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The News Media Was Always Ridiculous

As I was reading Brooke Kroeger’s biography of Nellie Bly, Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist, I kept finding parallels between her life and that of Ethel Merman: both made big splashes when they were very young, rose to prominence on raw, unpolished talent that sometimes hindered their work, semi-retired when they got married, came back to do some of their most important work, and, toward the end of their lives, used their positions to help vulnerable people, Merman volunteering in a hospital, Bly finding parents for orphans. Nellie Bly, I thought, would have been a great character for Ethel Merman to play, and there is a very good reason why Merman never did: she was getting ready to play Annie Oakley when Johnny Burke, James Van Heusen, and Joseph Quillan’s musical, Nellie Bly, opened at the Adelphi Theatre (which became the George Abbott before being torn down to expand a hotel) in early 1946 and ran for a not-Nellie Bly-worthy 16 performances. Instead of Merman, Joy Hodges played the role. I have actually found five Nellie Bly musicals, pretty much all of them covering either her stay in the Blackwell’s Island asylum or her 72-day trip around the world inspired by the Jules Verne novel Around the World in Eighty Days (she met Verne as part of her journey). These musicals are: Oh My Nellie Bly, by Annemarie Lewis Thomas and Nick Stimson; Nellie: The Musical, by Robby Steltz and Stephen Murray; Stunt Girl (later Front Page Girl), by Peter Kellogg and David Friedman; and Ten Days in a Madhouse, by Karen Saari and Jennifer Hedstrom. For the record, my favourite title is Oh My Nellie Bly, which is such a classic musical theatre title, along the lines of The Unsinkable Molly Brown and No, No, Nanette, and Annie Get Your Gun.

But you’re probably wondering, was the book any good? Would it have inspired thoughts of Ethel Merman and musicals if it wasn’t? I was torn about this book from the moment I took it out of the Little Free Library where I found it, definitely curious about Bly but also overwhelmed by the number of books I had accumulated that I still had not read (the number of books I have accumulated and read is not overwhelming). This book is also over five hundred pages, but with pictures integrated into the text and chapter dividers, not to mention the subject matter, it was a breeze to read (much more so than another 500+-page biography I recently finished). And it was a breeze to read because Bly really was a whirlwind, a Merman-ish figure, who grabbed onto her success and would not let go, no matter who tried to wrestle it from her jaws. After getting attention by writing a response to a column called “What Girls Are Good For,” she embarked on several dangerous investigations, including the two mentioned above, and one that would probably be considered even more frightening today than either of those. Her story got a bit boring in the middle, when she got married and then involved with business and then involved with legal battles, but it was worth it to keep going to find out how she found herself reporting from the front lines of World War I and how she used that reporting. None of the musicals seem to be about that (or her marriage to a man twice her age). And then, of course, she became a benevolent Miss Hannigan, and one of her “Little Girls” was still around, with first hand memories of Bly, for Kroeger to interview for this book 70 years after Bly’s death.

So, my instincts to grab the book were correct, though I decided not to keep it, not having room at this time. If I ever find another copy of it, I may grab it to have and to hold. The five musicals I mentioned are probably the least accessible but definitely not the only creative pieces based on her story. I’ve already seen the American Horror Storyseason based on her stay on what is now Roosevelt Island, and I have been to that island and circled what remains of the former asylum. The Girl Puzzle Monument was not there when I visited, and I did not know to look for her grave when I was exploring Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. I’ll check out the movies and maybe some other pieces, but somehow, I think, (surprisingly) nothing will be as dynamic as the 500+-page academic biography, perhaps because everything was a surprise while I was reading it, including what I already knew about her asylum stay, because it happened almost right away, and I thought, well, then what are the next 450 pages going to be about? I’ll probably see at least one of the musicals someday, though probably not the one from 1946, which is the one I’m most interested in, from back when musicals were more about creating folk heroes than telling true stories. I wonder if that musical was one of those musicals written with Merman in mind that just didn’t get her. She was big enough at the time that musicals were being written for her, and it seems like an obvious pick. I’ll have to dig deeper.

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Posted May 15, 2025 by Aaron Netsky