Girl Show: Into the Canvas World of Bump and Grind

GIRL SHOW

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GIRL SHOW Into the canvas world of Bump

and Grirnd A.W. STENCELL

ECW PRESS

Copyright © ECW PRESS, 1999 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of ECW PRESS.

CANADIAN CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Stencell, A.W. Girl show: into the canvas world of bump and grind ISBN 1-55022-371-2 i. Sideshows.

2. Burlesque (Theater).

1999 PN1949.S773 1999

792.7^28

3. Striptease. I. Title. 099-930842-4

Cover and text design by Tania Craan Photo editor: Tania Craan Layout by Mary Bowness Printed by Printcrafters Distributed in Canada by General Distribution Services, 325 Humber Blvd., Etobicoke, Ontario M9W 703 Distributed in the United States by LPC Group-InBook, 1436 West Randolph Street, Chicago, Illinois, USA 60607 Co-published by Pluto Press Australia Locked Bag 199, Ananadale NSW 2038 ph: 61 2 95193299 / fax: 61 2 95198940 Distributed in Australia by UNIREPS ph 612 96640999 Published by ECW PRESS 2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, M4E IE2 www. ecw. ca/press The publication of Girl Show has been generously supported by the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program. Canada

PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA

CONTENTS CHAPTER 1

THE BIRTH OF BALLYHOO

1

CHAPTER 2

WHAT'S UP FRONT COUNTS CHAPTER

19

^

GIRLS & GRIFT ON THE SHOWGROUND

35

CHAPTER 4

SEX ON THE HALF SHELL

41

CHAPTER 5

BURLESQUE STARS

65

CHAPTER 6

SHEBAS ON TRAMPLED GRASS

81

CHAPTER 7

THE GIRL-SHOW TALKER

97

CHAPTER 8

A PRIZE IN EVERY BOX

111

CHAPTER 9

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN THE ORGANIST IS DRUNK?

123

CHAPTER

10

GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS, AND TUBBY BOOTS CHAPTER

141

11

"WELL, JUDGE, IT'S LIKE THIS"

157

CHAPTER 12

THE SOUL OF BACCHUS

177

CHAPTER 13

HAVE YOU SEEN MITZI?

189

CHAPTER 14

SOME HOUSEHOLD TIPS Cs H A IP 1 fe 1C

197

15

THE LAST OF THE TASSEL-TWIRLERS

207

CHAPTER 16

I CANT HEAR YOU

217

GLOSSARY

232

INDEX

237

BIBLIOGRAPHY

242

PHOTO CREDITS

243

tO MY WIFE sHIRLY AND SHOW FOLKS EVERYWHERE

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Acknowledgments I have always had a passion for the circus and the fairground. I have been one of the fortunate few to glide through life doing what I have always wanted to do — own a circus. Many people have made this journey possible. First, my parents, Jean and Wilfred Stencell, who fostered my interests and let me, as a fourteen-year-old, go out with my first show. My father, who spent many years with MS in a wheelchair, taught me great patience and the power of laughter. I owe continued gratitude to my wife, Shirley, for shelving her dreams and putting all her talents to use in helping me reach mine. Can you ever say enough about a young lady who was a physiotherapist one day and driving an elephant semi the next? I have made a lot of friends on carnival and circus lots and would be remiss not to remember my friend the late Dave Mullaney who always made me appreciate fellow showpeople with his crack "Ain't show folks colorful!" I also owe a debt to showman Bill English who, besides sharing his knowledge of the business, taught me that keeping your word is golden. I want to remember the late Miami Whitey and One Arm Vince for my grifted education. Thanks go to carnies Kent Banner, Karl Greenlaw, Jack Robertson, and Billy Burr for all their help, and to Herbert Rice and Don Marcks for the fine burlesque material. Similarly, thanks to friend Mike Hartigan, ex-carnival owner and master artist, for doing the three excellent drawings for this volume. I am very grateful to George Sanders, the first curator of the Carnival Museum maintained by the International Independent Showmen's Association in Gibsonton, Florida, for his help and encouragement, and for his contribution to carnival history. When there was very little money or interest around the club for the museum, it was George who donated his time and knowledge to gather and preserve what is there now.

Mitzi Sinclair has been a generous source of information on her life as a dancer in vaudeville, burlesque, and under canvas. She also led me to Peter Thomas and Val Valentine. Peter advanced my burlesque education and Val taught me about stripping and carnival revue shows. Dixie Evans and Jane Briggeman helped me locate burlesque people. Former girl-show talker, movie star, and playwright Peter Garey was one of the first to send a big envelope full of photos, clippings, and encouragement. Gayle Madden was one of the first to explain the girl-show business and the art of talking. John Moss not only gave me valuable insights into talking but also about cooch-show operations. Tirza Duval shared her story of being the Wine Bath Girl and provided tales of her late husband, girl-show producer and talker Joe Boston. Roland Porter, Eli Jackson, Gene Stapleton, and Victor Lewis took me into the world of candy butchers and pitchmen. Musician and showman Charles Schlarbaum related his girl-revue experiences as both a candy pitchman and a bandleader. Bill Karlton contributed photos and shared his experiences performing on girl-show stages. Joy Fleenor offered the producer's view of operating a girl revue. For insights into the world of circus and carnival side shows, I owe thanks to the late Carl Davenport and to John B. "Gypsy Red" Jackson, Charles Roark, Henry Thompson, and master showman Ward Hall. Mimi Reed contributed the great backstage photos of Leon Miller's Club Lido, which she took while performing there in 1959. I owe a big debt to all the girl-show people who talked to me, including Shirley and Richard Mayo, Buzz Barton, Mike Miller, Dave and Sandy O'Hara, Vista Miller, Jackie Duggan, Gloria Aldrich, Peter Manos, Leroy Griffith, Sulo Keppo, Molly Parks, Norma Jean Watts, Bertie Austin, Bambi Lane, Bob Tanenbaum, and the late Tubby Boots. Five great ladies — Pagan Jones, Sylvia Cassidy, Ricki Covette, and the late Blaze Fury and Bonnie Boyer — were generous in sharing their memories and photos of their days as headline strippers and exotics. Andy Bunn and Joe Givens took me into the world of female impersonators on carnivals and I have nothing but respect for their craft and lifestyle. Thanks also to the USA Gibsonton, Florida; the Showmen's League of America, Chicago and Toronto chapters; Jerry Church of Amusements of America; Jim Conklin and the staff of Conklin Shows; and Susan and Tim Magid of the James E. Strates Shows. Fred Dahlinger at the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin, has been not only a friend but a great source of information and encouragement. Fred Pfening Jr. has been an invaluable source of photos. Thanks to

friend and entertainment scholar Dick Flint for his help with materials, photos, and kind words. The same for Steve Gossard, curator of Circus Collections at the Illinois State University; Serge Barbe and Serge Blondin at the Ottawa City Archives; the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta, and the Indiana Historical Society in Indianapolis, Illinois, for use of photos in their collections; and Julie Thomas, Chicago Historical Society, for sending me photocopies of the Little Egypt clipping file. I am also grateful to the Canada Council for the Arts for a grant that allowed me to research carnival history in Canada. I owe a special thanks to John and Zyg Kaminski for putting me in touch with ECW publisher Jack David, who provided guidance, support, and patience. It has been both a pleasure and a learning experience working with editor Stuart Ross — I am very grateful for his understanding of the material and his help in bringing the manuscript to its finished form. Thanks also to Mary Bowness, Jen Hale, and the other staff at ECW's Toronto office. Thanks to Stuart McLean and Victoria Ridout for their valuable assistance. Thanks to Tania Craan for her design and photo expertise. This is a book about outdoor show business and the entertainment pleasures, especially sexual ones, that carnival girl shows have given the North American public over the last one hundred years. It is also about some of the people who were the last to deliver those pleasures. A debt is owed to all the show folks — the countless jointees, grifters, fixers, owners, producers, dancers, talkers, candy pitchmen, roughies, and performers who so faithfully devoted their lives to bringing the public so many entertainments on the showgrounds. They may not be remembered here in name, but all their past deeds lie behind these words. A.W Stencell Toronto, 1999

THE BIRT OF BALLYHOO Tne noocfae-Coocfae Dattce aitdw> widujcut

|* ntertainers have always amused and dp* amazed people gathered in market ^ ± ± o in* squares and the courtyards of inns, at religious celebrations, in parks, and at fairs. The professional showman has been as important as the cobbler, the blacksmith, and the baker to our lives, although not as respected. In North America, public amusements and the show folks who run them are relatively new compared to in Europe and the Far East. However, it wasn't long after the first arrivals came to the "promised land" that

their musical and theatrical concerts, displays of acrobatics, wire walkers, and other daredevils were soon recreated in America, The circus business in America had been touring under canvas since the mid-1820s via roads and water transport, presenting horsemanship, acrobatics, comedy, and variety acts. Menagerie showmen followed similar routes, displaying exotic animals, and sometimes wax figures, stuffed animals, and curios. But the public soon lost interest in the investordriven menagerie business, and the financial C H A P T E R l

Opposite page 1: Elvie Calvert, one of the leading girlshow producers of the 1920s and 1930s, poses with the cast of her show and members of the C.A. Wortham show band in 1919, San Antonio, Texas. Note the girl on the swing, an idea likely taken from a current Broadway show or musical revue. The paintings on the front show an Oriental theme. Page 7: Carnival dancer Jean Ellen Ayers (1820s).

panic of 1837 saw many investors and menagerie operators turn to the performer-run circus business that badly needed outside capital and management. Displays of exotic animals became part of the circus. As circuses' popularity grew, the need to accommodate bigger crowds saw the main show tent expand from one center pole, to two, to three and four. Cages of

for viewing along with the performance

animals originally placed in the main tent

were put into a separate menagerie tent. Exotic animals were soon presented in the main circus programs as acts.

Ali Pasha's Beautiful Orient show on a carnival midway, 1915. The painted flat front, supported by back braces, is typical of early American show fronts. This show features an elephant, a small band, and dancing girls.

The modern side show was not part of the early circus. Exhibitions of strange and

.American Circus before the Civil War, writes that

unusual humans and curiosities were

the first circus credited with carrying a

presented separately by showmen in muse-

detached side show charging a separate

ums, theaters, storefronts — any available

admission was the Robinson and Eldred

space where admission could be charged.

Circus of 1848. This large wax-figure show

Gradually circus showmen brought these

cost twenty-five cents to see in addition

attractions onto the circus grounds as addi-

to the fifty-cent main show ticket. In

tional moneymakers.

1851-54, the success of P.T. Barnum's tour-

Stuart Thayer, in Traveling Showman: The 2

ing Asiatic Caravan Museum and Menagerie,

combining human oddities with menagerie animals, strengthened the circus showmen's belief in the drawing power of freaks and curios. By the mid-1860s the side show was an established part of the touring circus. From the 1870s, the New York Clipper, a theatrical weekly founded in 1853, provided itinerant showmen with a list of picnics, celebrations, and fairs to which they could take their games of chance, peep shows, wax works, and freaks alive or stuffed. Amusement centers grew around large northeastern cities. Coney Island, N.Y., on the Atlantic in Brooklyn, became an early destination for a huge population seeking sand and surf. Restaurants, beer gardens, saloons, and entertainment parlors flourished there, catering to the beach and race-track crowds. By the 1880s there were shooting galleries, arcades, and merry-go-rounds, and when the crowd tired of these they could go into pavilions for variety and musical entertainment while drinking and eating. In one area, called the Gut, was a lively gambling and drinking center populated

A typical small railroad circus in Indiana, 1911. The calliope wagon (center) is used for parades and on the lot ballyhoo. The large tent behind it is the side show. At the left is the ticket wagon and concession stands. The marquee (main entrance tent) leads to the menagerie and into the big top. In the middle of the crowd is a high-wire rigging used as a free act before the show to bring the crowd onto the midway.

with con artists and prostitutes. In the 1860s it was said that in the various saloons and parlors, girls pretending to be can-can dancers, as practised in Parisian cabarets in Montparnasse and Montmartre, would do private dances without clothes for a dollar. In Sodom by the Sea, Oliver Pilat and Jo Ranson wrote: "Some patrons wanted more than an

"nO SHOWMAN EVER WENT BROKE UNDERSTANTING the gullibility of the American public" 3

A Hawaiian beauty from the Hawaiian Village show at the Pan-American Expo in Buffalo, 1902.

illusive song or a nude dance. In return for an extra fee, girls gave private exhibitions modeled after those French peep shows, sometimes alone, sometimes with another girl, sometimes with a man or an animal." Beach pavilion owners were also getting the girl singers to hustle tables. The girls sat with the patrons and encouraged them to buy drinks for which the girls got a 25% commission. Coney Island remained a center for fairground-equipment manufacturing and for showmen until the 1950s. Most historians focus on the World's Columbia Exposition in Chicago in 1893 with its Midway Plaisance area as the catalyst for the traveling carnival. The fair drew twenty-seven million people with the 4

"Midway" being the most popular area. The fairs' half-naked "savages" from strange distant lands (many of them local black people) and the hoochie-coochie dancers of the Far East (some from as far east as New York City) provided white America with a grand opportunity for a subliminal journey into the recesses of its own repressed desires and fantasies. In those hidden fantasies and longings lay that continued curiosity found in each generation of midway gawkers. The most intelligent of our species are often the first in line before the showman's ticket box. The fair gave the amusement industry the Ferris wheel or, as future carnies would refer to it, the "chump indicator," as it was the highest thing on show lots for decades. If its seats were full, there was a big crowd on the midway. The fair also gave the world the word "ballyhoo," and the stories about the dirty hoochie-coochie dance gave showmen on midways, at amusement parks, and on Broadway a historical past to ballyhoo well into the 1900s. When the fair opened on May 1, 1893, the Ferris wheel and some pavilions were not completed. Bad press dogged the fair and expected attendance lagged. In June, the Ferris wheel finally opened for business

A #12 Eli Ferris wheel on the Morris and Castle Shows at the Des Moines, Iowa, fair in 1927. Advertising banners hang from the backs of the seats, between the wheel spokes, and on the braces. The ten-cent ticket is sold by the chap with the umbrella at the front of the ride.

and the crowds arrived, but six weeks of poor business had led many of the amusement operators to the brink of bankruptcy. Fortunately newspapers started to raise hell about the midway dancers in the Persian Palace, Turkish Village, Old Vienna, A Street in Cairo, and Algerian Village. Across the country, papers denounced the evil dances, with photos and drawings o 1

depicting the objectionable features. The New York Journal said the hoochie-coochie was "neither dancing of the head or the feet." The San Francisco Chronicle screamed, "Mudway Plaisance!" To the showmen's glee, men in barber shops, saloons, and hotel lobbies talked about nothing else. Midway showmen on and off the grounds quickly added dancers to their poorer-grossing attractions. All claimed to be presenting the original evil dance that every-

Fatima, the "Little Tempest," bewitching black-eyed hoochie-coochie dancer in the Beautiful Orient Show on the Pan-Am Expo, Buffalo, New York, 1902.

one had heard so much about. Fairgoers o hurried from one attraction to the next, wondering which shuffle, shake, shimmy, wiggle, or gyration was the real McCoy! The fair was populated by dancers sporting exotic names like Fatima, Houri, Husaria, Farida, and Maryeta. Donna Carlton, in Looking for Little Egypt, states that these girls were mostly Ghawazi, the celebrated voluptuous dancers — and Gypsy prostitutes — from Egypt, making their

Isloa Hamilton, "the Artist's Model," in the dancing show "Around the World" at the Pan-Am Exposition in Buffalo, 1902. She is "posing" in skin-hugging clothes. Posing became part of burlesque and carnival girl shows, and laws that curtailed dancing and nudity overlooked poses and nudity because this combination was "artistic."

5

Interior of the Egyptian Theatre, Chicago Columbia Exposition, 1 893. When the story got out that this was a wicked place, everyone flocked there — clergymen, that they might secure live coals for their text; women, to study the wickedness; old men, for a bit of fun; and boys, that they might be up to the times. Thousands of others watched on through smoked glass.

a11

first appearance in America. Their typical costume was small vests fastened low on their bosoms, bare midriff, and short skirts, with their bodies heavily ornamented by jewelry, beads, and finger cymbals. Their dances featured very little traveling across the stage, but lots of spasmodic movements of the abdominal area and rapid shaking of the shoulders. In an era when most ladies wore corsets, the loose-fitting clothes of these dancers and their body gyrations caused a major stir. Oriental dancing, muscle-control dancing, dance du ventre, and hoochie-coochie became beacons drawing men to circus and carnival lots. The dance became part of carnival shows, 6

circus side shows, burlesque shows, and even refined vaudeville. The legend of Little Egypt as the Chicago fair's hoochie-coochie icon was likely created a few years later when, in 1896, Herbert Barnum Seeley hired some female entertainers for a pre-wedding stag party he threw for his brother Clinton. Police were tipped off and an investigation followed where one of the entertainers, named Ashea Wabe, said she was known as

A typical Oriental midway show, featuring Millie Frido

Mazhar, Turkish dancer from Cairo, at Moose Street carnival, Hartford City, Indiana, 1910. Here she works the bally, accompanied by the traditional drummer and flageolet player.

Little Egypt and had been hired to do an Oriental dance and one pose. Ensuing newspaper coverage suggested she was to have posed naked. This New York City scandal was known as the Awful Seeley Dinner. In the end nobody was charged. Oscar Hammerstein hired Wabe and quickly mounted a hit parody of the investigations, Silly's Dinner. There's no evidence that Ashea Wabe herself ever danced at the Chicago fair of 1893. The publicity over Little Egypt and the hoochie-coochie dance made the terms synonymous with hot, sexy dancing until a couple of press agents at a Minsky burlesque show in New York City were credited with coining the term "striptease" in 1931. In the early 1900s Arabic dancing continued to entertain and shock the public. A thirty-second peep-show film made in

Left: Bostock and Wombwell's Menagerie in England, 1 880s, shows the band on the bally, with staff and uncaged animals out front. Animal show fronts like this one were brought to America, serving as blueprints for American carnival show fronts. Right The Bostock Steeple Chase Carousel in America, circa 1905, was managed by James W. Bostock. He later sold it and purchased the second portable merry-go-round manufactured by the Philadelphia Toboggan Co. The ornate ticket box proclaims, "Positively the only one in America."

1896 bearing dual titles of "Dance du Ventre" and "Passion Dance" was said to be the most popular film in the peep viewers in an Atlantic City Boardwalk arcade until someone complained and authorities ordered it removed. And two films, "Dance du Ventre" and "Fatima's Dance," recorded at Coney Island, were among the first censored in America.

way company. He opened in Toledo, Ohio, and several months later limped into New Orleans broke. He regrouped and his 1895

DEVELOPMENT OF THE TOURING CARNIVAL COMPANIES Late in the summer of 1894 Otto Schmidt, a scenic artist at the People's Theater in Chicago, launched the first traveling mid7

attractions included Streets of Cairo, Helen

showmen here. They first set up on

Conger's Bronze Statues and Living Pictures,

Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn but soon moved

Tony White's One Ring Circus, Frank C.

to Old Iron Pier Walk at Coney Island.

Rostock's Trained Wild Animal Arena, Old

Planned wild animal escapes and Fatima

Plantation Show or minstrel show, Irah Smith's Operetta and Beauty Show, and

the hoochie-coochie dancing bear created

more. Booths on the midway sold Turkish

crowds coming. In 1896 they established a

rugs, Oriental silverware and souvenirs,

show they called "Ye Olde English Faire,"

refreshments, and programs, and patrons

featuring six or seven shows and a British-

could test their aim at a long-range shooting

made gondola ride, one of the first riding

gallery.

devices toured by showmen here.

enough New York press coverage to get the

Some historians place the arrival of two

The turn of the century saw the rise of

British showmen, Frank C. Bostock and

street fairs held on the main drags of cities.

Francis Ferari, in 1893-94 as the real origin of the touring carnival business in America.

Elks' Clubs were the main organizers, presenting street fairs to promote new membership. Frank W Gaskill, an Alliance, Ohio, businessman, saw the success of area

Their years of experience touring menageries and fair attractions on Britain's established fairground scene benefited

Top: The steam engine that powered Flack's carousel at Akron, Ohio, 1912, likely fueled by large chunks of coal. Center. A steam-driven carousel at Flack's Great NorthWestern Shows, based around Grand Rapids, Michigan, circa 1917. A wooden water barrel stands to the right of the engine, with a pile of large-chunk coal by the curb. Bottom: A 1912 street fair celebrating the centennial of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. Early carnivals made a living playing such events.

Elks' street fairs and put his own Gaskill

Canton Carnival Company out in 1899. Some historians say Gaskill was the first real touring carnival company, as he played one town after another without much down time. In contrast, Schmidt had to allow a week between each date to set up the next show. All the early carnival companies that sprung up after the Chicago fair carried Oriental Theaters, Turkish Villages, etc., featuring the hoochie-coochie dancers. Bostock's tour in 1900 featured Aaimee, the famous fire and serpentine dancer. A 1903 review of the Ferari Shows, in Saginaw, Michigan, gives a good description of a typical "Oriental" show: "One of the best shows with the carnival company is the Streets of Cairo presented by Abdau Abdelnoux, a native of Beyrout, Syria. There are three camels in the show that give rides. A company of Turks on a platform play weird music while others fight with

Above: The ticket-seller at far left waves a hand in the air as young black performers draw a crowd in front of the Dixie Land minstrel show at an Indiana street fair, 1911.

The front gate on Royal American, 1930s. Carnival owners used gate revenue to pay "free" acts who performed late at night to hold crowds on the midway. Eventually the free acts vanished, but the gate admission continued.

9

Girl show at the Jamestown, Ohio, Fair, 1914. The "Girl in Blue" is a reference to a popular "hooch" dancer named Mile. deLeon who performed in an oldtime opera coat and parasol, then stripped down to tights and leotard. "Poses Plastique" referred to the girls posing as a statue or recreating scenes from mythology, and to tableau vivant acts.

