Blanche Merrill
Blanche L. Merrill was a songwriter specializing in tailoring her characterizations to specific performers. She is best known for the songs she wrote for Fanny Brice.
Early life
Biographical information on Blanche Merrill is scarce. The only reference source that provides even a tiny bit of biographical information is partially questionable. This biography had to be constructed primarily from notices appearing in Variety and Billboard. These also must be read critically.Blanche V. Dreyfoos was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Sigmund A. Dreyfoos, a bookkeeper, and his wife, Lizzie Although most sources are in agreement with the date of Blanche's birth, many provide conflicting evidence with regard to the year.
- The 1892 New York State census dated February 16, 1892, indicates that Blanche was 8 years old, making her born in 1883;
- In the 1920 U.S. Federal census, her age is listed as 25, making her born in 1895;
- According to the ASCAP Biographical Dictionary, she was born July 23, 1895. The ASCAP source was used by the Library of Congress in establishing her date of birth.
- According to the 1940 U.S. Census she was born in 1900.
- According to the Social Security Death Index and Philadelphia hospital records, she was born July 22, 1883.
Her siblings were Nellie, Theresa , Clara and W. Wallace. Though census records indicate all the children were born in Philadelphia except W. Wallace, by the time of the New York State census of 1892 the family had relocated to Queens. On January 21, 1899, Sigmund died in Brooklyn, age 43. By 1900, a year after Sigmund's death, the family was living with the family of Elizabeth's sister at 147 5th Street in College Point, Queens.
The details of her education are also problematic. In the 1917 interview, Merrill claimed to have received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University, after which she took a city examination and received her license to teach "five years" prior to the interview. However, in another profile published later that year, the unnamed author describes Merrill as having attended Barnard College. If she was born in 1895, it is improbable that she would have graduated from college and achieved teacher training by 1912, when she would have been 17. Although her college education remains mysterious, in 1906 she apparently passed her teacher training and was assigned to teach at Public School 84 in Queens. Apparently, she maintained this job until 1915, when she requested a sabbatical and apparently did not return.
Career
Although Merrill claimed to have begun her theatrical career by sending an unsolicited song to Eva Tanguay, her interest in theater seems to have predated that event. In a 1917 interview, Merrill described attending theater with her mother while in high school: "I never missed a Saturday matinee". A 1906 review of a production of The Jolly Bachelors put on by St. Mary's Catholic Club in Brooklyn is probably one of the earliest mentions of Merrill in print. A reviewer for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported: "There were many musical numbers. Charles Bill, William Morrison and Blanche V. Dreyfoos managed to take one step higher in the art with which they have been so generously endowed."1910-1915
In 1910 she saw Eva Tanguay in a vaudeville performance. She was so taken with the performance that she wrote her first song, "Give an Imitation of Me," and then filed it away. A friend convinced her to send it to Tanguay for her consideration. Tanguay liked it and accepted it, leading Merrill to write an additional four songs for Tanguay. Although she didn't accept remuneration for her first effort, that changed when songwriter and music publisher Charles K. Harris signed Merrill to a contract and published her songs. Among those songs was "Egotistical Eva", which Tanguay used to open her appearances for the 1910–11 season. With her first publication, virtually all professional mentions refer to her as Blanche Merrill.The Trained Nurses, a vaudeville act written by and featuring Gladys Clark and Henry Bergman, was produced by Jesse L. Lasky at the Colonial Theatre in New York City on September 16, 1912. The act's success appears to have prompted Lasky to consider a new edition for the following year.
By 1913, Merrill was being noticed. "Several music publishing firms have been after the services of Blanche Merrill... who has gained a big reputation for her age within the past couple of years." Her work for Tanguay and Shaw as well as The Trained Nurses attracted "considerable attention from the profession to her jingling lyrics and ofttime melodies." She eventually signed with Waterson, Berlin & Snyder, Inc. This gave her the opportunity to collaborate with Irving Berlin. The single result of their collaboration was "Jake, the Yiddisher Ball Player."
