Mary Martin - Marriage

Marriage

During high school, Martin dated Benjamin Hagman, before she was packed off to finishing school at Ward-Belmont in Nashville, Tennessee. During that time, she enjoyed imitating Fanny Brice at singing gigs, but she found school dull and felt confined by its strict rules. She was homesick for Weatherford, her family, and Hagman. During a visit, Mary and Benjamin persuaded Mary's mother to allow them to marry. They did, and by the age of 17, Martin was legally married, pregnant with her first child (Larry Hagman) and forced to leave Ward-Belmont. She was, however, happy to begin her new life. But she soon learned that this life, as she would later say, was nothing but “role playing” (p. 39).

Their honeymoon was at her parents' house, and Martin's dream of life with a family and a white-picket fence faded. “I was 17, a married woman without real responsibilities, miserable about my mixed-up emotions, afraid there was something awfully wrong with me because I didn’t enjoy being a wife. Worst of all, I didn't have enough to do” (p. 39). It was “Sister” who came to her rescue, suggesting that she should teach dance. “Sister” taught Martin her first real dance—the waltz clog. Martin perfectly imitated her first dance move, and she opened a dance studio. Here, she created her own moves, imitated the famous dancers she watched in the movies, and taught “Sister’s” waltz clog. As she later recalled, “I was doing something I wanted to do—creating” (p. 44).