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Making Waves. When it comes to nursing nickels, Merrick can scrounge with any Scrooge on the street. In one of his plays a character was supposed to eat strawberries, and strawberries the actor got on opening night; but when the reviews turned up terrible, Merrick instantly reduced him to radishes. Barbra Streisand, who appeared in Merrick's / Can Get It for You Wholesale in 1962, is still squawking because David bought her shoes by A. S. Beck instead of Capezio. Carol Channing reports that one night when she was slipping out of the Hello, Dolly! stage door in a full show costume that included an expensive pair of dancing shoes that Merrick had bought for her, he demanded indignantly where she was going. "To do a benefit," she explained. "Not in my shoes!" he bellowed. With a sneer, she took them off and started out in her stocking feet. Then, with a smirk, he picked her up and carried her to a taxi. ("Not a word of truth in that story," says Merrick, "but print it anyway. I want people to think I'm strong enough to carry a woman twice my size.")
Merrick is cunning when it comes to handling talent. "Artists are supersensitive children," he says. "They have to be whipped sometimes, but they have to be whipped with lettuce leaves." Directors, playwrights, designers, songwriters, choreographers-they all say that Merrick is patience on a monument when they come to him with their problems. "The man is a born midwife," says a playwright. "He knows just when to gentle, just when to press." The thing he does best is stay away: he never goes to rehearsals unless he is asked to, shows confidence even if he doesn't feel it. "But after the out-of-town opening!" he says. "After those first stinking, rotten reviews! Boy, am I ever a bastard! Boy, do I make waves!"