A biography of the greatest star in the history of the Broadway musical. Kellow traces Merman's life from her beginnings as an only child growing up in Astoria Queens to her early days as a secretary to her emergence as a new Broadway star. Paperback
Readers will be swept up in the colorful eyewitness accounts of her stage triumphs (Anything Goes Call Me Madam Annie Get Your Gun Gypsy Hello Dolly!) and her less successful attempts to move from stage to screen (There's No Business Like Show Business It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World). With four failed marriages (including a legendarily short one to Ernest Borgnine&mdashshe flew back alone from their honeymoon after just two days) a distant relationships with her son and daughter (who died of an accidental overdose in 1967) and volatile personality there's plenty of diva drama. She found a younger audience with appearances on Love Boat and a show-stopping cameo in Airplane! but an inoperable brain tumor finally silenced the bombastic singer inWWWW 1984. Testimonies from those who were there during her decline bring an emotional wallop to her final days