On The Music Hall girl show on Robinson's United Shows, a gilly outfit, the bally platforms don't even have cloth on them to hide the wood frames. The carnival band poses with the girls, the talker, and the ticket seller. The show was typical of carnival girl shows in the teens and twenties with its four double-panel banners and the entranceway or door banner. The whole front area is lit by just three small light bulbs.

swords, juggle guns and swords. There is also a very good magician named Dana from Tunis. The climax of the show is presented by seven Syrian girls headed by the famous Fatima who wears medals won at the Chicago's World's Fair, at Buffalo, and at the Omaha Exposition. She gives a dancing exhibition that includes muscle dances, the w

iggly~wi§glv' tne wormy squirmy, and the ouchie couchie." The carnivals soon left street fairs behind and became a business like the circus that could stand alone. Carnivals became a real-estate game with owners

10

A "Living Pictures" act was usually the butterfly dance, in which the performer dressed in a billowing silky white costume and twirled, creating the illusion of flowing wings, while images of butterflies were projected onto the dress. Circa 1900.

A combination film and dance show on the Parker and Kennedy Shows, 1914. The woman on the bally does a skirt dance as the talker makes his opening with a megaphone. The tent was made of black canvas for daytime showing.

augmenting what shows and rides they owned by renting the show lot out to independent attractions owners by the foot or on percentage. By the First World War years carnival companies settled on a physical layout still used today. Shows had a front gate or entrance arch, then rows of games and food joints on either side. The merry-goround would fill in the center leading the other big rides down the midway. Where the joints stopped on either side, the shows took over, going all the way around, completing the oblong layout. Shows started using free acts to bring crowds out and

Circus and carnival side by side, Keller showgrounds, Joplin, Missouri, early 1950s. In the upper left is Royal American shows, then the world's largest travelling carnival. Across the street is Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus, then the largest travelling circus under canvas. In the lower right is the circus's seven-pole main cookhouse tent, and to its left stands the side-show tent, in front of which is the midway, made up of various concession stands. The carnival entrance is near the intersection of the railroad tracks and the road dividing the lots. On the tracks to the left of the entrance are circus-train flat cars awaiting the loading of the cookhouse wagons once the showpeople's supper is done. The circus moved daily, the carnival weekly.

11

Young men eager to buy tickets to see the Oriental dancers at a 1911 Indiana street fair.

owners began charging patrons a modest fee to enter the grounds. At first many owners were afraid of the "paid gate," convinced nobody would pay to walk around and spend more money. But people did — or, as one carnival owner put it, "No showman ever want broke underestimating the gullibility of the American public." In 1902, Billboard listed seventeen touring carnival companies, and by 1920 there were over 200 crisscrossing the country on no less than 3,000 rail cars. With 200 carnivals, there were almost 200 side shows or 10-in-l's and almost the same number of girl shows. Thousands of people were employed on these outdoor shows and many more in the industries that supplied the products, rides, printing, canvas, etc. The growth of the carnival business and the operation of girl shows was not a smooth ride. As early as 1896 the freaks 12

and fakirs were being condemned by the public press and the pulpit. Critics objected to the "He, she, or it" attraction where nude views were offered for an additional ten cents. Talkers in front of girl shows crying out, "Hot stuff" or "Nothing tame here like women and children are permitted to see in the opera houses," as well as "Living Picture Shows" where girls posed almost nude, irked the bluenosers. Beefs over the games of chance and the clergy's cries over the lewd exhibitions forced many towns to refuse carnival-permit applications. Showmen countered that the Oriental dances were merely historical presentations of the eastern cultures and that their shows were justified as they gave the ordinary man an outlet for his passions and pent-up feelings, but the European custom of having special fairs and festivals as safety valves for human emotions never caught on in puri-

tanical America. Most of the entertainment in girl shows mirrored dancing on vaudeville, burlesque, and revue stages, where Parisian can-can dances and skirt dancing were popular. The butterfly dance's most physical requirement of the dancer was strong arms to swirl the yards of white material onto which were projected slides of butterflies that turned the dancer into a swooping and diving creature on many girl-show stages. "Serpentine dancers" in tight body suits twisted across the stage in slithering movements in appropriate snakelike wardrobe. Before electricity was in every household midway patrons were fascinated with elec-

trie fountain shows which also featured girls dancing in the fountain and doing fire dances. Many girl shows featured dance styles from foreign countries; Gaskill's 1899 International Congress of Dancing Girls showcased dancers representing America, Cuba, France, Mexico, and Spain. Music and dance were the most popular social activities of the roaring twenties, with the Charleston and the Shimmy foremost among the dance crazes. The Charleston copied the movements of the Oriental dancer in the film "Fatima's Dance." While the Charleston dancer jumped from side to side shaking her bottom, the Shimmy dancer shook her shoulders. Both Charleston and Shimmy dresses sported long fringes that exaggerated the dancer's movements. This fashion caught on among girl-show performers who added fringes to their costumes, especially on the bras or halter tops and around the short pants on the hips. During the 1920s through the late 1940s girl-show presentations on carnivals included Oriental shows, cooch shows, Hawaiian shows, water shows, and vaudeville-style revue shows featuring chorus lines and girl dancers. Many were small tab shows, light musical comedies featuring the popular songs and dances of the year. Tides like

"Tango Girls" and "Black Bottom Dancers" were seen on girl-show facades during the First World War years. Carnival producers and girl-show operators copied scenic ideas, dance routines, and the music used in big revues like the Ziegfeld Follies. As new dances came along, the showmen put their own spin to them, perhaps adding more spice and less wardrobe to make their show a little racier

than what downtown offered. Throughout the years, no matter what attractions, games, or rides came and went on the showgrounds, one constant carnival attraction was the girl shows. When you walked onto the carnival grounds, you knew you were going to find a merry-goround and a girl show.

From the start of the touring carnival into the 1930s, most carnival companies carried a band. The main function was to provide music for the ballys on the shows. The band also played concerts in the town each day to advertise the carnival. This is the Clarence Wortham Shows band and lady vocalist on the courthouse steps in Vermillion, S.D., in 1919.

13

BILLBOARD

THE SHOWMAN'S BIBLE Billboard magazine is truly the textbook of popular culture in America up until 1962. It was founded by William H. Donaldson in 1894 as a trade journal for the outdoor bill-posting profession, but soon became the leading weekly paper covering popular music, minstrels, theater, tabloid shows, burlesque, pitchmen, Wild West shows, circuses, and carnivals — any amusement that was barnstorming the countryside. Because show people were itinerant, Billboard gave them a permanent address, at least a paper one, and a way of communicating with each other. Soon Billboard was handling and forwarding over 1,000 pieces of mail daily for show folks. Donaldson campaigned for women's rights in 1915 as he thought it would help women in show-business professions. He successfully drove home a campaign for the government to create a Public Defender so that show folks without local friends or money could get legal advice if they ran afoul of the law. He also stood up for minorities and in 1920 started a special page in Billboard to encourage and recognize black showmen and women.

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15

SHOW TRAINS Trains were the primary mode of transportation for shows from the 1870s until the Great Depression, when the auto truck superseded it. Being a rail show was a status symbol amongst carnival owners who boasted about how many railroad cars they needed. In the horse-drawn-show days, the shows' movements were limited to very short distances and most circuses just played every town or village they came to. Railroads afforded showmen the luxury of planning a route based on what they thought were good towns. Many touring midways moved as "gilly" shows — all the equipment traveled in rented box and baggage cars and had to be "gillied," or transported in rented drayage wagons or trucks to and from the lot. The rail showman could own his own "show" flat cars or he could lease cars from the railway. Most carnival owners ran the train like a hotel. They rented you a wagon to haul your attraction and charged you to load it on the flat car. Staff were rented bunks (two and three to a bunk) and state rooms in the coaches. Each car had a porter who kept it tidy and provided clean linen twice a week. Most shows had a kitchen

A crowd gathers to watch the Hennies Bros. Shows unload beside a fairground in the 1940s. The wagon is the first one off the flats and down the "runs," or loading ramps. The two men at front have the most dangerous job — holding the wagon pole straight. The man coming up alongside the wagon holds a snubbing block on a steel handle, which he can slip in front of a wheel to stop the wagon if it begins to roll. A show bannerline is loaded on the side of the wagon in brackets.

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on the train called a pie car that fed staff mornings and late nights and over the runs. Many owners clawed back workers' wages by selling booze and running gambling concerns. The heyday of the big show trains was in the 1920s through the 1940s but several of the big carnival shows remained on rails up into the 1970s. The James E. Strates Shows that went on rails prior to the Depression remains the only rail carnival traveling today. The last two under-canvas circuses to move by rails were Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus and the Clyde Beatty Circus. Both switched to trucks after the 1956 season. A decade or so later the Ringling show would return to the train but the show itself was no longer in tents but in indoor arenas. At present, two units of the Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus move by train between venues in North America.

Two show workers wait for the gilly truck in the doorway of a CPR boxcar in the rail yards in Sydney, Nova Scotia, early 1970s. This 20-car train carried the famous Bill Lynch shows, the last gilly show in North America

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Wit.

WHAT'S UP FRONT CONTS Show Fronts, Banners, Stages, and Tops

he carnival show front was something col, orful and high that would conceal the plain s tent where the attraction was presented. Its colors, signage, and pictorials were meant to distinguish this show from others in the rows of attractions. The front served as a backdrop for the bally entertainers just as scenery does for theatrical performers. The front had to stop midwaygoers and then hold their attention long enough for the talker to draw them before his bally stage and start his opening. The front's length kept the ballys and spiels of nearby shows a safe distance away so the crowd was not distracted while the talkers worked.

The first walk-over ballys on the big sitdown girl revues were made to look like entrances to music halls or theaters, with a heavy ornate lobby feel to them suggesting a quality show. This marquee entrance look was maintained through the decades. On smaller girl shows the canvas banners and panel fronts offered sexy pictorial artwork and tabloid lettering that ignited the male patron's mind to the decadent adventure waiting inside. The big challenge for scenic artists and front builders was to make something that looked substantial but was easily portable by wagon or railway baggage car. 19

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British showman E. H. Bostock wrote in Worlds Fair in 1939 about wagonmounted show fronts dating back to 1872 with some of them being sixty feet in length when set up. He said that his "best front was a little thirty-eight foot one built in 1883 by Mr. Watson of Belper. This was the show front that I would have success with time after time and it was the first English front to reach America where it was lucky for my late brother Frank Bostock for some years." The elaborate carved fronts of the wild animal shows British showmen Frank

Page 18: A single-wagon girl-show front on Gaskill Carnival, early 1900s.

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Bostock and Joseph Ferari brought to America in the 1890s served as the prototype for wagon-mounted show fronts on American carnivals for the next half century. On the English fairground, along with

Right: A concert band poses in front of a very fine one-wagon show front on the A.L. Heinz Shows, 1916. Braces extend from the top of the end panels down onto the bally platform, with blocks of wood to keep them from sliding forward. The top piece folds flat over the "Isle D'Moure" panel, which hinges and falls backwards onto the roof for transit.

Above: A row of one- and two-wagon fronts at a Gatskill and Mundy midway, late 1 890s. Lavish carvings, mirrors, and painted scenes embellish (from left) the wild animal show, girl show, mirror maze, and musical comedy attractions.

the menagerie shows, the most decorated fronts were those of the bioscope shows, the early traveling cinemas. Like the wild animal shows they needed a strong, appealing front, as they often played alone in towns. These bioscope fronts likely inspired the fancy marquee and entrance facades to permanent cinemas. An early nickelodeon theater in America used one of the Gaskill-Mundy show fronts as a facade. Some early fronts used by Bostock and Ferari were made by Orton and Spooner —

British fairground builders of fronts, carousels, and living wagons noted for their superb quality carvings. The main feature of these early wagon fronts was the walk-over bally or "cross-over," which let the crowd see customers appear on the stage after buying tickets, then walk across and disappear into the tent. Everyone wanted to follow. The first show fronts used by Gaskill were theatrical scenery flats nailed over a wooden frame with nondescript lithos pasted on for decoration. American show-

An early wild-animal front on Gaskill Carnival Co., early 1900s, resembles British menagerie show fronts of the previous century. The steps are painted to mimic marble, a popular decoration on British rides of the era. The organ on the front platform could weigh up to one and a half tons. It could be pushed on rollers into a front panel wagon at either side or, if too heavy, left on a small flat wagon.

Top: Shirley Francis's "Mecca" girl show on the 1922 Rubin and Cherry Shows. This style of front with a projected porch section supported by the two pillars on both sides of the bally platform was probably designed in America by Captain Fred Lewis, who patterned their design after the fronts used by Bostock and Wombwells' Menagerie in England during the 1 880s. Bottom: This elaborate front used in England by Bostock and Wombwells is composed of two wagons. The ticket box is in between the wagons. Early movie theaters and American show fronts took their architectural style from these English fronts.

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A highly carved minstrel-show front of L.C. Toland's Cotton Club Revue, Beckmann and Gerety, 1936. The lion carvings suggest this might once have been a front for a wild-animal show. The canvas behind the seated man covers a small organ or calliope, and guy lines on either side of the front secure the structure against strong winds.

Early carved fronts on the W.E. Groff Shows train, circa 1920.

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men were quick to wagon-mount their various attractions for easy set-up and moving out. Midway pioneer Gaskill, partnered with J. P. Mundy by 1902, had a beautiful midway sporting six wagonmounted fronts by Leonhard Wagon Manufacturing Co. in Baltimore. Francis and Joseph Ferari sans Bostock also had Leonhard build them fronts. The 1903 Ferari Bros. Midway was said to have been the best show built so far with three wagon fronts for the wild animal show, the dog and pony show, the moving picture show, the London Ghost show, and Akoun's Mysterious Asia show. Single-wagon front shows were the Statue Turning To Life, McKay's Girl Show, and Potters and Rice Circus. A total of eight shows with wagon fronts and six of them sporting large band organs. Carousel builders Marcus Illions and C.W Parker both built show fronts for carnival showmen. Parker's factory in Leavenworth, Kansas, in the early 1900s had a reputation among showmen for finepress steel fronts on iron wheel wagons. These fronts featured a myriad of mirrors, cut glass, and zinc and cast

Mrs. Rook's Oriental show on Flack's Great North Western gilly show, circa 1910, provides a good example of the single-banner girl-show front as painted by Hayden, Beverly, and other banner companies.

metal carvings. Another early front builder was H.L.Witt of Knoxville,Tennessee, who created fronts for Johnny J. Jones and K.G. Barkoot. As circuses closed or abandoned their parades, some carnivals picked up the highly detailed circus band and tableau wagons, using their carvings on their show fronts. In 1929 the Henry Ford Museum acquired the John Robinson calliope, focusing interest on preservation of these wagons. Today fewer than one hundred circus parade wagons survive in museums, but not a single carved carnival show front remains. As the carnival business and the big railroad carnivals developed, most shows built everything they could in-house.

Captain Fred Lewis, who came over with Bostock and was his head zoo director and animal procurer for many years, also designed a front wagon he called a transformation wagon because of how it all folded up. By the teens many shows were copying his design and referring to them as "porch" fronts. By 1925 Lewis had opened a scenic and front-building shop in Richmond, Virginia. Two of his fronts were

By the 1950s, few girl-show operators still used banners and a bannerline. This Girlisk show on Mark's Shows is as basic as a girl-show setup gets, harkening back to the days of earlier midway girl shows.

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Top: By the late teens and early 1920s, many larger carnivals sported these porch-like entrances. This type of front thrust the main bally area into the midway and gave the top section more profile than when the bally area was flush with the rest of the front. Center: A very ornate front on Beckmann and Gerety for Nancy Miller's Gay Paree girl revue, 1936. The bally sports a calliope and carvings decorate the end of the wagon inside the bally opening. The panels are tied down as a precaution against strong winds. Bottom: The United Shows of America, formerly Morris and Castle Shows, replaced the old carved fronts on the show in 1 934 with these new steel-framed, canvasdraped fronts, but this style proved impractical and unpopular with showmen and was susceptible to wind damage. Producer Elsie Calvert stands near the drummer at the right of the bally.

used on World of Mirth until 1938. From the teens through the twenties most girlshow revue fronts on large shows consisted of gold-leaf-covered ornate carvings with brilliant white or light blue backgrounds. The best examples of these were the fronts built on the Johnny J. Jones and the C.A. Wortham shows, the latter using carvings from the Spanger Bros, in Chicago. The smaller showman, with his more modest budget, put up a bannerline — a front of canvas banners hung from upright poles. Banners made by individual painters and tent firms were already being used on circus side shows. Early girl-show fronts were large single canvas banners with an entrance doorway cut in the center. E. J. 24

Hayden and Co. in Brooklyn was an early supplier of these single fronts with typical measurements of 22 feet high and 38 feet long. Some operators used three or more smaller banners to make a front. Wellknown show-banner painters plus many of the tent manufacturing companies that retained banner painters on staff built up a stock of banners so a showman needing a girl-show front banner in a hurry could be supplied off the shelf. By the 1920s many small showmen were using small solid fronts built up of wooden panels that provided a front no matter what the wind conditions. The banner and panel fronts were often used by the gilly showmen, their decoration limited to paintings, since the panels had to load through side doors of box cars and stack easily. Decorative carvings wouldn't load flat and were fragile. In a 1934 Billboard story, R. L. Lohmar, partner in the new United Shows of America, said they "discarded all the old carved fronts, substituting framework fabricated from pipe and special steel castings. We then made another radical departure in covering these frames with solid fabric that fitted like a glove. In the final decoration we dispensed with lurid paintings and distorted claims and used a color scheme

consisting of binary colors. The only lettering on the front was on the top title panel." Although their show route lay in one of the most depressed areas of the country, Lohmar credited the new fronts with bringing show grosses up 30%. By the end of the 1930s the progressive nature of the showmen had ended the era of the wonderful carved fronts with their costly carvings and generous applications of gold leaf. The cluttered, old-fashioned look made way for the modernistic, clean front highlighted with new neon lights. Girl-show fronts became clean and shiny with fewer paintings and more enlarged photographs of the performers on the front panels. Some front builders achieved near legendary status. James Yotas Sr. rebuilt the James E. Strates Shows after they were destroyed in the 1940s while stored in tobacco barns in Mullens, S.C. Another master builder was Charles Kidder, whose wife, Maybelle, produced girl shows. He spent fifteen years making fronts for World

Top: Small wild-animal front on the Mighty Sheesley, Midway, 1920s. Detailed paintings, carvings, and rows of light bulbs surround the bally platform, which holds what seems to be only the facade of an organ. The men stand on a small runway that would project the talker into the midway crowd when making his opening. Center: A panel front for the Oh Susanna girl shows on Convention Shows, 1940. This type of front was used on small truck shows and by gilly showmen. Bottom: A more garish panel front that Joe Kara toured on the Bill Lynch Shows in eastern Canada, 1952. Making the bally, from left, are Josephine, Sheri Marco, and Kara doing the talking. The front is a steel bannerline frame, with hinged wooden panels.

of Mirth and Royal American. In 1946 he settled on a farm in Pinker ton, Virginia, where he opened a shop to build show equipment including two fronts for the Strates midway. In 1947 he was in the show's winter quarters in Jacksonville, Florida, building a new front for the Charm Hour Revue that was 120 feet long and cost $20,000. Jack Norman used this front for his Broadway to Hollywood Revues on Strates until the mid-1950s. There always seemed to be a lot of wagon-building going on around the old World of Mirth Shows. Frank Bergen, the owner, was trained as a wagon builder by the Feraris during the First World War. WOM wintered in the Richmond, Virginia, fairgrounds and in 1948 they built a girl25

show front that featured a double-decked bally. From about this time on all the big jig shows on rail carnivals featured this style of front. When ballying, the musicians went up top while dancers, comics, and talker stayed below. Leon Claxton's front in the 1950s on Royal used stairs on each side of the wagon's center entrance to go up to the top level. The 1960s Club Paradise jig show on Strates used an overhead bally for the band but its access was by a ladder behind the front wagon. Another feature on big bally fronts popular in the 1940s was canvas canopies that extended from the top of the wagon front out into the midway thirty or forty feet, supported by poles. The canopy sheltered the tip, the performers, and the talkers from both rain and hot sun. H. C. Landaker, who spent fourteen years building fronts for Beckmann and 26

Left: One of the most modernistic fronts on a girl show was this Charm Hour built in the 1940s, with smooth round corners and various box-like pieces protruding. The only pictorials are the blowups on either side of the doorway. Center: This 1 968 Raynell-managed Girlesque show on James Strates was a remake of the Club Paradise black revue front. Right: Neon-lit pilons separate the pictorial panels on this 1940s Johnny J. Jones streamlined girl-show front with a modern entrance resembling that of a moviehouse. This is an all-girl show — the performers, ticket sellers, and the talker are all women.

Gerety and one season for Kennies, said that in designing a front he would take into account how many people were in the show, the size of the top, and the size of the front wanted. He also had to determine the height and how many wagons the show would load into. When it came to painting the front he stayed away from dark greens and red that soaked up the sun. Instead, he often used white, which customers associated with cleanliness. He put lots of emphasis on details because they make the front stand out.

