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Ethel’s style had always been her own and owed nothing to Al Siegel or anyone else. In fact, he questioned whether Ethel really had any particular style at all, or simply a natural ability to project that was frequently confused with style.)
    More likely, Siegel’s principal contribution was as a top-notch arranger. It didn’t take long for him to observe that Ethel had an uncanny sense of rhythm, and he tried to make maximum use of it in the jazzy arrangements that he began writing for her. She likewise had an astonishing ability to project the lyrics loud and clear, and there were other little quirks and characteristics that seemed unique to her. Chief among them was her ability to sustain the decibel level of a climactic phrase. Many singers with substantial voices—Ethel Waters, for example—would slowly diminish the volume as they reached the end of a key line. But the Merman style was to keep the volume consistent, and even raise it a little, delivering a wonderful final kick. Most of all, she had her phenomenal breath support. There was no mystery in how she achieved this, as she merely filled her lungs with air when she needed to breathe. Around the time Ethel started working with Siegel, she did finally consult a voice teacher, but the results were discouraging: he told her that she would not make much progress unless she learned to breathe from her diaphragm. However, Ethel found that when she concentrated on her diaphragm, she wasn’t able to sing naturally. She thanked the teacher and never returned, then went back to her usual way of breathing.
    Together Ethel and Siegel worked out an act, and Lou Irwin got them booked on the renowned Keith vaudeville circuit, opening in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in June 1930. As their tour wound down, Irwin informed them that their next appearance would be a high-profile one: they were to play seven weeks at the Brooklyn Paramount, where they would perform several shows a day, in between screenings of the latest Paramount feature films. Ethel was thrilled to have a job that would last practically the entire summer and later recalled that she and Siegel “broke up the place” for the entire run at the Paramount.
    Around the same time, Paramount signed her to make her first feature film, Follow the Leader, based on a popular musical comedy, Manhattan Mary. Heading the cast was Ed Wynn, the stage’s beloved “Perfect Fool,” in his first talkie, while newcomer Ginger Rogers had the female lead. Ethel, a last-minute replacement for Ruth Etting, played a musical-comedy star, the intended victim of a kidnap plot that goes awry. Although she did have one song—“Satan’s Holiday,” by Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal—she doesn’t seem to have had much affection for the movie, which is scarcely mentioned in her memoirs.
    One engagement that Ethel had been lusting after was the Pavilion Royale, a tony club in Valley Stream, Long Island, where many big names went to try out—for no salary—new acts before facing the more demanding audiences in Manhattan. Irwin secured them a booking there, and Ethel scored a hit with Siegel’s uptempo arrangements of “Singin’ in the Rain” and the lusty “Sing You Sinners”—such a hit that they were put on salary for regular Saturday-and Sunday-night engagements, which they performed after appearing all day at the Brooklyn Paramount. For Ethel this turned out to be another big step up in class: one night she got a chance to sing with one of the most popular bands around, Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians.
    Ethel and Siegel’s notices at the Paramount were so good that Irwin soon was able to get them booked at the Valhalla of vaudeville houses—the Palace. Ethel could hardly believe that she was about to land on the stage of the theater where only a few years earlier she had first seen the Marx Brothers, Nora Bayes, and many other great performers. It would bring her the biggest salary she had earned yet—five hundred dollars a