I said, Well, y I can yodel.

Mary Martin15:16

And they said, you really can yodel? And I said, yeah, I can Texas Yodel.

Mary Martin15:21

So they wrote a song f for that, The Lonely Goatherd. I love that song.

Presenter15:26

Then you took Hello Dolly practically round the world.

Mary Martin15:29

Uh

Presenter15:29

Mhm. And then you brought it to your second home to Drury Lane Theatre, London.

Mary Martin15:33

Yes, we did. And I came back again and this was again a fif I think I come back every 15 years like old soldiers never die or something like that.

Presenter15:41

It's time we had another record. What's the last?

Mary Martin15:43

Oh, right.

Mary Martin15:44

Well, with that thought, let's have one of to day which I adore. Wings Let em in.

Mary Martin15:51

Yeah.

Presenter15:51

Someone knocking at the door

Presenter15:54

Somebody ringing a bell

Presenter15:56

Someone's knocking at the door

Presenter15:59

Somebody's ringing a bell.

Presenter16:02

Do me a favour.

Presenter16:04

Open the door.

Speaker 116:06

Yeah.

Presenter16:06

Better man

Speaker 116:07

Yeah.

Presenter16:09

Yeah.

Presenter16:13

But someone's knocking at the door

Presenter16:16

Somebody ringing the bell

Presenter16:18

Someone was knocking at the door.

Presenter16:21

Let a men by wings.

Presenter16:23

Hallow Dolly was the last time you played in London. Let's catch up on your life since then. You played I Do, I Do.

Presenter16:30

With Robert Preston as a two-handed musical, you had a long run in that.

Mary Martin16:33

Paddle

Mary Martin16:34

Two and a half years of that.

Presenter16:36

Then you had the great misfortune to lose your husband.

Presenter16:40

But you have a l a large family to comfort you.

Mary Martin16:43

Yes, I have I have a small family that has grown larger. I have a daughter, Heller Halliday, and now named Hiller Halliday de Merritt and then I have my son, Larry Martin Hagman, and then I have five grandchildren.

Mary Martin17:00

the two granddaughters and

Mary Martin17:03

Three grandsons.

Mary Martin17:05

You do a lot of painting.

Mary Martin17:07

Only from the back.

Presenter17:09

Only from the back.

Mary Martin17:10

You see, I I don't know how to paint at all. Like it's very difficult for me to even paint my mouth on with a brush. I've given that up. But I I love to paint people.

Mary Martin17:21

'Cause I just love people so much, but I don't know how to do faces, so I paint everybody from the back.

Presenter17:27

Well, that works very well, I'm sure.

Mary Martin17:28

Well, it it everybody knows who they are. It's very primitive.

Presenter17:33

And you've been writing your book, My Heart Belongs.

Mary Martin17:34

Yeah.

Mary Martin17:37

It's my life, but it means My Heart Belongs, and on the dedication page they allowed me to have a picture which is not ever done, and it's a picture of Richard and it says to the man who taught me the meaning of the words heart and belong.

Presenter17:51

Let's have another record.

Mary Martin17:52

We lived in Brazil, as I say, for twenty years, and for four years before my Richard left us, we stayed, we didn't come back.

Mary Martin18:01

and we had no electricity, and we had no telephones, and all this sort of thing. It was a very remote place in the jungle, but I love it.

Mary Martin18:09

But we did have

Mary Martin18:11

Shortwave and BBC came in loud and strong every day.

Mary Martin18:16

And one day I was listening and I heard this perfectly glorious voice, and I just adore it. Such purity

Speaker 118:24

Blow the wind south O'er the bonny blue sea

Presenter18:31

Yeah.

Speaker 118:32

Mm.

Presenter18:32

The wind southerly, southerly, southerly, Lo bonny breeze my lover to me

Presenter18:48

They told me last night there were sheeps in the offing, And I hurried down to the deep rolling sea.

Presenter19:02

But my eye could not see it Wherever might be The bark that is bare.

Presenter19:16

My

Presenter19:23

Kathleen Ferrier. Now, Mary, a a brief examination on your suitability and qualifications to be a castaway. Could you build a hut?

Mary Martin19:31

I could build anything after living in Brazil. I mean, I would try anything.

Presenter19:35

And you could live off the land?

Mary Martin19:37

Oh, absolutely.

Presenter19:38

Never done in the fishing. Surely. Would you try to escape from the island? Would you try and build a raft or a craft or something?

Mary Martin19:44

No, I think I just wait for somebody to pick me up.

Presenter19:48

Yeah.

Mary Martin19:49

I might, you know, like Claudette Cobert did.

Mary Martin19:52

Yeah.

Presenter19:52

I'm sure they'd be there quite soon.

Mary Martin19:53

Uh

Presenter19:55

Your last record, what's that to be?

Mary Martin19:56

My last record is to be something from Peter Pan.

Presenter19:57

Yeah.

Mary Martin20:01

Because it's it's a reprise of a song called I Gotta Crow, which I did, and it's with my daughter, Heller, who played Liza at the age of eight or ten. We played it so long t she was ten before we finished, and I'm teaching Liza how to crow. So when you hear that first voice, it's it's my little girl who is now grown up and has three children, and I would take that with me.

Speaker 220:26

Peter, will you teach me how to crow?

Mary Martin20:30

Sure.

Mary Martin20:31

You do it too.

Speaker 220:33

Me?

Mary Martin20:34

Yes, and if you choose, you will find such unusual things you can do.

Mary Martin20:42

You're getting warm, but your mouth should be forming a happier

Mary Martin20:47

Yeah.

Mary Martin20:49

Yeah.

Mary Martin20:51

Don't be such a sissy, prim and frissy.

Presenter20:56

Mary Martin and Hella Halliday in Peter Pan. If you could take just one disc out of your eight, which would it be?

Mary Martin21:03

That one

Presenter21:04

That one I thought it would.

Presenter21:06

And one luxury to take to the island with you.

Mary Martin21:08

Scissors and Needle and Thread.

Presenter21:11

With a view to what?

Mary Martin21:12

Making things, sewing up palm l leaves and cocoanut

Mary Martin21:16

things, because I can't bear not changing clothes.

Presenter21:20

Right, that's easy. And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare and big encyclopedias.

Mary Martin21:26

I would take a book called Around the Year with Emmett Fox. And Emmett Fox is uh it's not the Bible, but it has a great deal to do with faith and human nature. And you read a page a day if you wish, or you pick it up and look and read whatever you wish. But the reason I love it so very much is because it has humor too.

Presenter21:47

Around the year with Emmett Fox. And thank you, Mary Martin, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Mary Martin21:54

Thank you, Roy, for having me.

Presenter21:57

Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 122:06

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Speaker 222:36

Yeah.