Landaker's wagon fronts in the 1940s created a "shop window" effect and their modernistic pylons and rounded corner pieces added to the futuristic aura. The Expose front on Beckmann and Gerety, the Charm Hour front on Strates, and the

Maid'n'America front on Cavalcade of Amusements reflect his ideas. By 1945 Billboard was announcing that plastics pioneered by the emerging jukebox industry were the new flash on fronts. Carl Sedlmyr on Royal was said to be one of the first carnies to use these when he fitted plastic columns onto the girl and jig fronts. In was into the late forties and early fifties before we saw pit shows mounted on trucks on circuses. Many circuses went to solid side-show fronts built on wagons o or semi-trailers, replacing the traditional individual canvas banners, and a debate over which was best started. Most showmen still believed the "rag" front won more money than the solid front but had to agree the solid front didn't have to be taken down in strong winds. Most truckborne girl-show fronts of this era were

built with no walk-over ballys as the inside truck body served as the dressing room and the stage was hinged off the back side of the truck. A doorway was cut in one of the front panels on the non-cab end of the truck or semi for the patrons to enter. This was the pattern followed for small shows and cooch shows to the end. Most girl-show fronts by the 1940s featured blow-ups, also popular in lobbies or out-front displays at burlesque show theaters. 8" x 10" glossies of dancers were enlarged to 48" x 84", mounted on heavy cardboard or Masonite, and put into an ornate wooden frame. Color photos of this size were too expensive up into the 1960s and showmen had the photography studio hand-color some of the highlights — the girl's hair, wardrobe, shoes. Sometimes sparkles were added for effect.

A corrugated-metal girl-show front on the World of Mirth, 1940s, overturned by a violent storm.

Top: Blowups as art work on a front, Prells Broadway Shows, 1952. Bottom: "Harem," a small girl-show front painted with an Oriental desert motif and built on the body of a truck, is offered for sale at the Gibsonton, Florida, trade show, 1973. The inside stage is folded up against the back of the truck.

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Top: The new design and scenery for the 1935 season on the inside stage of Elsie Calvert's girl show on United Shows of America. The center pole is about ten feet from the stage front; A-frames weren't popular on girl shows until the 1940s. Bottom: Fancy drapery closes off the sides and a set of stairs for posing girls runs down the back on this girl-show stage on Hennies Bros., circa 1937. A small circular runway, one of the few used on a carnival girl show, is similar to the ones surrounding the orchestra pit in a burlesque theater.

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Probably the most admired painter of show equipment was William Verne "Duke" Ash from Winnipeg, Manitoba. His main canvas in the 1960s was the James E. Strates Shows whose wagons he took from red with silver lettering to painted wagons of every color and pattern, ranging from tartan plaids to lettering dripping blood. One advantage Duke had over other painters was that he could not only letter but do excellent pictorial work. He was usually found painting around the lot perched on a scaffold, dressed only in a loincloth. Snap Wyatt was considered one of the best banner painters of the last half-century. He was also a show-front painter and maker of papier-mache figures for use in side shows and attractions. But Bobby Wicks probably painted and designed more girl-show fronts than anybody. He painted for all the leading rail shows and by the 1950s was the painter on Royal American Shows, which, at its peak of ninety rail cars and over a hundred wagons, was a constant job. Bobby was also a fine pictorial artist as well as letterer. His oil paintings are highly valued among show people. Another oldtimer was tattooist Ralf Johnson, who painted the girl fronts on Cavalcade of Amusements. W O. Burke, the other artist

Top right: Veteran show painter Bobby Wicks sketches a showgirl for a pose he'll enlarge onto the front panels of the girl show on Royal American, early 1950s. Bottom right: Wicks varnishes a finished painting on the Moulin Rouge girl-show front on Royal American, 1955.

Artist Duke Ash, wearing his regular painting outfit, puts the final touches on a girl-show front for Century 21 Shows at their Iowa Free Fair stand in 1971.

Jack's designs and color schemes. After leaving Conklin he designed sets for Broadway shows and several fronts for Strates Shows. He designed many features in amusement parks including Nu-Pike, Long Beach, California, Palisades Park in N.J., and Pontchartrain Beach park in New Orleans, as well as designing the midway area at the Seattle World Fair. Today Bill Browning is one of the last of the show brush painters. During the 1970s and 1980s he mostly painted on the James E. Strates midway. Like Ash and Wick he is good at both lettering and pictorial work. His present forte is fun-house and darkride fronts. There are a few air-brush artists who do mostly carnival work, such as Johnny Bell and Dave Knodderer. But the fastest is a guy called The Wizard. The art work of show artists covered miles when seen on strings of railway cars, wagon sides, and show fronts. These true X

who did the lettering on Cavalcade, got fed up with Al Wagner always stalling him on his pay and fatally shot Wagner. One of the biggest influences on girlfront designs and show art work was John C. (Jack) Ray, born in Edmonton, Alberta. He studied commercial art and had his own studio before moving into theatrical set designing. When Patty Conklin got the 1937 contract for the Toronto CNE midway he hired Ray to do all the fronts for the shows, and Jack changed the fronts every year until 1959. He designed front gates, concession stands, and various decorative pieces for Conklin over the years. Showmen came to the CNE to check out

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"The front to stop midway trotters" Jack Ray, who designed and built this front for the Conklin Shows midway at the Toronto CNE in the 1950s, was a master designer of theatrical scenery, sometimes creating as many as ten new fronts a year.

Bottom left: One of the biggest girl-show fronts built was on Royal American Shows and used for Sally Rand (1948), Gypsy Rose Lee (1949), and Bonnie Baker (1950), before being transformed into the Moulin Rouge front. Here it is in 1951, with feature Yvette Dare in a show produced by Leon Miller. Bottom right: The back of the Moulin Rouge front. The left front panels are supported by a steel framework, and further steel pipes on the roof of the wagon support signs and twin windmills.

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"How to undress before your husband!" One of the simplest girl shows was found on J.C. Weer's lot in the 1940s.

geniuses of the show-art world saw their work get repainted, changed, or fade away in winter-quarter scrap piles as equipment was discarded or wore out. Girl shows have been presented behind all kinds of fronts and banners, but the story is told of a penniless 1930s carny who was trying to operate a girl show with just himself and his wife. They had a small tent, a bally platform, three ticket boxes, a wooden bannerline but no banners. He solved his decorating problem by simply hanging his wife's underwear, bras, and G-strings where the banners should've gone. Business improved quickly and they had a nice season.

A small front built on an army surplus wagon on Metropolitan, a short-lived railroad show. This front was likely used for a single-O girl show.

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SHOW TENTS FOR LARGE REVENUES

Feature dancer Val Valentine stands in the middle of the heart at the top of the stairs on Jack Norman's show with Strates, circa 1960. Beside the band is comedy team McConnell and Moore, and on the far side the Sulo Kippo novelty act and the show's singer. The black curtains are hung on cables strung between the A-frames, and the blocks are used to pull the frame, attached to a sleeve, up the quarter pole on the left side of the tent.

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Early girl-show tents were just ordinary square-end or round-end tents of small sizes and low side walls. By the twenties the large revue-style tents with "dramatic" ends and high side walls were being used. W A. Eiler designed the first dramatic end tent in 1904. He was one of the top men in the one-night dramatic field using wagons and one or two railway cars to move his show. Later, the Baker-Lockwood Tent Co. was the first to offer the "dramatic end" tent in their regular production of showmen's tents. The first ones were crude and didn't shape out well, but the company spent considerable cash perfecting the style. This firm was also the first to put out the telescoping center poles that allowed midway shows to carry wider and higher tents. By the 1920s they were also offering tents in many dark colors besides the standard khaki.The dark tents let girl revues use better lighting and scenic effects. Most girl-show stages were built on a saw-horse or jack-supported stage framework, covered with stage floor sections laid on top. Many were built on wagons or the stage platforms were hinged and folded up against the side of the wagon, leaving the interior available for carrying material, then acting as a dressing room when unloaded. Snapp Bros. Shows in 1922 boasted a girl-show stage built on two wagons, with all the flies made of velvet plush. Another feature was an eighteen-foot-long runway studded with red and white lights that projected into the audience. The orchestra pit folded up, making a crate for the piano. In the 1930s the A-frame was introduced, which eliminated the center poles in the middle of the seating areas in revue tents and allowed audiences an unobstructed view of the

stage. The A-frame over the front of the stage also served as a frame to hang the proscenium from and a solid anchor to attach the main curtain track. Tents were of two types: push pole for smaller tents and bale ring for large round-end tents. Midway revues used square-ended push pole tents. The inside proscenium or frame around the stage, either of canvas or curtains, was very decorative in girl shows and hid the backstage area from the audience's view. On big girl revues the backs of the stages were usually draped with fancy material to match the front curtain color. Jack Norman's shows usually had big staircases at the back with drapes (often parachutes) behind them. Leon Miller had elaborate back drapes in front of which he would place boxes and pillars at different heights that girls would pose on during the production numbers. Usually the only girl shows with painted scenes were the Hawaiian shows and they all had elaborately painted stage scenery with back scenes and side wings painted like palm trees. Joy Fleenor recalled working on the Hawaiian show on Royal with her folks in a scene where all the lights in the tent would dim and a lighted cruise boat would go across in front of the back scenery on a wire.

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GIRLS & GRIFT ON

THE SHOWGROUND let me show you a little lady's you're going to like

, he popularity of the hoochie-coochie dance after the 1893 Chicago World's Fair saw it performed in vaudeville, burlesque theaters, saloons, smokers, carnivals, and the circus side show. The wedding between circus side-show cooch and the grift was almost instantaneous. The girls drew the men in and, through various games of chance, the grift worked them over. Even men who went in with their families were cleverly separated from wives and children once inside. The inside lecturer would tell the crowd he had something special at the opposite end of the tent just for the ladies and kids. The men were

then lured into a closed-off portion of the tent to see the cooch dancers. If the grift were not openly working in the side show, they were certainly standing at the ready by their ironing boards and "tripes" in the cooch area. The old-time circus grifter and carnival flattie are characters of the past. Even if Good Kid Louie, Jake the Snake, or Chicago Yellow were here today and willing to pass on their trade, it would be hard to find students eager to learn such a demanding and precarious business. Once in a while you still see grift operations off the show grounds in the form of three-card-monte mobs. They seem slick 35

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"Gather round, gents, and let us sjow you how

they raffle off turkeys in China"

Page 34: The side-show manager prepares to make the opening on the 1917 Al G. Barnes Circus after the main show has let out. He won't have much trouble selling these military recruits a ticket to see the act the young ladies on the bally will do for them inside the tent.

The side-show manager at Howes Great London Shows & Van Amburg's Trained Wild Animal Circus makes an opening with the dancers on the blow-off of the main performance. The unusual positioning of the bally platform and ticket boxes is a ploy to stop the crowd.

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until you watch how they dump their victim. A real old-time flattie would never leave a mark wailing and never take all his scratch. This guy was just as adapt at "cooling the mark out" as at taking his bank roll. Some showmen and women were pretty hardened toward towners and in most cases they were justified. It didn't take long working on a touring show to get sick of the public, or as show folk so politely put it, to become "sucker sore." Besides the hundreds of questions you got daily from the curious townsfolk, you had to deal with corrupt law officials, high licence fees, poor water or electric supply, corrupt town fathers, unforeseen bills, and a steady stream of pass seekers. In many towns the local moviehouse operator — threatened by this new form of entertainment — had already whipped the townspeople into a frenzy about the show coming to town and taking thousands of dollars away. Some merchants wouldn't sell to show people, while many

hotels and motels wouldn't rent them rooms. If the smallest crime took place while the show was in town, it was blamed on "those show folks." Many criminals knew this and used it to their advantage. Even into the 1960s carnival office expense sheets had columns headed "Shakes," meaning shakedowns by local law and civic officials. When you're traveling and earning your living by showing each day, you have no choice but to pay up, shut up, and show. Shortchanging, controlled games, and various rackets seemed the only way to stay even. But the grift weren't completely heartless — they usually drew the line at children and cripples. Con games of all sorts go back to the times when people first had money in their pockets. Some of the biggest scores on shows often came off farmers who had just sold animals at the auction or market and had a few thousand dollars in their pocket.

Elmer Jones' three-car show in Canada, 1920s. To the right of the midway is a pit show, a ball toss game, and a concession stand, and opposite these the side show. Near the marquee sits a small ticket wagon.

By chance they stopped by the circus or carnival — and by another chance they lost their money. In fact, one thing that has killed grift on circuses and carnivals today is the credit card — folks rarely carry much cash on them. The one bad thing about working grift around shows was its openness. You had thousands of people on the lot, and twice as many eyes. Circus showmen quickly moved the ogrift inside the side shows,* menagerie o tents, and the connection to the big top. Here the mob could encircle its prey and work with few interruptions.

On some circuses the cooch was only operated in the side show after the crowd had come out from seeing the circus performance, not on the way in. Henry Thompson, a veteran side-show operator who "swallowed swords, ate fire, threw knives, did Punch and Judy, and beat the bass drum for the cooch," says that on several of the truck circuses in the fifties he could only work the cooch on the last show at night. As the crowd came out of the marquee they were greeted by Henry and his spiel: "Wait a minute, wait a minute, look in the doorway, look in the doorway, see who you can see from TV land." He gestured toward a dummy made up like Howdy Doody. "Wait just a minute. This is where you're going to see the mogul show, the after guy show, the oldtime coochie-coochie show where we are going to shake it, break it, tear it down to

The side show on one of Elmer Jones' two-car circuses. The one-woman-band act entertains the women and children on one side of the curtain while her music moves the cooch dancers entertaining the men on the other side. A two-car circus had a coach where everyone on the show slept and a small galley kitchen where they took turns eating, and another gutted coach to carry equipment and animals.

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the ground, but we're not going to drop it because it is so hot, boys and girls, we don't want to leave blisters on your hands. This is where you will hear the cannon roar, see the flame, and smell the smoke. You're at the right place at the right time. Let all the short boys come down front where they can see the whole darn show." Once inside, there was a very brief side-show performance and the pitch for Crowd emerges from the 1939 Cole Bros. Circus to be confronted by the side-show bally with girl dancers. The ticket box in the foreground was used to collect a service charge that the circus collected on the "free" passes.

Billboard ad, August 23, 1941.

Fancy painted proscenium separating the cooch area from the rest of the Cole Bros. Circus side show circa 1940s.

"This is an old game of Do-Dittle-andDuck! The more you put down the more you pick up!" 38

the cooch blow-off, and Henry collected the money for the after-show in a cigar box. After the girls did a short dance, he would come onstage and announce, "The girls are getting ready behind the curtain for the special dance of the night, but before they come out and while you are waiting we have some games for the men amongst you." Henry and the cigar box slipped behind the curtain and out of the tent. The dancers had already left. The grift got what they could, then the side wall was dropped and the tent came down. Another veteran, Todd Davenport, described his days trouping on Elmer Jones' two-car circus out of Warren, Pennsylvania: "A guy by the name of Professor Geo (Oram) King had the side show, assisted by his wife, Nellie. The Professor made his

spiel about the sword box in the side show and I stood beside the box. The little lady assistant came up onstage in a dressing robe and I helped her out of her robe. There she stood in high-heel pumps and bra and panties. I helped her into the sword box and closed the lid and out would fly the bra and the panties. The Professor rammed home the swords and then he invited any 'red-blooded ladies and gentlemen' who wished to see the young lady imprisoned by the swords, to step up

and hand me a dime and have a look in the box. I would have several dollars in dimes each time, which the professor could hardly wait to relieve me of. "The kid show did not have a band," Davenport continued, "but the Professor's wife played different instruments. He introduced her as Miss Nellie King, Beautiful Young Musical Genius. She was old and fat but may have been beautiful in her John Robinson days. She would sit on a chair and play a trumpet and kick a drum. In the

Duke Kamakura's Hawaiian act in the Cole Bros, side show, 1943. Dancers Leona Teodorio (left) and Jeanie Carvalhia swivel their hips, while Jeanie's husband Joe plays guitar and Duke himself strums a Hawaiian guitar.

Leona Teodorio was the feature cooch dancer on the Cole Bros, side show through the 1940s and on other circuses in the 1950s. A versatile performer, she could also work in the elephant act and aerial ballet.

meantime, the Professor had drawn the men aside and made a pitch for the cooch dancing. So the music that was entertaining the women and kids played by Mrs. King was also the music that the cooch dancers were dancing to on the other side of the canvas curtain. While the cooch was going on, the two grifters were working away." In the 1940s, the Dailey Bros.' reputation as a grift show was as loud as the posters advertising its features. "Gyspy Red" Jackson, who played trombone in the black minstrel band in the side show, relates that 40

the bandstand was placed at the head of the midway end of the tent, and one of his jobs was to peek over the top of the wall every so often and keep a lookout for police. If he saw cops, the band quickly swung into "Deep in the Heart of Texas" and the grift let their ironing boards fall to the ground, then joined the crowd watching whatever side-show act was in progress. Once the police had left the tent, the grift would go back to work with a cry of "Gather round, gents, and let us show you how they raffle off turkeys in China."

Left: Cooch dancer on the Cole Bros. Circus in Benton Harbor, Michigan, 1937. Center: Cooch dancer Raselyne Wenzel on Cole Bros. Right: Cooch dancer in the blow-off of the Cole Bros. Circus, 1940s. The curtain behind her separates the blow-off from the rest of the tent.

If the grift was at full strength, there would be four men to each mob for the three-shell game and tossing the broads (three-card monte). The shell game was often referred to as the "greasy pig," or the "hixs" in the South. Two sticks, an outside

man, and a dealer were employed for this grift. When a stick won, he would discreetly give his loot to the outside man, who would count it and feed it back to the stick. The stick would gamble along with the mark, egging the mark on to raise the wager, and ultimately they would both lose their money. On Dailey Bros., the side show was curtained off at one end and this area was

divided into two sections. Once the men were given the cooch pitch and stepped behind the curtain, they were confronted with the grift. When the grift got all they could, the men were directed to the other section where the cooch dancers took over. The side-show performance after the main show at night, from the time the side-show manager made his first opening until the girls danced, was about forty minutes. By

Various help-wanted ads in Billboard, late 1940s-early 1950s. Innocent-looking to the uninitiated, these ads were actually recruitment calls for various grifters.

The two dancing girls on the bally have drawn quite a crowd at this side-show opening on the 1945 Austin Bros. Circus, a ten-car show that lasted only one season.

41

the time the girls hit the small stage the tent was almost down, just the last center pole standing and the last round end pieces being held up by a couple of side poles and the side-show working crew holding the guy ropes. Once the last girl flashed, the lone light went out, and the side-show crew released the guy ropes, dropping the canvas onto the heads of the towners. By the time they got out from under the canvas, the girls and the grift were on their way to the train coaches.

In the early 1950s on Johnny Denton's Gold Medal Shows, Bill English, an accomplished banner salesman, side-show operator, and soon-to-be circus owner, operated one of the girl shows. "There were three girl shows on the lot and the office sent down a three-card monte and a shell mob that worked from one to the other of the girl shows," explains English. "The mob was run by Kobe Cole, a very experienced grifter. Besides the operator there were three men on each game: a booster handler, who lined up a couple of local guys as sticks to handle the play; a shade, whose job was simply to lean this way and that way to cover the play from anyone not

The Dailey Bros. Circus side show setup, with the show's big top behind it, Guelph, Ontario, 1949. The circus had well-organized grift, including the "razzle" joint set up near the right end of the bannerline.

The cooch blow-off on the Dailey Bros., late 1940s. Most of the tent is already down, with only the one round end containing the dancers still standing. A "gilly" vehicle waits to take the girls and the grift to the train. The show wanted a big Western star to feature, but had to settle for Gene Autry's cousin Doug. The side of one of the wagons reads "Doug Autry In Person" — it had originally omitted the first name, but Gene got a court order to remedy that.

A cooch performer on the Torchy Lee show. Her outfit features net gloves, fringe pants, and a seethrough panel.

over: 'Hey, guys, while you're waiting for the girls to start, let me show you a little lady I know you're going to like!' He was referring to the Queen in the deck of cards. The towners thought they were going to see a nude photograph or something along that line and hurried over. The first guy to play was quickly closed in by the rest of the mob. "The circus grift looked just like the rest of the towners on the lot. They blended in. Cole's outside man was often dressed in Prell's Broadway Shows, 1951.

directly involved; and the outside man, who encouraged the mark and sometimes scurried around uptown during the day to line up marks. The booster handler nudged the two sticks when it was their turn to bet, and when they were going to win he passes them the money, but they were never allowed to hold on to the money. They were paid a few dollars and got in to see the girl shows free. The grift were usually lined up first by the ticket box and were the first in leading the tip, or audience, after the talker made his turn. They set up in the back of the tent next to the side wall where they could duck out fast. The dealer would call some of the towners

Miami Whitey (center) and his crew working a "nail" joint on Hennies Bros., 1937. "This was the craziest joint of all of them to work," said Whitey. "You're trying to rob the mark and you arm him with a hammer!"

44

railroader coveralls, cap, and railroad watch. When he was working he would withdraw that big watch from his coveralls and check the time every so often. Very convincing. One of the outside man's jobs was to put the crimp or bend in the card when the dealer turned around to spit or bent down to pick up some money he

dropped. The outside man encouraged the mark to put more money up on a sure thing and of course the dealer would straighten out the crimp in the first pass." Once a mark lost a bundle at a game, there was no way of knowing how he'd react. On the front-end flat and alibi stores, some laid their heads down on the counter in anguish, and the little board at the front of the joint that shaded the play became known as the "weeping board." On Wallace Bros, shows the mark was often taken in tow by "Big Nick," a huge friendly Ukrainian outside man who would steer the mark to a local bar, get him drunk, and leave him there. Most times a big loser was followed to see if he was going to the police. If the fix was in — the police had been looked after — there was no problem. When the mark got to the police station, his story was carefully noted. He was then told that the police would go to the show grounds and arrest the game operators. However, the mark was cautioned that, having gambled, he would also be arrested. Perhaps it would be best for him to just go home and forget about it. They usually did.

Miami Whitey (center) works a "blower" joint in the early 1950s. He adopted his moniker after spending his first winter between shows in Florida — Miami Red had already been taken.

Dixie, a dancer on Wolfe Shows, 1952, wears a bra-and-panty set with fringes that exaggerate her movements.

