Initially Merman was pleased with co-star Fernando Lamas, but soon after rehearsals began they clashed when he publicly criticized her performance, and as tensions between them escalated they stopped speaking to each other. Merman thought the songs were weak but grudgingly acquiesced to her husband's demands. He urged her to accept the lead in Happy Hunting, with a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse (who had written Call Me Madam) and a score by the unknown team of Harold Karr and Matt Dubey. Six, however, had expected her public appearances to engender publicity for the airline, and her decision to forego the limelight did not sit well with him. Everything is resolved when Beth and Sandy elope and the Duke agrees to marry Liz, who realizes he loves her for her money but is willing to accept him on those terms.Īfter marrying her third husband, Continental Airlines executive Robert Six, in 1953, Ethel Merman retired from performing and happily embraced the life of a Colorado housewife. When she is made aware of the situation, Liz offers to settle his account and move him, his assistant Arturo, and his prized horses to Philadelphia if he will marry Beth, and he agrees to accept her offer.īack in the States, complications arise when Liz finds herself falling in love with the Duke while Beth finds she is attracted to Sandy. To save face, Liz pretends her hotel suite was robbed and she had nothing suitable to wear to the ceremony.Īngered by the snub and determined to find her daughter an even better husband than Grace, Liz arranges a date for Beth and the Duke of Grenada, unaware that the hotel's financial problems, which are being investigated by her attorney Sandy Stewart, are due in no small part to the Duke's failure to pay his bills. Liz Livingstone and her daughter Beth arrive in Monaco to attend the wedding of Prince Rainier and fellow Philadelphian Grace Kelly, only to be denied admission when her name cannot be found on the guest list.