Huh?
Nightclub singer Margaret Whiting
"i was her association with...Johnny Mercer that most defined Ms. Whiting’s career....young Margaret sang for him one night at the family home in Beverly Hills, Calif. She was just 6. 'I came down in my nightgown...sang two songs and went up to bed'....Mercer became a surrogate father of sorts to 13-year-old Margaret, personally overseeing her budding career....He once told her, 'I have two words for you: grow up'....'He was a perfect Southern gentleman until he had three Scotches and two sips,' she once said."
"A duet with Mercer, 'Baby, It’s Cold Outside' (by Frank Loesser), lasted 19 weeks on the Billboard chart in 1949. Her nine duets...from 1949 to 1951, were sensations, particularly 'Slippin Around.'"
"Whiting had an early love affair with the actor John Garfield, and her first three marriages ended in divorce....In her later years, Ms. Whiting was known to many as the unlikely wife of Jack Wrangler (originally John Stillman), a star of gay pornographic films in the 1970s who went on to become a cabaret and theater producer....When they first became involved, he told her, 'I’m gay,' to which she replied, 'Only around the edges, dear.'"
Check out these lyrics to Slippin' Around, 'straightforward' singer Margaret Whiting's #1 hit in 1949 (her Baby It's Cold Outside duet with Mercer only reached #3 that year):
Seems we always have to slip around
To be together, Dear
Slipping around
Afraid we might be found
I know I can't forget you
And I've gotta have you near
But we just have to
Slip around and live in constant fear
Oh, you're tied up with someone else
And I am all tied up, too
I know I've made mistakes, Dear
But I'm so in love with you
I hope some day I'll find a way
To bring you back to me
And I won't have to slip around
To have your company...