SEX ON THE HALF SHELL Girl Shows of Every Nature

ince the turn of the century, many types of shows have presented the female body to the American public on carnivals. The earliest format outside the regular girl show to draw the attention of the law was the "down in the well" show. In England as early as 1899 showmen were presenting to the public, especially men, the erotic effects of wet clothing on females. That year saw a show at the St. Giles Fair, Oxford, England, called The Collier's Lovely Daughter, which featured a young girl in wet underwear reclining at the bottom of a flooded mine. This presentation

probably served as the blueprint for "down in the well" showmen. This American hybrid featured a high platform that patrons would climb to look down into a circular wooden dry well, in which a scantily clad girl posed. A photo of one on Weider Amusement Co. in 1911 depicts a single banner proclaiming "Beautiful Pauline" in front of a wagon platform show with very high steps. Small letters over the doorway read, "Way down deep in all her glory." Another early attraction that stirred up the local constabulary was the '49 Camp. At 47

CHAPTER

3

Page 46: Legs-A-Weigh Loreli: Sex on the Half Shell was produced by veteran burlesque man George Pranath and appeared on Jack Norman's girl-show on Strates, 1955. Here Loreli (in white) greets the crowd without her shell — although all her pearls seem in order.

Rocky Mountain Cabaret, on Clifton Kelley Shows at Hattisburg, Mississippi, 1917, is a typical '49 Camp show as seen on carnivals in the early 1900s. The talker leans on his megaphone as the show band files back through the doorway after rustling up a tip.

Above: The "down-in-the-well show," such as this one on Weider American Co., Coalton, Ohio, 1911, was among the earliest of girl shows to be censored.

these shows, modeled after early miningtown saloons, customers could rent girls by the dance. Billboard ads for a cabaret show in 1919 on Veal Bros. Shows offered girls ten cents a dance plus tips, while the World's Fair Shows offered a nickel and tips plus accommodations in the show's pullman cars. The crew of Harry Calvert's '49 Camp show, 1916.

A '49 Camp show on an early midway. 48

E. M. Foley of Foley and Burke midway promoted a '49 Camp attraction in 190910, and Wm. "Stretch" Rice and Nat Reiss put one on the Rice and Doris Midway in 1914. The originator was Sam Davis, who produced a whole 49 town for the 1893 Mid Winter Exposition in San Francisco. People were surprised when they entered

Davis's camp. Patrons riding stage coaches were robbed of their loose change by masked riders. Cowboys rode their horses into saloons and shot out the lights. There were staged lynchings, gun fights, mineralclaim riots. A character named Rufe Love originated the Fandango Dance Hall, with Mexican dancing girls, one of the most popular shows. When a fake stabbing took place over a senorita, several women in the audience fainted. Rufe jumped up and said, "Roll the corpse down the back stairs and take partners for the next dance." The '49 Camp operators on midways focused on the saloon and dance girls because it was the most appealing and profitable racket and because most carnivals at that time had large wild west shows on their back ends that presented all the other cowboy activities. The '49 Camps on midways featured a piano player, a bar across one end of the tent, and a dance floor with women waiting to be rented on a per-dance basis. The women earned a fixed rate per dance plus tip. A floor manager was paid on percentage to keep things moving, so on big days the dances got shorter and shorter. Eventually the combination of men, booze, and available women became too big a problem on the fairgrounds and shows dropped the camps.

Lottie Meyer's Watercade show on Royal American, 1956, featured her disappearing water ballet. The girl on the trapeze will soon do a dive into the tank, and the other girls brandish sea-shell props.

A wet swimsuit on a well-formed diving girl had its lusty lure for men on the carnival midways from the teens to the late 1950s. Water shows were basic family entertainment, but the bathing beauties lined up along the water-show bally made Dad open the purse strings and bring the family in. J. Frank Hatch was among the first to present the water show on the midway, basing it on water spectacles in Europe, Paul Boy ton's Sea Lion Park at Coney Island, and at the New York Hippodrome. Hatch's crew would dig a hole for a large lake and enclose it with bleacher seats and side walls. The program consisted of swimming races, high-dive contests, pan-

tomimes, aquatic clowns, trapeze diving, water walkers, and more. In the center of the lake was a stage for variety acts. The main feature was the water ballet of young women called "Les Enfants de la Mer," who

49

The bally of the Neptune's Garden water show on Johnny J. Jones, 1922. The male staff wear marine outfits, while the showgirls sport matching striped hats and capes. Water clowns perch on top of the two ticket booths. The cast of the 1929 Rubin and Cherry Shows water presentation. The tank is surrounded by circus-style bleachers. This standard setup for open-air tank shows features a wagon that doubles as a dressing-room and has a diving ladder fixed to its roof under a scenic arch.

50

were advertised as being able to walk on water using new "water shoes." The finale saw the whole corps disappear underwater, not to resurface. Audiences were astonished. Water showmen and high-diving free acts soon tired of digging huge holes in the ground every spot. On hard lots, where solid rock lay just a few inches under the surface, they had to lay off for the week. The canvas-lined pools leaked and needed constant filling, something you better pay close attention to if you were diving into them from a seventy-fivefoot ladder. To remedy this, solid tanks made of wood and lined with canvas or

metal were manufactured, as were ladders and springboards, so performers didn't have to spend all day nailing two-by-fours together to make them. Walter Sibley, the man credited with developing the modern 10-in-l operation, also was the first to build a water show on two wagons, and soon every carnival carried the massive "tank" show. Showmen pitched the health benefits of the water shows — swimming was good exercise. Many professional and amateur swimmers and divers earned much-needed cash on water shows and provided good publicity for the shows. If the carnival press agent couldn't talk the editorial department

This elaborate front for the Human Mermaids show, on Johnny J. Jones at the Edmonton, Alberta, exhibition, 1920s, features carved mermaids and seals, as well as oversize illustrations. A small canopy covers the performers but not the small tip of men out front. Admission is 25 cents for adults, 10 cents for children.

into doing a water-show story, he could always tie in with a local department store on a swimsuit promotion. Water spectacles saw their best seasons from the teens to the 1930s. They drifted on and off the carnival midways, with revivals at various World's Fairs and large celebrations, until Salvador Bali's Bream of Venus show at the 1939 New York World's Fair renewed interest in them. The patrons paid twenty-five cents to view the Catalan painter's impressions of the subconscious world, where semi-nude girls dove and swam in a large tank with glass sides. In 1939 Raynell Golden presented a Water Follies Show on Royal American

using Meyer's Disappearing Water Ballet unit. The pool was about twenty feet in diameter and special stairs and scenery were constructed around it on the stage. Raynell's nephew Peter Manos explains the mystery of the ballet: "That was another job that Cliff Wilson and I had one summer. We were the 'snap guys.' When the girls came out of the water and lifted themselves onto a little platform at water level behind the stairs, we unhooked the single-eye hook on the back of their skimpy wardrobe. They rapidly changed wardrobe under the stairs and then climbed up a little narrow curved stairs to the top of the big stairs going down to the

A row of swimmers at the Water Follies grandstand show at the Hagerstown Fair, 1958. The vast Amusements of America truck carnival is spread out in the background.

51

1910 Billboard ad for Lottie Meyer advertises her diving skills. From the 1930s to the 1950s she produced water shows on various carnivals.

Gayle Madden, at the start of his long girl-show talking career, on Cetlin and Wilson Shows, 1950s, tells the crowd about the charms of Divena as she leans toward the tip. His fifteen-minute opening was twice as long as the underwater striptease show itself!

pool. The hardest part was that climb up, as the steps were wet, so they wore rubber shoes. Each girl descended down the twelve or so steps into the pool. The last step put the girl in knee-high water and she stepped off and went completely under the water and did a backstroke back up behind the stairs. There were eight girls, four going into the water and four coming out. They appeared to be going into the water and coming down the stairs continuously." Meyer had reported that each girl had only eighteen seconds after going into

the water to reappear at the top of the stairs in a different costume! Royal American Shows in 1950 and 1956 revived Lottie Meyer's Disappearing Water Ballet show in a tent behind a girl-show front titled Watercade. The show was a combination revue and water show. The opening number was "Parade of the Seas" and the second number featured the disappearing ballet. Scene three was the dance of nymphs, and four an acrobatic springboard-diving display. Scene five was the trapeze dive and the finale was the

52

The Divena tank is not completely full — the air space at the top is hidden by an ornate frame on the front of the tank. The performer takes an occasional gulp of air, unseen by the audience.

"water fountain" act. Meyer had been connected to water-ballet presentations since doing her high-dive act at the N.Y. Hippodrome in 1907. In the 1950s underwater striptease became a back-end feature on carnivals. A New York showman named Charles Rayburn introduced his Divena show to nightclubs and theaters. A tank holding 550 gallons of water was placed onstage and a lovely lady would enter the tank and do an underwater strip. Talker Gayle Madden says it was through his experiences learning to pitch on the Divena front that he mastered the art of the "still" bally, since there were only two girls in the show and they alternated

Mr. Rayburn, who swam for Northwestern University in 1928, instructs a Divena girl.

between the underwater strip and the bally. He describes how he pitched the Divena show on Cetlin and Wilson in 1951: "First of all, there were blow-ups of write-ups from the various feature magazines of that time on the front. I would point to these as I talked and at first I read them, using them almost like cue-cards. I would walk over and point to the blow-up of the article in Life and say, 'Look what it says here — "World's loveliest feminine form!" And over here Walter Winchell says, "Divena, one of a kind!"' I would say, 'Now, do you think publications such as those would recommend this girl to the American public if she was not one of a kind? Inside, you are going to see the only girl in the world

The clean-living Divena performers earned about $7,000 a year.

A reporter for the Sf. Paul Dispatch in Minnesota interviews one of the divers in the Aqua Tease Show on Royal American during the fair.

53

doing a strip-tease where her costume is 500 gallons of water from Wachi Springs, Florida.' "It was a fifteen-minute opening for a six-minute show!" Inside the show were low girl-show seats for about two hundred people. At one end of the tent surrounded by black drapes was a glass-fronted tank of water. The fancy frame around the front of the tank hid from the audience the fact that the tank wasn't completely full. Divena entered the water, swam around, and removed her clothes. Actually the tank was too small for

much swimming, and the lovely Divena was mostly doing barrel rolls. Each time she came near the top of the tank she gulped some air out of the audience's field of vision. The big problem was that the water was not crystal clear from Wachi Springs or any other springs. It usually came from a hydrant on the fairgrounds or vacant lot that hadn't been opened since the show's last visit. When the colored spotlights were aimed on the tank you could hardly see the girl in the murky water! Gayle says he often hid on the blow-off

because the show got so many beefs. But carnival owners Izzy Cetlin and Jack Wilson got a lot of press. When the Cetlin and Wilson Shows played Macon, Georgia, the press agent got local firefighters to open a hydrant downtown at noon hour so Divena could bathe in a tub placed in a busy intersection. It made the front page the next day. The Divena show was only on Cetlin and Wilson one season, but various units of it played burlesque theaters and clubs into the late fifties, and various knockoff Divena shows appeared on carnival lots over the next seasons.

Bally girls on Walter Hole's Expose show for Hennies Bros, in 1938 appeared masked. The show, a mixture of spice and morality play, was appauded by ministers and high school teachers.

Photos from the 1938 Hennies Bros. Shows pictorial magazine depict scenes from Walter Male's Expose show.

Curse you, Jack Dalton, unhand that lovely maid lest the ire of Percival Pomengranite rest upon your head!" Showmen were constantly trying to put a new spin on displaying the female body. One of the most unusual presentations was Expose, a show Walter Hale produced for the Hennies Bros, in 1938. It was a series of short skits showing how women could fall into the evil clutches of underworld villains.

Bertie Austin remembers the girls made bally wearing eye masks to heighten the dramatic effect. Her sister Connie, the talker, told the crowd the girls had to be in disguise for their own safety. One scene in the show depicted a high school girl in a cheerleader's costume; the next scene had her meeting a tough-looking guy; and the finale showed her standing under a streetlight, working as a prostitute. Bertie recalls, "The girl would be wearing a flame-red dress and smoking a cigarette. A man would walk by and she would give him the eye. The guy would keep walking and she would throw down her cigarette in disgust and grind it out with her high-heel shoe. "In another scene a girl dressed in a negligee lay on a lounge chair and the narrator would say she was a nymphomaniac waiting for her lover. There would be a sudden knock at the door and the girl would jump up and the spotlight would follow her to the door and just as she threw off her garment there would be a blackout. "You wouldn't believe how many schoolteachers and ministers we had that praised the show. They said it was very educational the way it portrayed what

55

The talker addresses the tip while the show's four models stand on the entrance steps at the Zezebel posing show, Royal American, early 1950s.

The revolving stage of Raynell Golden's 1941-42 posing show on Royal American. It was supposed to be motorized but ended up being turned from underneath by two workmen.

would happen to young girls who took dope or hung out with the wrong kind of man!" Posing shows also lasted for many years on carnivals. The art of girls striking poses of famous statues or paintings while wearing very little clothing went back cen56

turies. Early Renaissance women called "figrantes" welcomed dignitaries to their towns by posing as water nymphs around the main fountains. This inspired shows called "Tableaux Vivants" throughout Europe and in Victorian England. One review of such a show in 1845 read,

"Although the women were not allowed to move, they could certainly breathe warmly!" Nudity in this form seemed acceptable to the puritanical lawmakers as long as it was done tastefully or artistically and the posers didn't move or dance. Most carnival posing shows featured two or three girls, with the big shows adding three or four more posers. The curtain would open on a girl doing a pose which she held for a minute or so before the curtain closed. The pedestals or props were changed and the next girl would take

A large posing show on Hennies Bros., 1937, features a couple of gals wearing very risque wardrobes for a bally of that era. One of the signs boasts "25 models," which the showman would doubtless translate into twenty-five poses by six models.

A posing girl stands on her pedestal. Her wardrobe is far skimpier than that of a revueshow stripper, who would have to wear pasties and a hefty G-string.

her pose and the curtain would open again. A narrator would describe the poses or recite a story line. In some cities the performers could be nude as long as a gauze curtain separated them from the audience, with lights o illuminating them from behind. One oldtimer said he had seen the "ding" used on this type of posing show — for an additional charge the gauze was lifted for the last scene. In some posing acts, the women posed before a backdrop recreating a famous

painting, and the scene was surrounded by a large picture frame. Some London music halls were said to have a huge circular stage on wheels on a circular track. This turning stage was made up of several compartments with the scenery for each "painting" in place. While one painting was being shown to the audience the posers took their places in the other paintings and the show moved along continuously. In burlesque, posing acts were essential in competing with large-scale revue shows offering almost total nudity in their big

The male performer has been painted gold while the women wear bronze-colored body stockings on Brenck's Bronze Models posing statue act on Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus, 1913.

An ad in Billboard, 1918, sells tights made of thin; flesh-colored fabric that, properly lighted, made the performer appear to be nude.

58

production numbers. Burlesque shows in the 1920s were getting away with girls nude from the waist up in various poses as long as they were artistic and classically lighted. One reviewer remarked, "The forte of the posing scenes in burlesque was the symmetry of arrangement where beauty and background make them less open to bluenose interference." The 1939 New York World's Fair had a posing show called "Living Magazine Covers." Undraped models posed tableaustyle in front of sets designed to represent leading magazine covers. When New York

police made a sweep of the fair to tone down some of the girl shows, they passed Jack Sheridan's "Magazine Covers" as "Art." Sheridan was disappointed — the art label wouldn't help him draw the average guy into the show. "Maybe it's artistic," admitted Jack, "but where else can you see five such beautiful gals, all professional models, at five cents a head?" When slides and slide projectors became available to showmen, they were used in presenting nude images of posing and bathing women. These shows were often hard to work — they were usually pitched as if the patrons were going to see live models and when men found themselves staring at slides on a white sheet many were not happy. Ward Hall describes a Nude Ranch operating as a blow-off on one of Ray Marsh Brydon's winter storefront shows in 1947: "Upstairs was the Nude Ranch, run by a guy who was a press agent on a carnival in the summer. He would stand on the second step and make the opening. His wife would stand on the third and fourth steps dressed in a very small frock, and she looked nude under it. In his spiel, the guy would mention that she played a very important part in the show upstairs, and her costume wasn't part of it! When the

"Although the women were not allowed to move,

they could certainly breathe warmly!"

A posing performer sports a rather minimal Frenchmaid costume on a carnival show, 1936.

marks paid their money and went upstairs, they found out he wasn't lying — she ran the side projector that showed the slides of the Nude Ranch!" Many fairs tried to govern the quality and decency of the midway shows and games presented by their contracted midway company. Fair officials would randomly slip in and see the shows and report back to the fair committee. The 1941 CNE report of Conklin Shows gives a good description

of the "Artists and Models" posing show produced by Harry Seber: "This show was comprised of poses put on by a group of girls on an improvised elevated stage. In executing these poses the girls sought to depict in a general way the manner in which the Parisian girls would pose in an artist's studio in the Latin Quarter. To convey those impressions the girls were attired in appropriate costumes similar to those worn by legitimate

The Miss America posing show on Royal American in 1950. One of the girls here seems overtaken by a bout of shyness.

Parisian models when posing in a studio for the purpose of being painted by a professional artist. "Shortly after the start of the exhibition we found it necessary to speak with Mr. Seber relative to the scanty material used in the brassieres, although this material when 59

This show, a knockoff of the Stella exhibition as shown on midways and world's fairs, claims to surpass the original. Rita Cortez, "the Brazilian Flame," bailies her show on the Strates midway, 1950s. This South American-style revue was similar to the Hawaiian revues.

examined elsewhere than the strong stage light disclosed sufficient covering to the body to eliminate nudity. It did however give the appearance of nudity when seen from a distance and under the strong colored stage lights as these lights had a tendency to blend the materials with that of the body thereby making contrast void. "All the poses were decently executed," the report continued, "and at no time was there any suggestion of vulgarity or of obscenity. This show was particularly patronized by the male sex, especially noticeable were members of the various

Wm. Aldrich's Hawaiian show on Royal American, 1940s, features Joy Fleenor (far right), who later became one of the premiere girl-show producers on midways into the 1970s. The horizontal line across the backdrop is a wire across which sailed an illuminated model cruise ship during one of the production numbers.

military units. It was also observed by us that soldiers and airmen visiting the show in the evening were inclined to be troublesome by their unwarranted remarks which in itself were inclined to be vulgar, sugges-

Rita Cortez, feature burlesque star and midway revue entertainer, also produced and managed her own Latin revues from the late 1940s through the 1950s.

small carnivals. Times had changed and you could get away with more nudity in the regular girl shows — you no longer had to mask it behind a veil of artistic poses. Hawaiian shows were presented on

tive, and inappropriate. The management

midways from the teens into the 1950s. A

did however, do its utmost to discourage

half-dozen Hawaiian musicians and dancers

this practice and at times found it necessary

could turn out an enjoyable show, with

to stop the show in order to remonstrate

tropical stage settings offering escapism to

with the offenders. We received no com-

the public in a time when few traveled. The

plaints in the manner in which this show

rail shows often presented Hawaiian shows

was presented or conducted."

that rivaled their revue offerings with the

By the fifties these old-style posing

South Sea island presentation having a large

shows were a thing of the past on even the

band that stayed on the stage like the jig 61

"Always leave the mark hungry for more."

A cooch-show bally on a 1950s truck show sees Torchy Lee's name in lights.

A single-O girl show operated by Lou Pease on O.C. Buck Shows at a 1960s fair in Malone, New York.

shows, plus chorus lines, production numbers, and hula dancers. Raynell Golden tried a skating show on Royal one season. Peter Manos says the show was presented in a tent with circusstyle seats on three sides and a solid, themed backdrop that the skaters entered and exited from like today's ice revues. To create the ice, a layer of burlap was first put down, then grey paraffin poured on top. On occasions one of the skater's blades would go too deep, catch the burlap, and pull up a chunk of paraffin. At intermission, during the candy pitch, the ice was repaired by melting the paraffin with a blowtorch and smoothing it out. 62

A performer on the Torchy Lee cooch show.

After the Second World War, touring ice shows became very popular. In 1950 Kennies framed such a show called Ice Classics of 1950, which carried its own ice plant and fifteen performers. A twenty- by thirty-foot stage made it impossible to recreate the agility, speed, and excitement the real ice shows created in their arena venues, and ice shows were shortlived as carnival girl attractions. Both the cooch and the single-O girl shows (any attraction that worked on the carnival midway by itself) usually ended in total nudity and went against one of the basic rules of old-time showmanship —

always leave the mark hungry for more, never totally satisfy his voyeuristic needs. When faced with competition from girl shows featuring several women, the girl in a single-O show had to be particularly attractive, and audience participation and unusual sex act stunts were essential to get a crowd. After all, a man who could only afford one show would be drawn to the show with the most women. One old-timer claims there was a famous single-O show called "Anna" that toured small carnivals in the midwest in the 1940s through the 1950s where sex with a pony provided the "ding." One Eye Tommy Fallen and Mom Fallon ran a single-O girl show called Princess Pat. The girl who worked it would strip naked and grind herself up against the "snorting

pole," simulating sex with an imagined male lover. The "snorting pole," or pole in front of the stage, was often the center tent pole. These cooch and single-O tops were often very small, twenty by thirty feet, so the center pole would be right up against the front of the stage making it available as a "prop." Where the carny term "snorting pole" came from is lost in time. One girl dancer interviewed thought it came from the reaction of the men in the crowd who, she said, "snorted like pigs when they became excited!" The snorting pole went from being a prop in cooch and single-O girl shows to being an architectural accoutrement to most go-go dancing stages. It is still a major prop in nude dance clubs.

Red Rogers talks on the front of a 1940s Cetlin and Wilson posing show. This front went through many transformations, including a stint for Divena in the 1950s.

