

Merman would have been 100 years old on January 16, 2008. It was a gesture of hostility too much even for Archie Bunker, and although she and the O’Connors were to remain friends, Merman never had the guest shot on All in the Family that she pined for.

Merman, who could be strident in her disapproval of other singers, gargled champagne during the set. On an evening in the mid-1970s, the actor Carroll O’Connor and his wife took Ethel Merman to hear Bobby Short at Café Carlyle.
