This show is where Mary Martin, who achieved immortality in “South Pacific” and “Peter Pan,” made her first splash. In this 1938 musical, Mary played Dolly Winslow, the young protégée – i.e., mistress – of a rich newspaper publisher. This was a clever dig at Marion Davies, MGM actress, mistress of William Randolph Hearst, and the butt of Orson Welles’ “Rosebud” joke at the beginning of “Citizen Kane.” Mary would later be remembered as the mother of actor Larry Hagman of “Dallas,” the villain that people loved to hate.
Dolly is stranded at a Siberian railroad station wearing only a fur coat, and she performs a striptease while singing. Surrounded by horny Russian men, she says that since she’s met “Daddy,” she will flirt with other men but won’t “follow through.” Of course, “Daddy” is her sugar daddy.
Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times said that Mary’s mock innocence made the song “the bawdy ballad of the season.”