63

BURLESQUE STARS "tHE wIND bLW oFF mY fIG lEAF"

any carnival girl-show workers whose careers stretched from the 1930s until the end of girl shows in the 1970s came from a background of burlesque, vaudeville, and tab shows. Almost all the strippers, comics, and candy butchers had worked burlesque, just as many of the producers had burlesque and tab experience. The variety acts had circus, vaudeville, and tent repertory experience. Burlesque had been active in American theaters and honky-tonks from the mid1800s and by the 1920s it included dancing acts, large chorus lines, posing numbers,

comedy, vaud acts, and feature girl dancers. Burlesque's rivals were the vaudeville shows pioneered by B. R Keith, whose first theater opened in Boston in 1883, tabloid shows promoted by Gus Sun in 1900, and the revue shows started by Ziegfeld in 1907. Both revue shows and vaudeville were expensive, so burlesque shows, with their low ticket prices, became the "poor man's musical comedy." Burlesque became the most popular form of entertainment during the Depression thanks to these low admissions — and to the G-string. Burlesque's home was in the center of big cities, and New York City was the heart 65

CHAPTER

5

Above: The explosion in rides after the Second World War produced amusements such as the Round-Up, billed here as the Latest Sensation, late 1940s. Right: The war is over and the carnival boom is beginning as Royal American Shows plays the levee lot in Davenport, Iowa, 1946. The show traditionally played this still date before jumping into the Class A circuit of Canadian fairs. The big square top in the foreground is the bingo tent; the two large tents in the background are the girl show (right) and the jig show (left).

Page 64: Sally Rand (lower left) poses with lei-draped dancers for a publicity photo on Royal American, 1948. The big production number featured a play on the word "lei."

66

of the business, with the Minsky brothers the big players. In the late 1930s and 1940s, stripping and comedy became the highlight of the show, and strippers competed hard for feature spots and top money. One might be tempted to write these girls off as mere sex objects, but reviews in the trade papers stressed their talent and versatility. They were actresses, comediennes, talented singers, and dancers, not just anonymous women taking their clothes off. Meanwhile, girl-show operators had gotten by for decades by ballyhooing "Fatima, the original dancer from the

Chicago's World's Fair." But as new dance crazes swept America, time ran out on the Oriental dancers.The 1920s and 1930s saw most of the big girl revues imitating "tab" (tabloid) and burlesque theater shows, and in many cases the producers were themselves the stars. Elsie Calvert's Rainbow Girls or Shirley Francis's Starlets were to the midway business what Earl Carroll Vanities and George White's Scandals were to the theater business. This era also saw many vaud and burlesque talents become stars in radio and film. There were, however, no big-name talents on the midway girl-revue stages. But by the mid-1940s things changed.

Singing sensation Bobby Breen and stripper Margo headline this revue on Hennies Bros., 1948, a year after the show was led by Sally Rand. Producer Jack Norman stands on the bally.

Big girl revue and burlesque headliners Faith Bacon and Sally Rand — whose fan dance at the Chicago Century of Progress Fair a decade earlier had made her a household name — signed with rail carnival girl shows for the summer and fall fair seasons. These burlesque stars — along with the likes of Georgia Sothern and Gypsy Rose Lee — were not only first-class performers but also astute businesswomen. Realizing their names were marketable, they took control of their careers. Burlesque was having a slow ride in NYC, and several other burlesque hub cities were catching the censorship disease. The days of 46-week bookings were over. A stripper working full-time had to rely on a

combination of theater and club dates plus whatever else she could scrounge up. While theater and club business wound down in the summer, the carnival girl shows offered twenty-plus weeks of work at good money, plus an opportunity for a headline strip to keep her name before the public. Midway shows played right across North America, drawing millions of fairgoers annually. Right after the war, business for carnivals was good. Rationing of sugar and gas — which carnivals used a lot of — had ended. Coal shortages, which often curtailed the show-train movements, were over, and railroads had lifted restrictions on private rail cars. Many fairgrounds had been handed back after being used for the billeting of troops and as mobilization centers. Billboard forecast great things for the 1948 carnival season. The only real problem now for carnivals was the competition — there was plenty of it. Truck shows were starting to give big railroad shows a serious run for their money at the fairs, many of which now figured that how the show got to

town didn't always reflect the quality of the midway operation. For decades most carnivals had the same rides on their lots. New technology o/ * mainly developed for war, led to new rides

1940s burlesque headliner Margo was added at the last minute to the Bobby Breen revue on Hennies when management realized they needed some T&A to sell the show.

67

Left: In 1952, Cetlin and Wilson Shows featured singer Peter Garey on Raynell Golden's girl show. The show advertised "special teen-age matinees 6:30 to 7:00 to meet Peter who has starred in the films A Date for Miss Julie, Captain Eddie, My Friend Irma, and in the Broadway musical South Pacific." Here a jammed midway listens to Raynell Golden make the opening.

railroad shows was greeted with outstanding success and more shows this year will offer established names on the midway. The big problem is to get names calculated to have the strength to pull on a midway lot and who will ask the kind of money that a

Bottom left: Peter Garey makes his entrance in Raynell Golden's girl-show revue on Cetlin and Wilson, 1952. Garey was hired as the feature but soon found out that talking the front paid a lot more. Next year he started a talking career that would see him become one of the best talkers on carnival girl-revue shows for the next twenty seasons.

carnival can afford to pay." These headliners were a real shot in the arm, doing even better than expected. On the 1947 Kennies Show midway playing the Des Moines fair, Sally Rand drew 10,833 patrons, netting the show $9,030. This was the biggest single-show daily take

68

being designed and built. The boom in

on a carnival midway! Before the gates

children created a need for more kiddie

opened to the public, the girl show had

rides, and carnival owners for the first time saw fair committees requesting specific

sold 381 tickets at $1, and by the afternoon the showgirls weren't needed on the

rides in their midway lineup. They realized that to hold the fairs and buy new rides

bally to turn the tip. With a couple dozen rides, twenty or so shows, and a hundred

every year or so meant heavy payments, so

or

they had to draw big crowds to their lots.

Kennies show

They needed something new and different

ended the fair

that would generate big grosses. The big-

with a whop-

name strippers seemed the ideal solution,

ping $158,000

especially since carnivals already had girl-

gross — and

show theaters on their midways.

Sally Rand had

more

concessions,

In 1948 Billboard observed: "There was

contributed

a noted trend in the carnival field towards

almost a third!

aggressively selling the public on coming

The next year on

out. The introduction last year of a name

Royal

star (Sally Rand) with one of the largest

she bettered her

American

the

success, attracting more than half a million customers to her show. One of the first big girlie stars featured on a carnival midway was Zorima (Margaret Lehtinen McCloskey). She had appeared in every picture magazine in the country, so midway owners knew she came with instant recognition status and carnival press agents had no trouble generating radio and newspaper coverage. In 1940 over a million patrons flocked to her Zorima and Her Garden of Nudists and Sun Bathers show at the New York World's Fair. In 1941 Beckmann and Gerety hired her as a midway feature show called Zorima Gardens. In an outdoor enclosure with a background of mountain scenery they presented a drama of the mystical maidens of the lost colony of Atlantis. To appease the Sun God who had caused the land to slide into the sea, the people offered up the loveliest virgin, Zorima, as a sacrifice. Besides headlining girl revues at the CNE and PNE in Canada, Zorima was the only feature dancer to appear at four World's Fairs. During the 1940s her California-based Centennial Greater Shows was one of the few woman-owned shows in the carnival business.

The next ten to fifteen seasons would see various burlesque, variety, and movie stars headlining carnival midway shows. It was a good time to perform. There was an all-out war between booking agents to sign acts. Every agent wanted a string of performers to pitch to TV producers, whose weekly variety shows chewed up performers like sausage grinders. Agencies that had dumped variety acts when vaud died and the acts were a dime a dozen were now begging them to come back. The men returning from war also fueled the girlie magazine business. Most of these publications ran articles and photos that focused on strippers and show gals. Stories of the war, Nazi death camps, hunting, fishing, boxing, and gambling addiction were all held together with pinup poses and sex stories. Even crime magazines were saturated with sex crimes,

Zorima, born Margaret Lehtinen, was the only bigname girl-show performer to be featured at four World's Fairs, and was one of the few women to own a carnival show. This publicity photo promoted her 1951 headline appearance on Harry Seber's girl show at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto.

69

Top left Gypsy Rose Lee advertises the Lektrolite lighter in her Ziegfeld Follies dressing room. Bottom left: Gypsy looks on as husband Julio de Diego paints the front of the posing show they operated on Royal American, 1949. For their surrealistic Dream Show, Diego depicted women with the bodies of distorted chickens and fish, as well as snakes and other dream symbols. Definitely not a typical carnival girlshow front!

The midway is packed outside Gypsy's girl show on Royal American, 1949. Talker Duke Wilson makes the opening on the busy bally.

and their covers often featured photos of strippers. Most men couldn't name their local senator, but they all knew Sally Rand and Georgia Sothern. Faith Bacon claimed to have originated the fan and bubble dances that Sally Rand made famous. In 1934, while working in Chicago burly theaters, she signed a contract to appear at the Century Progress Exposition, where Mae West had turned down $10,000 a week. Strippers were given a rough ride at the fair. Faith was arrested at the Hawaiian Gardens and charged with giving an indecent performance. Rosita Royce, also taken into court 70

for appearing in the nude in the Streets of Paris show, told the judge a thief had snatched her costume just before she was to go onstage and she had to make do with a fig leaf — but the wind blew it off. The judge dismissed both cases, but sternly warned the women about using the courts for publicity purposes. Her career may have been behind her — a 1939 reviewer said, "Faith Bacon parades through a moth-eaten fan dance that has lost its punch long ago" — but her name drew enough people that John R. Ward hired her to headline the girl revue on his railroad show as late as 1948. But

Bonnie "Oh Johnny" Baker, seen here as the feature on Royal American in 1950s, never came close to Sally Rand's or Gypsy's grosses, despite her records, films, and stage appearances.

things began to go downhill for her. On the last day of the Rockford, Illinois, stand, she claimed Ward owed her $5,044 in back salary and that she had been a victim of a campaign of terror and violence while trying to work — one of her charges was that tacks had been scattered on the stage before she went on to dance barefoot. She demanded $55,444 for the unfilled portion of her thirty-week contract. Ward made no comment, but posted a bond and moved the show train on without her. Burlesque performer Peter Thomas says, "What a tragic end for this troubled

woman. I worked with her one week in a club in Chicago. Faith Bacon was the feature in a four-girl show. I had been told she was unpleasant and I was prepared. Well, it all came true. She maintained for years that Sally Rand had stolen the fan dance from her . . . that she had done it originally in the Palm Beach Frolics revue and that Sally had been a chorus girl behind her. "Anyway, I never saw La Bacon again! Back in New York an agent wrote me that Faith had jumped out of the window of her hotel apartment, leaving a note and a nickel behind her." Miss Bacon was destitute when she died in September 1956, and the American Guild of Variety Artists arranged funeral services and burial. One of the biggest stars in burlesque to make it onto a carnival girl-show stage was Louise Hovick — better known as Gypsy Rose Lee (born 1914; died 1970). Royal American's big success with Sally Rand in

This streamlined front on Cavalcade of Amusements was used for the Georgia Sothern revue in 1949.

71

Sally Rand (left), Peter Garey, and Georgia Sothern at the Golden Oldies Days of Burlesque benefit at the Roseland Ballroom, NYC, 1973.

A Georgia Sothern window card, 1948

1948 was followed by Gypsy Rose Lee's 1949 engagement. The stature of these two giants — Gypsy and Sally — working on carnival girl shows not only raised the status of the carnival girl show but removed the curse of theater people working carnivals. Gypsy Rose Lee wrote a wonderful article about her carnival days for the June 1950 Flair titled "I Was With It." Here she tells the story of sitting in her dressingroom wagon, which was rocking from side to side in a storm, and hearing Duke Wilson the talker screaming outside the chorus girls' wagon. "'Let's go, girls, bally, b-a-1-l-y!' "I went out to him and I said: 'You mean we are doing another show at this late hour in this storm?' "Duke's answer was: 'The front of the show is jammed and we can't sell tickets 72

A publicity photo for Georgia Sothern, dubbed by Billboard in 1936 "Hotcha Galore, a redhead who's plenty dynamic."

fast enough. The weather is rough so I don't want to ruin the new wardrobe, so tell the girls to bally in swimsuits!' "Three days later, after thirty-six shows, it was tear-down night and Duke came back from the office with our box-office statements. The show had grossed over $33,000. "I did a quick figuring on my adding machine of my percentage plus $612 from program sales and $227 from Coke sales and I became very enthusiastic over this carnival girl show business!" Gypsy liked the carnies because they stuck together. In Saskatoon a windstorm hit the show at 1:30 a.m., flattening all the tents and propelling the joints down the midway like marbles. Word went out to the train and hotels where the show people were sleeping and soon everyone was back on the lot. They worked the rest of the night and morning to be ready to open mid-day. Gypsy said, "I was real proud to be called a carny."

Top: In this early publicity photo, Sally Rand poses with the fans she bought in a second-hand shop when she started doing her fan dance at the Paramount in Chicago, 1932. Center. Sally helping her son, Shean, with his homework outside girl show, Cetlin and Wilson shows, Jacksonville, Florida, 1955. Bottom: Sally moved on to a bubble routine after so many other dancers copied her fan act.

Gypsy was instant headline material for the carnival, and the 1949 season saw her grosses almost catch Rand's; only the ticket price — seventy-five cents, compared to Rand's $ 1 — may have kept her from breaking some of Rand's records. There are few descriptions of how Gypsy worked. A 1946 Billboard review of her show at McVan's supper club in Buffalo observed rf'iShe works with four shapely and attractive showgirls. The girls are brought on in scant attire to sophisticated and often blue comments by Miss Lee. She drapes the four girls with things off her own back until they are

Above: Sally Rand reclines amid the cast of her Girl Revue on Royal American, 1948. Center: Sally works a crowd of carnies in the Royal American girl-show tent, Florida State Fair, 1949. This jamboree raised money to build a clubhouse for the Tampa Showmen's Club. Right Wall-to-wall carnies at the jamboree in Tampa.

fascinatingly gowned. The routine ends with Gypsy going through a reminiscence of her burlesque days where she does a super smooth peel routine down to two tiny nosegays and a floral G-string. It rocks the house." The September 2, 1950, Billboard dropped a bombshell on the industry with its article "Background on Red Drive," in which FBI honcho J. Edgar Hoover told the senate that Communist infiltration in America had permeated all of show biz. Billboard printed a list of some 200 organizations that the Department of Justice's attorney general declared subversive and warned its readers to stay away from these 74

groups. The list included fraternal organizations from just about every foreign country that had earned the wrath of the U.S. during the Second World War, and many black and Jewish organizations were named. The week of September 16 saw the Illinois American Legion members applying pressure to ABC TV network to cancel Gypsy Rose Lee's appearance on "What Makes You Tick," as her name had been on the membership lists of some suspected communist groups. But Bob Kintner, president of ABC, said, "Gypsy stays unless you can definitely prove she is a communist." In response, Billboard ran Gypsy's three-

page anti-Communist statement, listing every good deed she had done the last twenty-five years: She was an acting officer in the American Guild of Variety Artists and a member of countless organizations that stretched from vaud to burlesque to films. She was a member of many animal humane societies and the Bronx Zoo. She had made hundreds of benefit appearances, most in support of handicapped children. During the war she headed drives for aluminum, rubber, and War Bonds. She visited military hospitals and was the head of her local Red Cross. Her gambit worked, and Hoover and his boys backed away. If Gypsy had charm and finesse in her strip act, Georgia Sothern (b. 1913; d. 1981) was at the other end of the scale — or top end of the thermometer. When

she hit the stage, you better hope the theater seats were well anchored, as she shook everything loose. "Georgia Sothern came out like a bundle of dynamite and got an explosion of applause at the end of her act," said Billboard in 1935. The third big-name exponent of the body beautiful to turn to the lush dough offered by carnivals during the spring-tofall slow period for indoor bookings, she was by far the fastest and hardest-working stripper out there. The Georgia-born Georgia was stripping by age 13, and did

Sally Rand designed this front, here shown at the Dallas fair, early 1950s. The portable canvas was draped over scaffolding rented locally, eliminating the need for a semi to haul the front.

not not retire until age 67. The burlesque house in Philadelphia Sally Rand (top) and her fan-bearing chorus girls kick off her show on Royal American, 1948.

Sally's husband and manager, Harry Finkelstein, ran ads for her act, such as this one in Billboard, 1950.

was closed down over her red-hot act, and by the time she was a star for Bill Minsky in NYC she already had a press book full of clippings. When she went big-time, she asked H. L. Mencken to think up a polite name for her profession — from then on she referred to herself as an "ecdysiast," from the Greek for "out of" and "clothing." She was in MikeTodd's Star and Garter Revue along with Gypsy, in the road show version playing Chicago's Blackstone Theater, and she played burlesque theaters on the Hirst wheel. By 1948 she had entered the carny world, signing a thirty-week tour with the James E. Strates Shows. Washington, B.C.,

was the usual spring opener for Strates in that era. The Sothern girl show was to rehearse there and open the following week. But the curiosity of the locals was too much for the carnies to ignore, and they let in 200 at sixty-five cents a head to watch the rehearsals. The bill-posting crew had each city and surrounding countryside blazing with her posters from one-sheets to billboards, and everywhere she performed patrons on the lot were lining up to buy tickets long before the first bally started. Then, in October, Billboard reported, "Georgia Sothern to Fold Tent." 75

Sally Rand visits the Gene Vaughan Girl Revue on Rod Link's Olson Shows, 1960s. Top row, from left: Molly Parkes, Sally, Sandy O'Hara, Darlene Wendt a.k.a. Honey Bee Kennedy, Norma Jean Watts, Mary Anthony, unknown; bottom row, from left: Pam White a.k.a. Pandora, Rod Link, Val Valentine, Terry Venezia.

The blond stripper was asked by a reporter in the Gastonia, N.C., fair if she would return to the carnival. "No, honey," she replied, "not another season. It's not that the season wasn't lucrative and enjoyable, but a 28-week tour was much too long." After eight weeks off, she replaced Lili St. Cyr at the Club Samoa, NYC. While she was working there, a newspaper reported that Georgia Sothern — civilian name Hazel Eurnice Finkelstein (she had married her manager, Harry Finkelstein) — had filed a 76

voluntary petition in bankruptcy court listing liabilities of $7,866 and assets of $107. By early May she had canceled her Hirst circuit bookings and opened on Al Wagner's Cavalcade of Amusements at Evansville, Indiana, producing the girl show and a posing show titled "She." Before Georgia Sothern worked on Cavalcade of Amusements, the show featured one of the best-loved strippers in the business — Carrie Finnell opened her new Harem Revue there in 1948. She had

Sally Rand appears at a showmen's jamboree inside the Raynell girl-show tent, after the carnival has closed for the night, 1950s. Fundraisers such as this, featuring acts from various midway shows, supported various showmen's club activities and charities.

appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies 1916 chorus line and was later billed as the "girl with the million-dollar legs." She made a bundle in burlesque and opened a bar in Louisville, Kentucky, but the Depression forced her back in burlesque. Over 200 pounds and into her forties, she still developed a sensational act that took her all over the world. She was this nice lady who looked every bit like your mom as she sang "Pop Goes My Heart," but suddenly a breast would pop out of her dress. The finale to her act was done to the tune of "Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits." On "shave and a haircut" her breasts in unison pointed left then right. On "two" they point down, and on "bits" they pointed up! Carrie Finnell had

the best-trained chest in show business. She always stopped the show. But of all the big performers to work on carnivals, none was a bigger draw than a nonstripper — Harriet Helen Beck, better known as Sally Rand. She grew up in Elkton, Missouri, where she took ballet and dance lessons. Her second attempt at leaving home with a carnival got her to Chicago and a job in the Adolph Bolm Ballet Company. She was acting with a repertory theater company when it went broke in California in the 1920s and she settled in Glendora. After the stage, she moved on to the movies, playing roles in Mack Sennett and Hal Roach comedies. Her film career was bubbling along until "talkies" arrived — she had a lisp. She returned to the stage, toured her own variety show for several seasons, then worked in NYC on shows and in Chicago on the shortlived Sweet Hearts on Parade. In 1932, her life-changing break finally came along. She answered an ad for exotics and dancers at the Paramount Club in Chicago and was hired. Without any wardrobe of her own, she searched secondhand shops, where she found two big ostrich fans. Those feathers would become her trademark.

At the club she hadn't finished putting together her costume when — as the new kid on the block — she was called to open the show. Another dancer mentioned once having done a routine with fans, and so Sally did what soon became her signature fan dance to the strains of "Claire de Lune." She was hired at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair at $1,000 a week, and on the first night was arrested for her fan-dance routine. On another occasion, she was arrested four times in one day. Success and the attention of the law often seemed to go hand-in-hand. 77

Perhaps one of the strangest acts in show biz: Carrie Finnell, the Girl with the Educated Breasts.

78

By the mid 1930s, everyone was emulating her fan dance, so she moved on to dancing with a bubble. Sally's 1939 Golden Gate Exposition girlie show, Miss America 1939, grossed $44,000 and showed to 175,000 customers, mostly men who liked their girl shows hot and spicy. Her Nude Ranch did even better. In 1947 she was hired to headline the girl show on Hennies Bros. Harry Hennies spent $7,000 for new drapes and lighting and had Bobby Wicks design and paint the front. Hennies even hired an airplane to advertise that Sally Rand was on their midway. The next year, she signed on with Royal American Shows, opening at the Memphis Cotton Carnival on the "world's largest traveling midway." The show, con-

sisting of twelve chorus girls, two dance teams, three comics, an organist, and Sally, moved fast without an emcee and the feature number was a blacklight affair using a huge lei as a prop and a naughty play on the word. A lusty note ran through the whole show and on the second night it doubled its gross. That season, in East Peoria, Illinois, the girl-show tent caught fire and much of the canvas, scenery, and stage was destroyed. A quick-thinking tractor crew went into the burning tent and hauled out the dressingroom wagons full of wardrobe. Sally and other carnies worked all day, scrubbing the stage and repainting the seats. Curtains were borrowed from a movie theater downtown, and new scenery was quickly made from material Sally bought at a paper decoration shop. Sally remembered, "I took a quick 'French' bath, pinned on my best switch, stuck on my G-string, which only had a litde ground glass in it and a couple of crushed benzedrines. The talker called bally and the show went on at eight o'clock!"

