Entertainment

Merman’s marital memories

Ever since Kim Kardashian dumped Kris Humphries after 72 days of marriage, Oscar-winning actor Ernest Borgnine has been talking about his own short-lived nuptials to the great Ethel Merman.

Borgnine and Merman were married in 1964 for just 38 days. On “Access Hollywood” last week, Borgnine said the marriage unraveled during their honeymoon in the Far East. Merman, he said, was furious that, while everybody recognized him, nobody knew her. She had her revenge by refusing to give him some of her Kaopectate when he had diarrhea.

(“Access Hollywood” always gets the scoop!)

Tony Cointreau, one of Merman’s closest pals, caught the interview and rang me up in a cold fury.

“He’s at it again!” Cointreau, heir to the French liquor company, said. “He’s been saying this for years, and it’s not true.”

In Merman’s memoir, there’s a chapter titled “My Marriage to Ernest Borgnine.” It’s followed by a blank page.

But she kept a diary, which contains all the gory details. And Cointreau has it. He wouldn’t show me the entry about the marriage. “It’s just very, very yucky,” he says. “It would demean her, as well as him.” But he sketched in what happened from Merman’s point of view.

Their honeymoon, it turned out, was a “freebie.” American Express picked up the tab in exchange for personal appearances Borgnine made on the company’s behalf. Merman was appalled. On the flight to Tokyo, Borgnine told her he was broke and needed money — her money.

“She couldn’t understand why a man couldn’t love her for herself and not for having a large bank account,” Cointreau says.

Cointreau befriended Merman in 1960, while she was starring in “Gypsy.” When she died, she left him boxes full of letters, journals, photographs, scripts and contracts.

Cointreau also has her ashes, which he keeps in his front closet.

“Say hello to Ethel,” he said, handing me a metal box labeled: “The cremated remains of Ethel Merman, February 15, 1984.”

Merman’s not alone in that closet. Two other urns contain the remains of her parents, Edward and Agnes Zimmermann. And a third contains those of her daughter, Little Ethel, who died in 1967 of a drug and alcohol overdose at age 25.

Cointreau has never shared Merman’s papers. But he let me look through them — and they’re alive with Broadway history.

For example, there’s her working script for “Gypsy.” Merman crossed out Rose’s first line — “Count four before you start, Louise!” — and wrote in a new line: “Sing out, Louise!”

The celebrated “Rose’s Turn” didn’t exist yet, and the show ended with a description of Momma Rose having a nervous breakdown.

But tucked away in another box are two pages containing the lyrics Stephen Sondheim eventually came up with for “Rose’s Turn.” Alongside the lyrics, in Merman’s handwriting, are Jerome Robbins’ directions: “Come forward. Right hand up! Left hand up! Take off jacket. Grind proscenium.”

I also read parts of the journal Merman kept during “Annie Get Your Gun,” which was written by Irving Berlin but produced by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein. One night, Rodgers came backstage and berated her for some bit of stage business.

“I told him he had no right to talk to me like that, especially since he has allowed his ‘protege’ Betty Lou Holland to be in a show with professionals. His ‘protege’ cannot walk across a stage, forgets her cues and can often be found upstairs in her dressing room smoking in the nude. Mr. Rodgers walked away and the last thing I heard him say was, ‘If she starts any scandal about me, I’ll break her god-damned neck!’ ”

Wonderful!

But my favorite item was an invitation from director Joshua Logan to a party he was throwing for a young composer named Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose new show, “Cats,” was about to open on Broadway.

Merman attached a note to the invitation: “Wanna come? Who the hell is he? Love, E.”