Mary Martin - Broadway

Broadway

Mary Martin struggled for nearly two years to break into show business. 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, but that production did not open.

She was then cast in Cole Porter's Leave It to Me!, making her Broadway debut in November 1938. In that production, she became popular on Broadway and received attention in the national media singing "My Heart Belongs to Daddy". With that one song in the second act, she became a star 'overnight'." Martin reprised the song in Night and Day, a Hollywood film about Cole Porter, in which she played herself auditioning for Porter (Cary Grant). "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" catapulted her career and became very special to Martin — she even sang it to her ailing father in his hospital bed while he was in a coma. Martin did not learn immediately that her father had died. Headlines read "Daddy Girl Sings About Daddy as Daddy Dies." Because of the show’s demanding schedule, Martin was unable to attend her father’s funeral.

She appeared on Broadway in South Pacific, opening on April 7, 1949 as nurse Nellie Forbush. Her performance was called "memorable...funny and poignant in turns", and she earned a Tony Award. Richard Watts, Jr. of the New York Post wrote: "nothing I have ever seen her do prepared me for the loveliness, humor, gift for joyous characterization, and sheer lovableness of her portrayal of Nellie Forbush.... Hers is a completely irresistible performance." She opened in the West End production on November 1, 1951. Her next major success was in the role of Peter in the Broadway production of Peter Pan in October 1954, with Martin winning the Tony Award. Martin opened on Broadway in The Sound of Music as Maria on November 16, 1959, and stayed in the show until October 1961. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. The musical gave Martin "the chance to display her homespun charm." In 1966 she appeared on Broadway in the two-person musical I Do! I Do! with Robert Preston and was nominated for the Tony Award (Leading Actress in a Musical). A national tour with Preston began in March 1968 but was cancelled early due to Martin's illness.

Although she appeared in nine films in her career, all between 1938 and 1943, 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. The Broadway production from 1954 was subsequently performed on NBC television in RCA's compatible color in 1955, 1956 and 1960.

While Martin did not enjoy making theatrical films, she did apparently enjoy appearing on television, as she did frequently. Her last feature film appearance was a cameo as herself in MGM's Main Street to Broadway in 1953. Martin made an appearance in 1980 in a Royal Variety Performance in London, performing "Honeybun" from South Pacific. Martin appeared in the play Legends with Carol Channing in a one-year US national tour, opening in Dallas on January 9, 1986.