Dorita (front center) on World of Mirth in Washington, DC, 1951. Otherwise known as Deborah Drukin of Paterson, NJ, Dorita did a sizzling flame dance in a revue called Your Show of Shows.

In 1950 she was back on a rail carny producing a show on Cavalcade of Amusements. The unit had eight chorus girls, a comedy dance team, and her brother Harold Rand and Estrella Montilla in a song-and-dance act. Veteran girl-show talker Connie Austin handled the front. Sally did good business. * In March Billboard called her "Sally (never a dull moment) Rand" as she had cracked the wire service and garnered front-page stories three times that month. One of the items concerned her address to students at Harvard. Previously she had spoken there about advertising, capturing their interest with a talk on the "effectiveness of white space in advertisements."

This time her talk on the "State of the World" didn't go over and the students kept tossing pennies onstage. Sally left crying, and papers all over blasted the students' rude behavior. When Sally went on Royal in 1948, her girl-show operation had pushed out Raynell Golden, the longtime girl producer there. Obviously there were no hard feelings as Raynell featured Sally on her 1957 show and saw her grosses go up 100% on Cetlin and Wilson fairs. Raynell brought Sally back to headline the 1958 girl show, her last season under canvas. In late August 1970, when Sally Rand was 66, she gave her famous ostrich-

"Hubba Hubba Girl" Evelyn West made exotic-dance history when she insured her 39V2-inch chest with Lloyds of London for $50,000. Evelyn West and her Treasure Chest headlined the Amusement Corp. of America midway in 1951, drawing record crowds.

feather fans to the Chicago Historical Society. She had offered them 2 3 years earlier but they were not accepted. Sally told the press, "I always wondered when I stopped being an old bag and became history."

SHEBAS ON TRAMPLED GRASS cOOCH SHOWS ON THE mIDWAY

I hen the subject of nudity comes up, all girl-revue workers have the same reac^ C tion: "The most we went down to was pasties and G-string! Not like those cooch shows!" The term "cooch" in the southern USA refers to the female genitals. The small girl shows touring America's midways certainly fulfilled the Southern expression with their exhibitions of complete nudity. Girl shows on carnivals were classified by carnies as revue shows, which were large burlesque shows featuring chorus lines, comedians, variety acts, and girl dancers, often including a strip-

per who did only go down to G-string and pasties. On the other hand, cooch shows, which usually had only two or three girls, rarely disappointed men who had come out to the midway to see naked women. By the late 1950s all kinds of wild stories were rampant about what went on in carnival cooch shows. By the next decade, the new competition from sexually explicit material in print and films and the rapid growth of "titty bars" may have caused many cooch shows to go beyond offering just nude dances. Touching by the customers and unusual sex performances were added. Most showmen, not just 81

CHAPTER

6

girl-show operators, knew which towns and fairs were cooch spots. Towns with a nearby military base, for example, were naturals. John Moss, who talked on revues, operated revues, and had cooch shows, says certain factors distinguished a cooch-show operation from a regular girl show. One of these was that in nearly all the cooch shows there were no seats; the guys just stood around the small stage. The girls would strip down to just their G-strings. Then it cost more to see them nude. Also, the cooch show rarely had comics or novelty acts. And, while the revues and most girl shows never went totally nude, the cooch always did. One other difference between cooch

Flame, a tassel-twirling sensation, was the draw on this 1950s gal show.

girls were often recruited from towns along

and regular girl shows was that the cooch

the way. Moss recalls the time he had an agency girl working for him at $400 a week.

show didn't use strippers from agencies,

When he approached Al Kuntz's Century 21

unless they were suffering a shortage; the

Shows for a spot, Kuntz demanded 50 per-

Top: A talker makes his opening on the Garden of Alii girl show on Gold Medal, 1957. This has all the markings of a cooch operation. Center. The Bubbles girl show on Thompson Bros., 1956, features a trio of well-endowed dancers on the front as the talker pitches to a group of very young men. The black kid on the left couldn't buy a ticket to a "white girl show," but nobody could stop him from watching the bally. Bottom: A typical canvas-fronted girl show as appeared on small truck carnivals in the 1940s. The Gay New Yorkers title was also seen on several revues of the era. The bass drum next to the ticket box was used to attract attention to the show.

Page 80: Fringes on a cooch dancer's costume fly as she and a talker work the crowd on a 1950s girl-show bally.

Three gals shake it up on the bally of the Beaux Arts girl show on Prell's Broadway, 1951. The front is made to resemble an old Parisian cabaret, with posters peeling off the brick work.

cent of the front money, plus the ding. John protested, saying he was paying an agency stripper big money. Kuntz went into the first show, came out, and told John, "That's the prettiest fucking girl I have ever seen in a girl show. You go right ahead and keep all the ding money." Carnies rarely went into the girl shows themselves. If there was a serious beef about the nudity, show owners could honestly say they didn't know what was going on in that tent. What girl-show operators really wanted on the cooch show was that extra inside money that matched or topped the ticket-box money. On big fair dates when the operator gave up 50% to 60% of the

ticket money to the midway office for rent and sales taxes, inside money was a big factor. On revues, the only inside money the producer got was from soda sales, the candy pitch, or novelty items. But on cooch shows, if he got a $1 or $2 admission, he could then get another $ 1 or $2 off every mark inside. Bill English relates his experiences with cooch shows: "That's what I ran, that's all I ran. The girl shows I knew on shows in the 1940s and 1950s were mostly cooch operations. My deal on Gold Medal Shows was the office got 40% of the ticket money and I kept 60%. I paid all the expenses of operating the show. From the inside money, I had to pay the show patch 10%."

Center: This is as basic as a girl show could get. One of the two girls working the Boot's Gay New Yorkers show poses on a stage made of flat boards laid on the ground. The curtain is a piece of white cloth hung on a rope, and a small floodlight is perched on the edge of the stage. The canvas behind her keeps the marks at a distance. Right A dancer on the Gay New Yorkers show performs nude behind a thin white curtain, providing a silhouette dance for the men out front.

Back then on carnivals you also had shows working on the "commonwealth" basis. After the carnival owner took out his percentage the rest was split up among the people in the show so there were no set salaries per se. Many of the jig shows worked that way. S3

Three of John Moss's workers haul the tent up over the inside stage to secure it to the roof of the truck as they set up his Top Hat girl show.

Moss makes an opening on his Top Hat girl show with the assistance of two dancers.

Moss begins to draw a tip in front of his girl show, 1970s, as the gigantic Sky Diver ride looms above.

Bill English says, "On Gold Medal, both the jig show and the 10-in-l operator got the first $400 that came in before having to give up any percentage to the office and split the money with the people in the show. The carnivals made these deals because the fairs wanted shows. Fairs always attracted lots of grind shows, wildlife shows, snake shows, geek shows, illusion shows, wax shows, crime shows, war shows, you name it. However, what they really wanted the carnivals to bring in were the sit-down revues, the big 10-in1's, the shows with entertainers in them." "The one I presented on Gold Medal in early 1950," English says, "consisted of the girls dancing onstage in front of a curtain.

They would remove their tops and finish topless. Then I would come in and announce our 'special' show, in which the girls would dance totally nude for an extra fifty cents. We would raise the curtain on the first stage and the girls would dance nude on the stage behind. When that was over, the girls would then ding the crowd themselves, saying they would do something extra special for the tips. This turned out to be the same nude dance repeated. "Once in a while you would have trouble on the 'special show' money. Normally every one of the guys in the tent would come up with the fifty cents, but I remember in the coal areas some tough crowds. Once, after I had made the pitch for the

special show, I was going through the crowd of men collecting the money and I came to this guy who I could tell was drunk. He was cleaning his fingernails with a switchblade. He wasn't about to pay fifty cents more . . . and he wasn't leaving! I went back up onstage and told the crowd

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"Thanks for coming . . .

if you did. CALLIE MILLER

the special show would be delayed slightly. 'I have one man in the tent that won't pay the girls and he won't leave.' That was enough. The other guys turned on this guy and threw him out." John Moss saw his first girl show in his home town of Johnstown, Tennessee. The show was Johnny Denton's Gold Medal Shows, set up outside the town limits. There were three or four rides, a lot of joints, and two girl shows. Moss says, "I watched the bally. I was only fourteen or fifteen but I went up to the ticket box and the seller said, 'When were you born, son?' "I said a year that made me just old enough and the seller said, 'OK. A dollar!'

"After the girls had removed their clothes after the second dance, one of the girls announced, 'As dancers we do not get any money from the tickets sold to the show. That goes to the carnival owner. We make our money from tips. If you would like to come down here close to the stage where you can touch us and leave us a piece

Top: John Moss's dancers get ready for the evening's work. When the show is traveling, this dressing room serves as storage for the front panels, ticket box, tent, sound system — every element of the girl show. Bottom: One of Moss's performers touches up her makeup before the girl show begins, using a makeup table that swings down on a hinge from the side of the truck.

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Many consider Callie Miller one of the best talkers and cooch-show operators in the cooch's last few decades on the midway. Callie ran her girl show with her husband, Buzzy.

of silver we will do an extra special dance for you here tonight.' "Most of the guys went up to the stage, including me. A guy handed one of the girls a piece of money and she quickly grabbed the microphone proclaiming, 'This guy just gave me a nickel and squeezed my tit. I hope you got your money's worth, sir!'The next guys, not wanting to be embarrassed or singled out, started giving quarters and fifty-cent pieces!" By the 1970s, of the remaining cooch shows, about 80% were "serving lunch" — touching, feeling, and tasting was all part of the extra show. Girls would accept tips and hop off the stage running naked 86

through the crowd, letting the guys grope and grab them. Buzzy Miller and his wife Callie were masters at the cooch-show operation. They ran a tight show. John Moss says that besides being one of the best cooch-show talkers in the business, Callie also had a special talent for keeping her girls in line, like a house mother at a college dorm. She had a routine that she staunchly followed. "She didn't care if it was the World's Fair or the biggest gal spot of the season," John explains. "Callie always came out to the lot at six o'clock nightly with her girls in one or two cars. She would walk them over to the girl show and up the steps into the trailer to get ready to open at seven. If a girl wanted something to eat or drink they had to send the roughy to the cookhouse for it. They were not allowed on the midway. The girls stayed in the show trailer until the show closed for the night and then Callie escorted them back to the motel. "The girls always complained that the Millers worked them to death. The show was operated without a ding — they gave one bally and then the show. Bally, show, bally, show, all night long. The Millers believed that the time you spent making the pitch

"Just a minute, I'll take it off!" teases one of John Moss's dancers as she struts across the inside stage of his girl show.

for the ding and then collecting the money slowed the operation down. You did more shows nightly without the ding." When John Moss worked for them, Gallic would divide up the girls and switch them around on the different shows from week to week. One week she gave John four girls and she had three girls on her show. At the end of the week she had outgrossed him. She said to John, "Johnny, what the hell happened here? I gave you all the tits and I still outgrossed you!" John said in his defense that even though he had one more girl than she did on the bally, Gallic was always dressed up like one of the dancers, so it was an even situation. John says Gallic also did her own emceeing in the show and always closed with this announcement: "Well, I hope you enjoyed the show, and if you did please tell your friends. If you didn't, please keep your mouth shut! We also have another girl show across the midway that is just as good as this one and you may want to pay it a visit too. Thanks for coming, if you did! If you didn't, better luck next time. Remember, come back and see us." Operating a cooch show, like all the rest of the shows on the midway, was a business of paying attention to details. Many, many details. One of the staple jobs on the cooch

On John Moss's show, a dancer starts with a provocative tease, then another topless dance. After John collects the "extra" inside money, the rest of the wardrobe comes off.

show was to have someone "watch the back" or patrol the outside of the tent so nobody got in without paying. "One year," John says, "I hired two ex truck drivers. One sold tickets and the other patrolled the tent. We had no trouble that year. If anyone tried to harm the girls you had to get in there fast." John explains further, "One thing I 87

"Is this waht you guys want to see?"

"Wait a minute, you haven't see the whole show yet," says John Moss, working into his pitch for the extra money to see his girls dance completely nude. The men almost always anted up to see the whole show. The dancer on on the right seems to be asking, "Is this what you guys want to see?"

learned from Gallic was to have the person on watch duty go in after the show was finished and check and make sure the tent was empty, that all the guys had left. I always made sure that my watchman lifted up the bally cloth of the inside stage and did a good check under there." When he operated cooch shows, Moss would speed things up on busy nights to cram in as many shows as he could. He would start the music halfway through the record, or fade it out before the song ended. "The girls would dance in their gowns and remove them with bras and Gstrings underneath," John recalls. "Then all three girls would dance separately to half a record and remove their tops. I would come onstage and make the pitch for the extra money to see them dance nude. Some operators did this with the girls in the dressing room but I preferred the girls onstage. I

Top: Carnival cooch shows were popular because they got so up-close and personal. The stages weren't as remote as they are in today's peeler bars. Bottom: This girl seems to be patiently guiding a customer's hand to the right spot. Some cooch shows permitted touching in the after-show, but many only reluctantly, when faced with stiff competition from rival shows on the midway.

would have one girl on each end and one in the middle, standing there topless. I did this to hold the guys so nobody left while I was making the pitch." John preferred his girls to wear Gstrings rather than panties. He felt that girls looked awkward stepping out of panties, and the G-strings or briefs that hooked on each side of a girl's hips could be undone and the back part swung forward between their legs in a dramatic fashion that got a rise from the crowd. "We worked pretty strong with the cooch show," John admits, "but I stopped at the touching part that many shows offered. I didn't allow audience participation. Again there are exceptions. In one spot where we had strong competition from another girl show on the lot, I told the girls they could let guys touch them if

they wanted to do it but they didn't have to do it. But no touching between the legs." Things sometimes got bizarre in the world of cooch. John Moss remembers visiting a carnival where a woman he knew was working her own gal show. "Hey, Johnny," she said to him, "I need a break. Come over here and emcee the show for me! Now, the first girl's name is . . .the second girl's name is ... and the third girl is called. . . — she smokes a cigar on the ding!" Moss knew the girl didn't smoke her cigar the usual way. Bob Tanenbaum says there were quite a few different cooch-show blow-offs. One involved the use of baby powder. The girl would let the mark put powder on her back using a big powder puff, then say if he gave her a dollar he could put powder on her front. When she got the dollar she would dab him on the head with the powder puff. You would see guys walking down the midway with powder in their hair and down their necks and you knew where they had been. Sometimes the girls would put an egg inside themselves in the dressing room and come out onstage and squat down and drop the egg from between their legs. Other girls came out onstage, lit a candle, put it on the stage floor, squatted down in O

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front of it, and blew it out. Many girls would get the guys to fold a dollar bill lengthwise and then they would pick it up from the stage with their sex. Former stripper Bambi Lane relates this story about the time she worked a carnival girl show near Newark. "At the end of the performance the things some of the girls did got pretty rough, and I said that I wasn't going to work like that. So I used the peanut butter bit. I took peanut butter and put big globs of it on my breasts and I would pick out some guy in the audience and bring him to the edge of the stage and I would go boom-boom with my tits and leave peanut butter all over his face, nose,

Above: A dancer does a bit of "rug work" at a cooch-show finale. Squats and splits were all part of the blow-off portion of the show. Be/ow: One of John Moss's dancers works on the apron of the stage.

hair. If the guy had a beard or mustache I really messed him up!" Eventually, John Moss says, you couldn't get agency girls out on the carnival shows as they were making a lot more money in clubs and bars. Pretty soon it was hard to get any girls. Sometimes the local paper wouldn't even run an ad for dancers in their classifieds. Moss got around that by running an ad that read, "Truck drivers and dancers wanted." Moss's other problems were more off-

beat. "A lot of guys spend their time trying to get girls to take their clothes off for them. I had the opposite problem. I was one of the few guys who had problems keeping them dressed. On the hot days they would sit between shows in the dressing room in the nude or, with the more modest girls, in a G-string. They hated to get all dolled up in a hot heavy gown and makeup for the bally. As the owner you would be in and out of the dressing room and you never even noticed their nakedness, except a new girl. For a day or so, you would catch yourself looking at her. Then it was all routine again." O

To John Moss, the cooch show is sadly a vanished piece of Americana. We will no longer hear him say from the bally stand, "This show is strictly for the gentlemen. You must be over 18 and under 80 to ogo in this tent. There is a good reason for this rule. If you are under 18 you won't understand it and if you are over 80 you couldn't stand it. This is red-hot burlesque, carnival hoochie coochie. We guarantee you'll leave our show with your hands in your pockets with a new grip on life!"

Everybody's ready to go on the Gold Medal girl show at the Hagerstown, Maryland, fair in 1957. Feature performer Tangerine (left) seems eager as the talker is poised to send the dancers inside and turn the tip.

A cooch show on O.C. Buck Shows at a fair in Potsdam, NY, late 1960s. Veteran back-end show operator Lou Pease also ran single-O and illusion shows.

9f

FEMALE IMPERSONATORS Circuses and carnivals were often homes for people who mainstream folks considered marginal classes — those who'd left bad marriages, broken homes, abusive parents, boring towns, and dead-end jobs. Shows were one place they could almost become lost in. For many gay men and women, too, it was a safe world where you were judged only on the job you did. Jaydee Easton worked some of the largest 10-in-l's on carnivals as a halfand-half, as well as in girl shows and finally as a bearded lady. Jaydee said, "I first worked in a single-o girl show for Lou Pease. I was working at Tony's Talk of the Town Club in Chicago, a cross-dressing club and total tourist trap with B drinkers. All the men were girls and all the girls were men. Lou showed up and propositioned everyone to work in his girl shows. Lou had said that you kept your pasties and G-string on, so I knew it would be no problem for me to do it. "This was before silicon breast implants. You could get what we called 'water tits.' A doctor would inject water into your breasts to enlarge them.They lasted about a month after each shot. It was painful the first few times you did it, but eventually your skin stretched and it stopped hurting. You didn't need tits the size of basketballs back then. Guys were not fixated on tits like they Transsexual burlesque stripper Hedy Jo Star owned carnival girl shows where she employed mostly female impersonators during the 1950s. She later became more famous for her wardrobe design and creation.

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are now. In fact there wasn't a lot in print about female impersonators, either. No tabloids or talk shows like today. If guys came into a girl show they assumed they were watching females dance. "You could flash in drag," Jaydee explains. "You got rid of your male sex by looping an elastic piece around the penis and pulling it back and up. The elastic band holding everything back was attached to a small rubber ball that was inserted in your anus. It sounds simple, but most people got scars from it. I learned the technique from an old side-show worker called Titsy Mitzi. Done properly you could even turn around and show your backside. "Flashing frontwards was very easy to do. I would buy one of Tony Midnight's G-strings and cut the pouch from it, cover the outside with lots of makeup, and let it dry. Then I would get one of my old wigs and cut a patch of hair out of it the size of the pouch. I glued it to the back of the pouch and when it was completely dry I would take a needle hook and pull the hairs through the G-string at the front. The G-string was all flesh-colored, but at the front I would go over it with an eyebrow pencil and make it darker. With a pink spotlight shining on me it was almost impossible to tell I was a guy.

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"I have worked on cooch shows where after all three of us danced one of the girls would take the microphone and say, 'Now, fellas, we would like to do something special for you here tonight. We are going to sell you flashlights and you will have a chance to come down and inspect one of the dancers up close.' One of the dancers would come to the front of the stage and sit down and spread her legs real wide while another girl would start selling the little penlights. The guys when they got their light would line up and take their turn viewing the spread dancer. The other girl had a little bell and she would ring it to indicate the guy's time was up. We would charge the guys $1 on slow nights and $2 on busy nights and after they had all looked with the lights we took the lights back off them. Of course I couldn't spread and work those shows, but I could sure sell flashlights!" "I used a special blow-off for the Saturday-night Ramble show. The girls, three or four, would dance on stage together like a go-go show in just pasties and G-strings.Then I would make the special show announcement that Long Tall Sally had taught me for the bearded lady blow-off, which was, 'We are going to show you how the fat girl gets it, how the skinny girl gets it, and what the old maid does with a Coke bottle on Saturday night. I am going to show you how a French girl smokes a cigarette, as we are going to do a little dance called, Dance of the Reefer or Pot in the Twat.' We would invite the guys up to the edge of the stage to pass up their money to the girls but if it was too rowdy in there the talker would make the pitch and collect the money. Then I would dance, saying, 'The fat lady can give you heat in the winter and shade in the summer and the skinny girl can dance like this. . . . " I'd do a few bump and grinds. Then I'd take the Coke bottle and slide it between my legs while I made a few crude comments. Then I would ask one of the men in the audience to light a cigarette and

pass it up to me, and I would put it between my legs and dance with it, saying, 'I would blow you guys a few smoke rings, but my ringer's broken.'Then pull the cigarette out and say, 'Butts anyone?' That was it. The pitch sounded terrific, but I didn't really do anything, just a bunch of patter and body-language suggestions. Unfortunately, just as time catches up with female strippers, drags too see their performing days end eventually. Jaydee related, "I remember two old drag queens named George West and Cleo Renew who use to work in side shows around New England. They decided in their late fifties to frame a girl show and work it themselves. Just strip down to pasties and G-string. One night they had both finished dancing for a tent full of men and Cleo is down on the ground holding up the side wall to let the guys out. Cleo jokingly says to the last guy, 'If you find someone for me, bring him back to me,' and the mark replies, 'If I find anything for you, Grandma, I will.' Then he points at George and says, 'But not for you, Grandpa!' That was the last time George danced in drag."