The beginning of 1915 saw Eva Tanguay making her first appearance at The Palace in New York. Among the many interpolations was "Whistle and I'll Come To You" by Merrill and Leo Edwards, whose performance by Nora Bayes did not go unnoticed. Another one of Merrill's and Edward's songs, "Here's to You, My Sparkling Wine," made its way into the musical The Blue Paradise, which opened at the Casino Theatre on August 5, 1915, and then toured.
Merrill wrote the song "Broadway Sam" for comic Willie Howard, who performed it in The Passing Show of 1915.
Beginning mid-1915, there are notices of Merrill not just composing songs but also writing vaudeville acts. A Variety notice near the end of October 1915 indicates that an act, "The Musical Devil", featuring a performer was written by Merrill. One of the first of Merrill's vaudeville acts to be reviewed was The Burglar, a 15-minute skit written for Maurice Burkhardt. Advertising for the act also included Merrill's name.
Cooperation with Fanny Brice, 1915-1925
"In 1915 Fanny Brice was already a noted comedienne." By 1915 Merrill had established a strong reputation as a songwriter who catered to the individual characteristics of specific performers, women in particular. In July 1915, Brice began to work with Merrill in what Grossman calls the "turning point in career and the beginning of a productive professional relationship. During their association, Merrill created some of Brice's most distinctive material and freed her from the problem that had always plagued her: finding songs that really suited her."The first results of their collaboration resulted in Brice's act opening on September 6, 1915, at The Palace. After touring with and refining the material, Brice returned to The Palace in February 1916. The act had four songs, the last three of which had lyrics by Merrill: "If We Could Only Take Their Word," "The Yiddish Bride", and "Becky Is Back in the Ballet." The performance was favorably reviewed.
Brice's next major appearance was in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1916. Opening on June 12, 1916, among the songs Brice sang were two with lyrics by Merrill, "The Hat" and "The Dying Swan."
The Ziegfeld Follies of 1917 had Brice in only two numbers, both by Merrill.
Why Worry? was a play with music and was Brice's only attempt to play a serious role on Broadway. During its tour prior to opening on Broadway, the play closed temporarily owing to an illness of one of the performers. Initial reports were that the play lacked class. When it reopened in Atlantic City, New Jersey, for the continuation of its pre-Broadway run, it included two songs written by Merrill, one called "The Yiddish Indian." After a troubled beginning, Why Worry? opened at the Harris Theatre on Broadway on August 23, 1918.
"I'm an Indian" was one of Brice's most enduring characterizations. She recorded it in 1921, and the music was published in 1922. Brice performed it in her 1928 film My Man and Brice's performance of the song was briefly portrayed by cartoon character Betty Boop in the 1932 animated short Stopping the Show. Finally, "I'm an Indian" is briefly viewed in a puppet rendition for Brice's final film appearance in the 1945 film Ziegfeld Follies.
The following year Brice had an all-Merrill program before working up an act called Around the World. The idea behind the act was that Brice would portray people from different cultures. Variety reviewer Sime described the opening number as consisting of three different styles of lyrics; unusually, the lyrics had Brice refer to Merrill. This is the song "Make 'Em Laugh". Longer than a typical song, it has Brice portraying herself travelling around New York City, going to the Belasco Theatre to the Music Box Theatre in search of the right kind of material to perform.
For her 1923 vaudeville act, Brice sang at least four songs, all with lyrics by Blanche Merrill: "Hocus Pocus," "My Bill," a ballad called "Breaking Home Ties" and a "new Spanish comedy song."
Near the end of his career, songwriter Jack Yellen recalled Tin Pan Alley and that writers of special material sometimes got the better end of a deal. He mentioned Merrill, whom he called "an expert" who could command thousands of dollars for material, with Fanny Brice being one of her steady and smart customers.
Apparently there was a break in the relationship between Brice and Merrill in 1924. Merrill published a poem in Variety in 1924 that Brice was now a "Belasco star" and that Merrill was her "use-to-be writer." Grossman hypothesized that Brice felt Merrill couldn't do anything more for her career. After her marriage to Billy Rose, a songwriter, it's possible that he disallowed collaboration between Brice and Merrill because of professional jealousy. Although they were no longer working together, in an extensive November 1925 interview, Brice had warm words for Merrill.