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The Queer Pleasures of Mary Martin and Broadway: The Sound of Music as a Lesbian Musical

1996; University of Toronto Press; Volume: 39; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3138/md.39.1.51

1712-5286

Stacy Wolf,

Cinema and Media Studies

By the late 1950s, Mary Martin was a famous, powerful Broadway star. After stealing the show singing and doing a "striptease" to "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" in Leave It to Me in 1938, she solidified her stardom as the goddess come-to-life in One Touch of Venus (1943), charmed audiences all over the country in the national tour of Annie Get Your Gun (1947), and brought the house down for a record-setting 1,925 performances in South Pacific (1949). She played a brief but memorable run in Peter Pan (1954), and later filmed the performance for television, permanently laminating her star identity onto the role of the boy who wouldn't grow up. Martin also turned down some notable parts, including the leads in Funny Girl, My Fair Lady, Kiss Me Kate, and Oklahoma. But Martin actively pursued, financially backed, and created another role which to this day is associated with her - Maria in The Sound of Music.