One of the small girl shows that Joe Boston and Tirza ran. The lady with the sunglasses, standing beside Tirza (second from right), is a guy. Gays were often found in 10-in-l side shows doing the half-man/half-woman act and working in drag on carnival girl shows. Many of the dancers who worked gay cabarets during the winter went with carnival shows in the summer.

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THE GIRL-SHOW TALKER £&t Me Sottip&f, Sou Site Does aw not Ofo we fftgute MM a, Ma& Pa*^" || first-class girl-show talker can make a listening to his talker, a little old guy with a lasting impression. The talker's voice stirs wrinkled face like a peach pit. He would sto p the imagination, arouses curiosity, per- the small rock combo and motion for one of

A

colates desires, and gets immediate results,

the very well-built dancers to come over and

The art of telling the tale is as old as the

help him out on the bally, saying, "Ladies an d

shows themselves. Not everyone standing

gentlemen, I would like you to meet

before a show front wants to see the show

Caroline." She stood motionless at the top of

inside. Some stop out of curiosity, others to

the bally stairs beside him. He pointed towar d

pass the time or just to be entertained by a

her head with a sweep of his arm and said,

free show. The talker's job is to convince them

"When this young lady dances for you insid e

to buy tickets — right now.

this show tonight, from here on up nothin g

I

remember

hanging

around

Tony

is going to happen."

Mason's revue show on Amusements of

Then he'd point down to her knees dan

America at the Ottawa fair in the early 1970s

say, "And from here on down nothing s i 97

C H A P T E R /

"sEE HER WIGGLE,

see her shake!" PETER GAREY

between Cherry Valley and the Appalachian Mountains all hell is going to break loose. Thank you, Caroline. Take it all the way back, take it all inside. It's show time. Buy tickets here and over there. Follow the lovely' ladies into the tent. Go now." As the evening wore on his ballys

shit, let's bring out the broads. Please give a big Ottawa welcome to the star of our show, Miss Pussy Galore!" Starting from the days talkers leatherlunged it to the era of the megaphone and then tthe microphone, show folks have jackpotted about talkers with legendary voices. The best could talk on any attraction — the side show or 10-in-l, the motordrome, the monkey show, the girl shows, the jig shows, the Hawaiian shows, and the Wild V West shows. Working for five or ten perceni percent of the daily gross, they would prind ;away for hours, extolling the fascigrind o nating stories of their gaffed and waxed

became shorter. At one point near the last

attracti attractions.

Performers on Jock Norman's Broadway to Hollywood

going to happen. "Then, pointing to her

revnue on James E. Strates look a little bored as they

crotch and chest, he finished, "But

wait behind the show front to be called to the bally.

Page 96: While the first Divena does a show inside the tent, Gayle Madden makes an opening with the "other" Divena. This was Madden's first job as a talker. Page 97: Veteran talker "Red" Rogers.

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show he Stopped the band in mid-tune

with a quick chop of his hand, looked into the gathering tip, and said, "Enough of this

Their home was the circle of show fronts and bannerlines along the show midway referred to by carnival people as the the "ba "back end."

Right: A talker shouts through a megaphone, making his pitch to the crowd at Toronto's CNE on Wortham Shows, early 1920s. Girls from the water show and sailors line the bally, and a clown climbs onto the ticket box. 8e/o\v: The talker makes an opening at the Beckmann and Gerety Shows, late 1930s, with twin Ferris wheels looming in the distance. The underage members of the tip seem to have pushed their way to the front!

If you saw Tony Paradise sashaying across the bally on Leon Claxton's Harlem in Havana in the 1960s on Royal American Shows, you witnessed one of the best o girl' and jig-show talkers in the business. Some carnies thought he was on drugs by the way he danced and jumped around the bally but it was just Tony's act. Lugging around a wardrobe of seventy-one suits, dozens of sequined jackets, and scores of colored sequined shoes earned him the nickname "Suits" — he often changed his wardrobe eighteen or twenty times a day. Peter Garey says a newspaper reporter once called him the "Aristocrat of Talkers," which he took to mean that he bathed rego

ularly and didn't murder the King's English. Many show people confirm these sentiments, declaring him one of the best. "I had fans," recalls Garey, "that came back again and again to hear my spiel. One little old lady in Ionia, Michigan, would come to the fair every day and bring a little camp stool and sit out front. It drove me nuts. I offered to pass her in free, but she said, 'No thanks, dear, I just enjoy listening to you!'" Gayle Madden was another great talker — his quick bally, with just one girl outside, grossed a lot of money in a day. Many old-timers would put their money on Joe Boston, who often ducked behind the doorway curtain to have "a wee word with 99

The mike cord draped over his shoulder, talker Peter Garey leans into the tip to make his point. Magician Bill Karlton said of Garey: "What made Peter so interesting was that you never knew what he was going to say. . . . He had a knack for making his openings very entertaining and he seemed to sense each time what the tip wanted to hear."

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Garey talks the front of a Joy Fleenor girl revue, with a row of scantily clad dancers behind him.

Jack" before continuing his opening. Joe and his wife, Tirza, were the last working big girl-show talkers in America. But when you ask talkers who the best was, most exclaim, without hesitation, "The Greek!" Lou "the Greek" Stratton worked the Lorow Bros, side shows for several years before joining their sister Raynell on her girl shows. Lou always came to work prepared. When he arrived on the fairgrounds he would walk around the midway a few times to study the crowd. To him, no two crowds were alike. If the crowd seemed spirited he would tell the dancers to move into high gear once they hit the bally platform, and if the crowd was in a quieter mood he would tell the vocalist and comics to take the spotlight.

Rosa Mack, aka Baby Dumplin', laughs as Garey launches into his spiel about her: "One tassel here, one tassel there, and two more tassels on her derriere. When she gets all four tassels twirling at once in opposite directions, she looks like a DC6 in flight."

The talker is the first person you usually see on the bally stage. He has four jobs during the bally. If he fails in any of them, he blows the bally. First he must get a "tip" (a crowd in front of him). Most people are reluctant to stop in front of a bally platform, so the talker must promise them something. He may say, "Hey, lookee here, we are getting ready to bring out some of the

Lou "the Greek" Stratton, the king of the talkers, makes his opening with his arm around his wife, Betty, on one of Raynell Golden's revues, Cetlin and Wilson circa 1950.

Raynell leans on the ticket box at her Nudism Exposed posing show on Cetlin and Wilson, late 1940s Legendary talker Lou Stratton mans the ticket box, while expert gal talker Elsie Calvet, in the back, wields the microphone.

entertainers, bring out the some of the dancing girls!" Men will usually stop when the girls come out. Once the crowd stops in front of the show, the talker draws them in closer to the bally stand. He might as well quit if he cannot devise a small coin trick or involve some other object in his opening that the tip will have to move closer to see. He may announce, "We have been asked by your

fair committee not to block the midway. Please step up close here so the midway crowd can move past you." A good talker knows not to stop talking here or they will back up even more or walk away. Once again he repeats, "Please move forward so people can walk behind you." The talker might then say something like, "Move your feet, your body will follow — it's called walking." Then he'd turn his back on the 101

Top: Patticmn Sciortino, one of the finest girlshow talkers, makes an opening on a chilly fall night. Pattiann learned her chops on an Unborn Show (Pickled Punk), where she made the front openings and then lectured on the various dead specimens in jars inside. Bottom: Talker Elsie Calvert unloads her spiel in front of her girl revue on Goodman Wonder Shows in the 1940s.

Connie Royal, aka Baby Kid Austin, addresses a crowd on Royal American, circa 1950, flanked by two of the show's performers. Connie was also a talker on one of Sally Rand's girl shows.

"It is hard to believe you had to talk men into spending money to see naked women you would think it was the easiest job in the world." JOHN MOSS

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tip and take four or five steps upstage. When he turned around again, the tip would have moved in. Roland Porter explains his technique: "Now, if you are talking on the front of a show and you have the crowd started, you use psychology to hold them there. They are running here and there, from one ride or game or show to another. You stop them, bring them in close and weed out the good ones from the bad ones. Now if you say to them, 'Would you be so kind as

Gayle Madden makes his appeal on Raynell Golden's Hi Frenchy revue on Cetlin and Wilson Shows, 1951. Madden broke into the girl-show talking business around Raynell, taking his cues from master talker Lou Stratton: "Pretty soon I had him down pat. I did everything Lou did except take a soda bath every night after work."

to take a few steps forward so we don't block the midway' they will know that you want them to come in, so they will stand there! So, you see, the psychology is to do something low. I used to do a thing in which I would bend down and place a dime on the stage and I would tell the tip I was going to ask one of the lovely young ladies to come forward and cover the dime with her foot. Then I told them that before she leaves she will have the dime in her hand. Now, I bend down, put the dime down with one hand and with the other hand wave them closer. The crowd would move in." Now that they are in close the talker must excite the tip about the show. Most

talkers used a little theatrical license in describing how hot and sexy their show was. On a revue the talker will tell you about each act, describe the singer or variety acts, the comics, the strippers, and the feature act. He will paint a word picture of the dances the girls will perform on the inside. On a cooch show the opening may border on the obscene.

A young recruit from the tip has his arm around one of the showgirls as the talker makes his opening on James E. Strates in Danville, Virginia, 1949.

Gayle Madden was the master of the "still" bally. Some talkers had to have all the performers on the bally to turn the tip. Gayle would need only one bally girl, an empty Coke bottle, and a piece of newspaper. "If you're 703

One of the strongest things a talker can do while making an opening is to use a member of the tip. Here Bill Hamilton uses his time-worn patter while a towner gets to hold a dancer at a 1970s show.

Joe Sciortino opens on his posing show on Prell's Broadway Shows, 1952. Prell's was one of the finer truck carnivals of that decade.

the kind of guy that starts the day off with tomato juice and black coffee," he would say, "then this is the show for you. I can hear the music inside and the show is going on now." He would then slide the doorway curtain open and give them a peek when he knew one of the strong acts was working. Then he'd close the curtain, walk to the front of the bally steps, and

"People think I'm crazy when they hear that i quit

South Pacific for a carry Pitch . . . " PETER GAREY

14

hand the empty Coke bottle to the bally girl sitting on a high stool near him. Slowly, as he described the great show going on behind them, he would tear the newspaper into small strips and drop them into the Coke bottle. This completely meaningless ritual mesmerized the crowd. California carnival owner Kent Danner recalls another midway company where he saw a girl show operated by a man and his wife and his daughter, both dancers. At the end of the bally the females' skirts always slipped down, revealing very little in the way of undergarments and giving the tip a tantalizing view. Other old-timers recall that Honey Lee Walker often wore no

Before he talked for Raynell Lorow's girl show, Lou Stratton worked several seasons with her brothers on their illusion show. Here he passes a hoop over a floating woman.

panties under a short skirt. Just before she turned the crowd, she would walk over pointing to the ticket boxes. She then raised her leg and put one foot on top of one of the ticket box counters giving every one standing below an eyeful of what she was selling. Girl-show operators had certain policies about their feature attractions. Some preferred to keep them off the bally and others went out of their way to feature them outside as well as inside. Raynell kept her feature off the bally. Jack Norman liked to have them out there big as life. Roland Porter kept the feature off the bally if she was "long in the tooth," implying that her

name as a past burlesque star had more selling power than her present figure and looks. Regardless of policy though, if business was slow or the talker needed a boost in his opening, the feature was called out to the bally. "The key to the girl revue opening," says John Moss, "was making this variety show much racier than it was without making an opening that was more typical of a cooch show. If one of the acts was a magician with an attractive lady assistant the producer would usually ask her to make bally. On Dave Hanson's Revue one year we had Jim and Judy Green doing their illusion act. I would bring Judy out

Red and Helen Marcus on Cetlin and Wilson, 1955. The couple produced and managed revues in the 1940s and 1950s, and were also excellent talkers, especially on black revue shows.

105

Rita Cortez is introduced to the crowd on her Latin American Show on Strates, early 1950s. A couple of the show's musicians are on the bally to help draw a tip, but when they're inside playing, the talker uses a record player.

on the front with the other dancers. "'Now, ladies and gentlemen, this shapely young lady standing next to me does an act inside our show that is outstanding. I can't fully describe what she does because of the children in the crowd and on the midway. Let me simply say that she does an act on the inside with a male partner. That's right, a male partner. I can only say this about her act outside. It will amuse and amaze you, confound and confuse you. It will certainly send you out of the show and down the midway scratching your head and wondering if you really saw what you thought you saw, when you thought you saw it!' "This was as strong as I could get in suggesting a sex act onstage in my revue opening which in reality described the magic act."

It's a beautiful early fall night, closing night at the Syracuse, N.Y., fair in 1986. In a few hours James E. Strates Shows will begin the ritual of tear-down. Lights from the giant wheel reflect like turning wagon spokes across the front of the girl show. One of the show's generators is purring away in the background. The smells of fried 106

The talker starts to gather a tip on what appears to be the first show of the day for the Broadway to Hollywood revue on Strates, 1959. Feature stripper Pagan Jones is visible behind the center marquee brace.

sausage and dough drift through the crowd. A tired Joe Boston is about to catch the last night's take. He has just put on a tape by the Bill Black Combo and he has one foot up on the ticket box. One hand is full of microphone cord, and the fingers of his other hand grip an old-style mike with a handkerchief tied over it to cut the outside noise. Joe starts his grind. "All right, it's show time. You don't have to walk around. You can sit down. It's real hot, naughty carnival burlesque. Hey, girls, what about it? You know what happens when you see this show? You want to check into a Holiday Inn, right away! Yes,

sir. Come, guys, let's go. Hoochie-coochie acts. Come in and sit down, fellas. Hey, I'll tell you what. There is nobody out here, just a few people. Here's what we'll do: two for the price of one. Get a partner, come on in. They're getting ready. You're just in time. Naughty low-down carny burlesque. Now hurry up and get in here. Last chance tonight. They won't be here tomorrow. The girls shake it up, take it off, and they're ready to roll. Red-hot carnival burlesque. "We have a male stripper for the ladies that's just as naughty as the girls. Have you seen a male stripper? Get in here. What a time you are going to have in here. Well, we are going to bring out the male stripper in just a minute. Two girls and the male stripper. We'll have them out here in just a minute. This guy's the naughtiest male stripper . . . anywhere! He's the star of the Crazy Horse Saloon in Miami all winter long, that's where they work. Let me get them out here." Three or four dozen people, mostly young couples, stand in front of the bally as the showgirls and the male stripper come onto the bally. Joe has moved closer to the tip. "Well, I tell you what — we're going to have one of the girls give you a sample of what takes place on the inside right over here on the second step. We might as well

George Duggan talks on the bally of Club Lido as his wife Jackie looks on, 1960s.

Joe Boston works the bally with a showgirl on the James E. Strates Shows in the 1980s.

"You can't beat using a guy out the audience when you're making an opening GAYLE MADDEN

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The talker on Sex on the Half Shell ballyhoos Loreli, the "Siren of the Sea," who emerges from the clam shell. This Legs Away Revue on Strates, 1955, was produced by Jack Norman and burlesque veteran George Pronath.

call on that young lady on the end of the line there. Come over here, please, and step down on the second step. "This is something you got to see because it's free of charge. She's going to do a little number that she made up herself, a number she calls Oriental Muscle Dancing. That means she has control of all the muscles in her body, all of them. The only part of her body that won't be mov108

ing when she is dancing is from her shoulders to the top of her head. From her shoulders down is where all the action is going to take place. "We're not allowed to block the midway, come in closer, it's not going to cost you anything. If you buy a ticket right now, it is for the 8:30 show. We are going to have a show at 8:30, 9:30, and 10:30, three shows. Then we are going to tear this down, load it on the train, and go all the way to South Carolina. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you look right through the doorway, you people up front, you will see that you will not be by yourself in there. We have a few hundred of your friends and neighbors inside already and if we don't put on a show right away those people are going to get impatient and that's not good. "There are no extra charges on the inside, whatsoever. Now I'm going to extend a money-back guarantee. Three guarantees. One: you get a seat on the inside. Two: there are no extra charges. And three:

Left: Joe Kara talks on the front of his Esquire Girls show on the Bill Lynch Shows, 1950s. Kara, who worked out of Montreal, Quebec, was one of the principal operators of back-end shows on Canadian midways during that decade. Below: A youthful Gayle Madden works the front of Raynell's Pin-up Girls posing show on Cetlin and Wilson, 1951. The show's finale featured Lady Godiva nude astride a merry-go-round horse.

the show starts within two minutes or you can come out and get your money back. "If you're a broad-minded person and like adult entertainment we start the show right now. There's a ticket box there. Send them back and give them a good show and we start the show like I said, right now. Burlesque entertainment. The male stripper and a half-hour show." The music starts. "Hurry up — show time. Show starts right away. Good old-fashioned burlesque.

Show time, show starts now! Go now, right now, if you want to see the show. The show is starting right now. The last night. Anyone else? They're starting the show right now, you're just in time." Time ran out on the girl shows. If you were one of the lucky people Joe Boston talked into the show that night, you witnessed the last girl show on the Strates midway.

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A PRIZE IN EVERY BOX The Candy Pitch

he candy pitch, as practised in girl shows 1 and burlesque theaters from the 1930s I on, would be called by today's crime experts a "short con." Before the show begins, a salesman offers the audience a new confection "just brought on the market." He explains that as an inducement to try this new candy, the company has provided a number of free gifts that have been inserted into the packages at random. The pitchman reels off the list of superb gifts. The price is only twentyfive cents. The sale starts with the "candy butchers" going into the seats while the pitchman continues his enthusiastic banter.

Soon he offers guaranteed prizes for further purchases by the crowd. By the end of the twenty minutes or so, the pitchman has sold a lot of boxed candy, sometimes three or four boxes to the same customer, and given out nothing but cheap prizes. No big money was taken from each buyer, and he or she did get five to seven candy kisses and a piece of "slum." The pitchman's dialogue was carefully crafted — an analysis would reveal no lies. The origins of the candy pitch are buried in show business lore, but by 1912 the first ads appeared in Billboard offering prizes in confection products. One company offered 1ft

CHAPTER

8

Zig Zag, a five-cent package of molasses peanut popcorn with a premium or souvenir in each package. By the late teens and early 1920s, dozens of candy companies offered chocolates, candy kisses, candied nuts, and candied popcorn for sale in prize boxes for pitchmen working circuses, carnivals, theaters, and grandstand shows. Page 110: Leonard Bocci Gallupo (white shirt) — known as "Bach" or "Bachi" around burlesque theaters and girl shows — was one of the best-loved candy pitchmen. Here he is in the front ticket box of Jack Norman's Broadway to Hollywood revue on Strates, Danville, Virginia, 1960.

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The prize candy business on outdoor shows grew along with the manufacturers of the candy. Sidney Anschell's Universal Theatre Concession Co. in Chicago was the big player in the candy sales field. Universal would send a man out to any theater to show the manager how to pitch the candy. In the fall, Universal ran full back-page ads in Billboard directed at burlesque, vaud, and movie theaters announcing that the circus and carnival season would soon be closing and hundreds of high-grade candy pitchmen would be at liberty. The ad said, "Let us put

Anna Belle Lee was produced in Chicago in 1939 by the Casey Concession Co., run by Al and Bill Carsky, candy butchers and pitchmen in burlesque theaters. Al later became a comic and Bill went on to become the premiere supplier of prize candy to carnivals and circuses until the late 1950s. The flap on the right was used for audience members to vote in a contest — for example, for the best-looking town girl.

An ad for prize candy in a 1921 issue of Billboard. The candy was sold by showmen in theaters, movie houses, circuses, repertory tent shows, and carnivals.

you in touch with them. With them and our products the candy sale will soon be paying your rent." The 1920s saw the prize candy racket grow into such a huge business that candy butchers formed their own organization. Billboard ran a weekly column on their doings. Anschell's company in Chicago was a four-story factory. On one floor the sugar and syrups were cooked by steam heat in large retorts, then thickened on steel tables cooled from underneath with circulating ice water. The thick sheets of candy were

Tent repertory theater companies were one of the major users of prize candy. Here, bedspreads — to be given out as prizes — are displayed by the marquee entrance of Sun Players, 1966. They were flash for the candy pitch.

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pulled into ribbons by machines that could turn out five tons of candy every hour. The candy ribbons went into the cutting and wrapping machines and down chutes onto tables where scores of girls put the candy into boxes. The top floor had room for ten railway cars of prizes and one big room by the main office contained the expensive silk gifts. In July of 1934 a complaint was sent in to the Federal Trade Commission against the three big candy prize companies. The commission ruled against them, finding that their style of merchandising contained the elements of a lottery, not permissible in laws governing interstate shipping. The candy companies quickly got around this

Chicago was a major center for prize-candy companies, and one of the biggest was Chicago Concession and Catering, which advertised in Billboard under a variety of names. This ad, from 1922, is aimed at repertory theater companies, which often played brief stands up and down the states bordering the Mississippi River.

14

by shipping the boxes, prizes, and candy separately to the operators, who put them all together on the lot or in the theater. On carnivals, candy was pitched in all the sit-down shows and even some of the stand-up shows. Candy companies like Bill Carskey's Casey Candy would send pitchmen and butchers out on shows on which they had the candy concession. On other shows, the pitch was controlled by the show's concession manager. Eventually many producers of the girl and jig shows saw how much money was being made and they wanted the candy sales themselves. Roland Porter worked candy on Goodman Wonder Shows, a rail show owned by Max Goodman in the 1930s. Joe

Goodman, the son, had the bingo and the candy pitches. Roland explains, "I paid him 25% to work in the various shows — jig, girl shows, even in Al Tomani's sideshow and Leo Carroll's monkey show. That monkey show was some show to try and pitch candy in! You would be in the middle of your pitch and some monkey would start screeching and jumping up and down. Another one would be playing with his dick. Everybody in the crowd would start laughing, the ladies would blush and turn their heads away, while I'm trying to tell them about the watches and all the great gifts they might get in these boxes of candy. "That was a favorite pastime with those monkeys, masturbation. I don't know why they didn't all wear eyeglasses! I would keep saying in a startling or high-

An ad from Billboard, 1926.

