Robert Merrill is regarded as one of the first artists to "Cross-Over" between classical and contemporary means of performance.
Merging high-art with good old-fashioned show business, Robert Merrill spanned his musical excellence from the grand stages of the world’s great opera houses to Broadway, Las Vegas, television, and film.
His earliest performances took place at the resort hotels of the Catskill, where he sang popular songs of the time, interspersed with operatic arias. It was during this time that he met and developed life long friendships with other young talents Danny Kaye and Red Skelton.
Robert Merrill entered and won a popular radio show, "The Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour," in 1936. His prize was the opportunity to tour in a nationwide variety show along with the other winners, including the Hoboken Four, featuring a young Frank Sinatra. Both the young Sinatra and Merrill began their careers around the same time. Later in life, they joined forces again in a number of on stage and televised performances.
He also appeared on popular TV talk and variety shows, such as the Ed Sullivan and Johnny Carson show, and had the pleasure of performing with Anne Bancroft and Sonny & Cher, among others. In 1952 he starred, along with Dinah Shore and Alan Young, in a Hollywood Movie, called “Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick.”
Known as "America’s Baritone," Robert Merrill was a favorite of U.S. Presidents, performing at the invitations of every president from FDR to Clinton, the only exceptions being the two Bush Presidents. Merrill was the only singer to perform for both Houses of Congress, the US Cabinet and the Supreme Court at the FDR Memorial held in the “U.S.” Capitol, Washington, D.C. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him to The National Council on the Arts in 1968. President Clinton presented him with The National Medal of Arts in 1993.
The New Rochelle United States post office was dedicated to Robert Merrill in 2005.
He starred in the Broadway musical "A Fiddler on the Roof" as Tevye. He did over 200 performances and received rave reviews. Merrill often said that Tevye was one of his favorite roles, with Germont in La Traviata being his other.