Left: Bill Carsky, head honcho of Casey Concession Co., out of Chicago. Above: Carsky advertises in Billboard, 1936.

pitched voice, 'Now, hear this,' or 'I forgot to mention,' trying to get their minds off the monkeys and back to my pitch." One of the most popular "giveaways" was miniature dice. "My dice pitch was this," Roland recalls. Then he assumes his booming pitchman's voice. '"Ladies and gentlemen, I have here the world's smallest pair of dice. When you are playing with them, one thing you will notice is how many times they come up seven or eleven.' '"Now, you don't want to use these dice to shoot craps with your 175

Candy pitchman Bachi with dancer Cheri on a Raynell unit playing the girl show on King Reid Shows, Montreal, Quebec, 1955

Carnival candy pitchman Henry Linden placed an ad in Greater Show World in 1948, boasting that even the show owners wore the watches he uses as prizes.

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friends, but your enemies . . . well! These are transparent dice made of glass. They are colored in appearance but when you take them home and soak them in water, preferably a little salt water, you will see the color disappear. Now when you get home, place the dice together. Match the one with the one. You will see that the little man in one will make up to the little female in the other one and what they are doing is nobody's business but their own. Make sure you are holding them up to the light and look through them, putting the young man on top of the young lady. Match the twos and they change positions. Match the threes and even more happens. When you match the sixes something will happen that you won't believe!' "There were other things we pitched, like a picture on very thin cardboard that you put up to the light to watch the girl dance. Of course you had to dip it in water first. You always put some stipulation with it so they couldn't look at it in the tent or theater because there was nothing there. "When I started in the Empress in Milwaukee," he continues, "besides the candy pitch, we had various book pitches. Sex books. I came out onstage in a doctor's

white coat with a painted-on mustache to appear older and gave the lecture. We would say things such as, 'In this book you will find various things that will help your sex life. One of these is a section describing the seven erogenous zones in the female body, so you can touch them and stimulate female desires anytime you want.' You mention pictures and right away the guys in the audience think nude photos. You described the pages that explained how to enlarge the size of the penis. You told them whatever you thought guys wanted to know, it didn't have to be in the book." Veteran candy pitchman Gene Stapleton explains the difference between pitching candy in a burlesque theater and under

Roland Porter talks the front of the Strates girl show, Raleigh, NIC, 1976. Porter, who began as a candy butcher in burlesque theaters at fifteen, was considered one of the finest pitchmen in the business. He married four times — each wife was a stripper.

canvas: "It was tough in the theaters. In the big cities like New York and Chicago you were okay because you had a lot of tourists, but in the little cities you got the same crowd each week. With the carnival we played a lot of towns that didn't have a burlesque theater. Most girl-show patrons hadn't seen a candy pitch before. You could work strong. The main reason the producer let you work the way you wanted was

because it usually took three bailies to fill the tent, and so you entertained the people already in there while the talker worked on the outside. The pitch would take in more money than the ticket boxes." Charles (Chuck) Schlarbaum is without doubt one of the finest circus and show musicians in the last half of this century. During his seasons in the 1950s and early 1960s with the James E. Strates Shows, he and the band doubled as the candy-pitch salesmen. "We used to have candy-packing parties," he explains. "Involved the whole cast, everybody packed candy. In the candy wagon we had this big bin of peanut butter kisses and molasses kisses. We had two crews, one crew filling the boxes with candy and the other putting in the slum prizes. So you put six pieces of candy in the box and a

Candy butchers sold these "pitch books" in burlesque theaters. They often tore these girlie books in half, selling both parts and pocketing the extra 25
TT7

Girl-show pitch item: A basic shimmy dancer pitch item (center) consisted of a black paper cutout dancer and a square paper "stage." Attach the dancer to the back of the stage and fold her waist slightly. Hold it all up to a light, and when you wiggle the paper, the dancer shimmies.

rubber-tire compass. So we made up all the

them to leave the one with the lighter in it

boxes with the slum and candy in them,

open. You knew which boxes had the

Chinese finger traps, rubber-tire compasses, Hawaiian leis. Then we had the 'plain stock' with just ballpoint pens to fulfil the guaran-

other cops in them and they were passed

tee. The major prizes we would put in the

out first down in the front. You might sell a couple of boxes and then pass out one with a cop. You don't want to make it look

"The boxes were put in carriers for the

obvious by the first couple of people getting good gifts. So you might sell three or

butchers. There was a watch in every car-

four boxes, then give out a cop, another

rier — we called these boxes the 'cops.'

three to five boxes, then another cop. You

There was a dummy box on each side of

had to get the good prizes out early in the

the watch and God help the son of a bitch

front but you still had to

who put the watch out by mistake! So if

work, kind of stall, set a

the law wanted to shake the carriers down,

tempo so as not to give all the

the watch was there too. If they came in the

cops out at the same time.

boxes just before the pitch.

candy wagon we could show them the

"As soon as you see that

locker with the watches, the lighters, the

you have sold as much as

pen and pencil sets, and the billfolds.

you are going to on the first

"Each seller would have a tray, a carrier with all the boxes in there. I would tell 118

pitch, you call back the sellers. 'Wait a minute! I heard

Fold this paper novelty item three times and the "leopard spots" became a man and woman having sex.

This small joke book was used as the prize inside a box of candy or as a giveaway with other sales items. Said burlesque's Gene Stapleton, "We pitched a certain brand of candy bars, and they weren't a big seller, so we used to put the joke book with them to move them."

JOKE PARADE

"WATCH YOUR PERFORMANCE TONIGHTTHERE'S A COUPLE OF TALENT SCOUTS OUT FRONT!"

"Send us textiles. My wives say they haven't got a thing to wear."

'Harry dear, how long do I shake these?"

Now. I suppose you're wondering why I asked you to remove your clothes...

Which On* Has Th« Toni?

Turn this novelty card upside-down and look at the lady on the left. By the mid-1970s, candy as a pitch item was disappearing, and most operators pitched a bag containing three or four novelty items. Gayle Madden (at ticket box) and veteran candy pitchman Gene Stapleton work the 1948 DuQuoin, Illinois, Fair. Next to Stapleton is Gene's wife, who did a novelty dance in the show, and beside her is headliner Diane Ross with her monkey. Diane and the monkey wore similar outfits, and as Diane disrobed, so did her little friend.

that! Someone just said there are a lot of novelty prizes going out but not too many big prizes. Stop the sale. Guys, come back down front.' Then you give them this shot known as the 'guarantee.'You call off a list of prizes. Every item on the list you call off they are guaranteed to get one of. The watch, the pen and pencil set, or the ballpoint pen, the Schick razors, the Dunhill lighters, etc. Now, the catchword there was 'pen and pencil set' or 'ballpoint pen.' Now in the next carriers, all the boxes contain ballpoint pens, every box. That was the guarantee. That was as far as most candy pitchmen would go on big days.

"However, if you had time and business was slow or on the last show of the night — especially 'getaway night' — you sent the sellers back to get the 'heavy boxes'! Then you went into the part of the pitch that was known as the 'jam' and 'double jam.' Some pitchmen referred to this part of the pitch as the 'empty box' pitch. "Now you gave the crowd the pitch about being good sports and gamblers," Chuck continued. "When you get your box, don't shake it. We want you to be surprised. You would tell them, 'Only an undertaker sells empty boxes.' Each box you sell, you put a number on it with a felt

pen. When you have sold as many as you can, you stop the sale and you give them this shot: 'I'm going to show you my appreciation for you showing me what good sports you are here tonight. Now that you have bought the horse, you might as well buy the carriage to go with it.'

A 1950 Billboard ad for Peek-A-Boo viewers, a popular item at shows, theaters, and circuses. A photographer went through the crowd, snapping pictures of audience members, then offered the pictures for sale in a little viewer during intermission. On girl shows, the viewers contained photos of models.

"So you have all these people out there with numbered boxes. Now you are trying to sell them another box (the double jam). So you have people who have bought one or two boxes the first pitch, another on the guarantee. So, some guy is with his girl and he has candy boxes all around him and a numbered one in his hand. You call out number one and ask the holder of that box to hold up his or her hand. You ask if he is going to take the second box for fifty cents or a dollar, whatever you are asking. So with his girl beside him, he will usually take the second box. You go through it with each buyer. Pay or pass. You grind it

out. When it is all done and they open their boxes you are back to the ballpoint pens. You didn't guarantee them anything, just an empty box. Remember that line about being good sports and gamblers! "As soon as us band guys finished the pitch we ran backstage, changed jackets and went right into the overture and the opening number. As soon as they opened the curtain, it would be raining ballpoint pens, Chinese finger traps, rubber-tire compasses. Even though we had changed jackets, they recognized us."

Leon Miller (right) and a helper put together boxes of prize candy for a girl show on Royal American, 1959. The sellers' carrier trays are stacked at the bottom right.

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he producer was the man or woman who put the girl show together, hired the acts, lined up all the girls including the feature stripper, rounded up a boss canvasman and crew, and found the best talker available to run the front. Some producers owned the front, tent, seats, stage, wardrobe, lights, and sound, and booked the complete show on a carnival where the owner would be paid a percentage. In other cases, the carnival owner provided all the equipment and hired the producer to bring in the show. The producer was paid by salary, percentage, or both. The more elaborate revues, like those on

Royal, Strates, and Olson shows, were officeowned, with all the operational costs paid by the show. Most of the smaller revues, on the other hand, were individually owned. Many of daese operators had two or more girl shows, which could give them an exclusive and keep competing shows off the lot. Owning your own show was more risky but you got to keep more money if you had a big season. Producing a show for the carnival owner meant that he covered all the salaries, guaranteeing you a full season's work and a fair living. Many girl-show producers had been performers in girl revues on carnivals. Others CHAPTER

9

Left: Raynell as she appeared on Royal American Shows in the 1930s.

Below: The Lorow family worked as a Scotch bagpipe band on Christy Bros, railroad circus, 1925. The siblings from left: Nat "Skeeter" Lorow, Cortez "Con T." Lorow, Nellie "Raynell" Lorow, and Bert "Snooky" Lorow. The brothers went on to be the premiere 10-in-l operators and owned various glass-blowing tourist attractions. Raynell married several times, finally keeping the name Golden from her husband George "Whitey" Golden, a game concession owner and patch.

had worked in burlesque, vaudeville, or tab shows as performers or staff. The producer looked after everything — including wardrobe, music, dance routines, advertising, and the front — and in many cases it took a husband-and-wife team to cover all the jobs. In wintertime the man would line up the talent and staff while his wife made the wardrobe. Together they would work out the show lineup and production numbers. Some producers even worked the front as the talker while others performed in the show and left the running of the front to qualified talkers. Page 122: One of Raynell's girl-show wagons waits to be pulled off a flat car on Cetlin and Wilson Shows, 1950. The lettering on the side advertises feature stripper Anita Marie, comic Al Rio, emcee/straightman Al Golden, "shake dancer" Maona Kai, and others.

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The producer dealt with dozens of personalities — talented artists from different backgrounds, many experiencing their first time under a tent. The producer had to get the most out of his people while they worked in all kinds of weather, doing up to a dozen shows in a ten- to twelve-hour workday. Diplomacy was a valuable trait, as on big days the producer had to cut the show down in length while keeping it entertaining, to get in as many shows as possible — the carnival owner wanted the girl show grossing the maximum. Talent was always unpredictable — acts never quit at a convenient time or place. Many blew in the middle of the night, and the producers had to replace them or fill in themselves until another act was found. The producer made extra money from the concession and candy sales inside the tent. It was his responsibility to ensure the candy

pitchmen were stocked for the big days, and that the product sold and moneys turned in each night added up. The producer was also responsible for the safety of his crowd. If a storm became too violent, he had to stop the show and empty the tent, not always an easy task. Some people seemed to fear getting wet more than being crushed by pounds of wet canvas and steel poles! And if a piece of equipment wore out or broke, the producer had to see that it was fixed by the next showtime. When the public had a beef about the show or the lack of big gifts in the prize candy, the producer had to deal with the problem.

Left: Burlesque and revue producer Allen Gilbert's ad in a 1938 Billboard lists his many credits and talents. In addition to producing the New York Follies on Johnny J. Jones in 1949, he worked the Apollo, Irving Palace, and Republic theaters in NYC before dying at 44 of tuberculosis in 1952. Center. The streamlined Raynell's Show Girls front on Cetlin and Wilson, 1951, featured veteran burlesque comic Billy Zoot Reed, with feature stripper Montmartre Kitty in the Hi Frenchie revue. Right: A production number from a 1950s Raynell revue on Cetlin and Wilson.

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/Above left: Some of the showfolk from the Wortham Shows visit William Lieberman's famous Brownsville, Texas, farm — Snakesville — for a "snake dinner." Producer Elsie Calvert stands at the seated man's right. Lieberman, aka Snake King, started in the corny business with a geek show, but soon discovered there was a dire scarcity of snakes. He set up his own business, supplying carnivals and circuses with snakes and other exotic animals.

/Above right: Elsie Calvert stands on the steps of the onewagon front for her musical revue show on Royal American, 1929. The musicians and dancers are lined up behind her, and the talker (at left) leans on his megaphone.

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Every carnival era had its top girl-revue producers. In burlesque, certain producers stayed for years at the same theaters. Girlshow producers also remained working for the same carnivals. Some developed wellrespected careers, and talkers, workers, and girls would flock to them for work. Many burlesque stars wouldn 't have ventured into the canvas girl shows without having heard about the top-notch jobs Raynell Golden, the Normans, Joy Fleenor, Leon Miller, Gene Vaughan, and others were doing, producing shows comparable to those in burlesque. Well-known burlesque producers like Allen Gilbert, Jack Montgomery, George Pronath, and Paul Morokoff were also very active in producing carnival revues for various shows. Feature stripper Mitzi's first

tour on a carnival was the result of Morokoff being hired by Cavalcade of Amusments to produce their revue. Mitzi had worked for Paul Marokoff at the Rialto in Chicago and he hired her as the feature on his girl show. Leading girl-show producers in the 1920s and 1930s on carnivals included Shirley Francis and her husband G. A. (Lolly) Lyons, Elsie Calvert, Mabelle Kidder, Etta Loise Blake, and Dave and Nancy Miller, while the forties saw the rise of Nate and Dottie Mercy, Raynell Golden, Art and Dixie Gordon, and Joe and Patti Ann Sciortino. In the 1950s and 1960s a handful of producers stood at the top of the girl-revue business: Joy Fleenor on Gooding Amusement Co.; Tony Mason with both black and white revues for Amusements of America;

Nancy Miller spreads her fans on her show on Beckmann and Gerety. She is flanked by six chorus girls, while feature singer and dancer Bertie Austin stands at far left. Also featured here are a five-piece band, a house singer, and two more dancers. Miller was a leading girl-show producer during the 1930s.

Gene Vaughan on Olson Shows; Leon Miller on Royal; Jack and Bonnie Norman on James E. Strates. Joy (Cube) Fleenor has been out of the revue business since 1974. She is an active, bubbling personality, and today runs a sound, staging, and theatrical lighting business. Born to entertainer parents, by the time Joy was fifteen or sixteen, she was dancing in William Eldrige's Imperial Hawaiian on Royal American. Later, her dad ran the Hawaiian show on Royal until his death in 1941, after which Joy

Above: Girl-revue operator Dixie Gordon adjusts a headpiece for one of her showgirls in the dress-room wagon on World of Mirth, 1954. She got into the business after the death of her husband, girl-show producer Art Gordon.

The front bally of Dixie Gordon's Club 1 8 girl show on World of Mirth at the Ottawa Exhibition, 1956. She provided barstools for her girls on the bally.

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Left Looking natty in white hat and white shoes, Joe Sciortino makes an opening on his posing show in the early 1950s. The Buffalo, NY, native started out as a candy butcher in burlesque and carnival shows before taking over a girl show he pitched at in the 1940s. Sciortino owned several back-end midway attactions, from girl and posing shows to a papier-mache Cardiff Giant show. Be/ow: Fan dancer Gypsy Ruth Lebold works her fans in the nude, a la Sally Rand, on one of Sciotino's girl shows, late 1940s.

Joy Cube (arms raised) was a feature dancer for Imperial Hawaiians on Royal American in the late 1930s. Her tux-clad father stands behind the musician on the right. The scenery for this show was particularly elaborate — and a glowing cruise ship passed across the backdrop when the lights were dimmed.

managed the show for several more seasons. She then went into a chorus line and was booked on a USO show for three months. Returning home, she married Bob Purvis and they started managing girl revues full-time, first for Hennies, then for Gooding Million Dollar Midways. Fleenor was recognized among girlshow people for two things: running a clean show and running lots of shows in one day. She remembers one particularly lucrative day in Atlanta. "We started at 10 a.m. and didn't stop until midnight. The crowd didn't want to sit through a fortyfive-minute show so we cut it to twenty 128

minutes. We did twenty-one shows that day. Going for a dollar ticket we grossed over $9,000! "Yes, they used to say I ran a clean show, a Sunday-school show. All the girls were clean-cut, good kids. In fact, most of the chorus line were my daughter's high school buddies. I always had a feature, one strip. I may have had a specialty dancer but only one stripper — I didn't put one dancer against another. The best strip I had was Pagan Jones. She was so easygoing. She didn't care how many shows she did a day. You couldn't find people like that today. I tried to keep ten girls, eight on the line and two for the bally, and I would rotate them. "My talker Peter Garey and I would go visit strip clubs and theaters to see what

talent was out there. One time we saw this girl working in a club and at the end of her dance she dipped her tassels in some flammable liquid and set the ends on fire. She twirled them around until the fire went out. That became a joke at the end of the season when Peter would say to me, 'Well, what acts are you going to bring out next year?' and I would reply, 'That gal that sets her tits on fire'! There was always something to laugh about on those shows." Raynell (Lorow) Golden came from an outdoor show-biz family. She worked in NYC as a chorus girl before returning to carnivals and as "Resister, the Girl No One Can Lift" on the Beckmann and Gerety Shows. She got her start producing girl shows when she convinced the management to let her put a girl show behind an old athletic show front, and by the 1930s she was the leading producer of girl shows on Royal American. In 1938 she produced a show called The Bowery, headlined by her sister Ginger Ray. Her other sister, Laura Lorow Manos, was managing Raynell's French Casino posing show with its new revolving stage. When Raynell went over to Cetlin and Wilson in 1948 she had a new posing show built with a revolving stage. Her nephew Peter Manos, who worked on the

Tony (Masiello) Mason makes an opening on one of his early girl shows on Vivona Bros. (Amusements of America), 1950s. By the early '60s, he ran two girl-revue shows, one black revue show, and three regular girl shows, on their midways.

show, says that everything inside was painted black. Charlie Atwell, the circus and carnival photographer, made her some blow-up photos of beautiful girls that she put into shadow boxes bordered by colored neon, and the stage featured stainless-steel rigging. "My aunt," says Peter Manos, "had no pitches or dings in the show to slow it down, so that on big days the show was kept running almost continuous and grossed a lot of money." Over the next decade her revues featured some of the top strippers and comics. Billy Zoot Reed was there several seasons, as well as Sally Rand. Raynell produced on Cetlin and Wilson into the mid-1960s and on Strates for two seasons, then went independent before calling it quits in the late

Mason, in addition to his duties as a girl-show producer, was a chief mechanic and builder on Amusements of America.

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1960s. Throughout her long career Raynell was noted for her innovations in girl shows. Val Valentine, a feature stripper who worked on Raynell's girl show in 1955, says, "I liked to work for her. I liked the discipline. She demanded if you were working for her, she was very professional. Raynell was real clever. She had an organist and a drummer but she would tape her shows using a big

A publicity photo for the singing and comedy routine Jack Norman did in vaudeville and nightclubs. Norman built a big party room behind his house in Gibsonton, Florida, where many carnies wintered. His first guest was Al Tomani, the giant, whose footprint still decorates the cement walkway that hadn't quite dried yet.

A camp show Jack Norman produced while stationed at Camp Haan, California, during the Second World War. Norman is seated front row left.

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band and then the two musicians played with the tape to give it a big sound. I loved it. She was very progressive. "She was the first who was into having good sound on the shows and she knew also how to keep the nut down. Raynell's shows were always hot, current. She had flair. When you worked for her you had to look like a showgirl. I mean everything

about you — your hair, your shoes, your makeup."

The old guy in the fun-house ticket box on Strates Shows in the late 1970s with the huge jowly face and gruff manner seemed like the perfect replacement for the Laughing Sally mechanical dolls that graced the fronts of funhouses for decades. However, despite his tired, beat-up look, Jack Norman, with his wife, Bonnie, had produced the revues on Strates for several decades. Jack was born in 1908 in Manhattan, Kansas. In his high school days he sang in a dance band and went on to be a comedian, singer, and emcee in nightclubs and vaudeville. He met chorus girl Bonnie in Brooklyn and they married in 193I.They operated a dancing school and then a tour-

Left Norman (on steps) makes an opening on his New Faces of 1959 revue on Strates. While many producers never ballied their feature dancers, Norman got everyone out to the front. Third and fourth from the right are the comedy team McConnell and Moore, while dancer Val Valentine stands center behind Norman. At the far end of the bally stands Sulo Keppo, who performed several variety acts with his family. Center: Norman's "Rain" number on Strates, 1950s. In a classy touch, the curtains are drawn back in folds rather than along a traveler. Right The cast — minus feature Mitzi — of Norman's 1950 revue on Strates. Front row, from left: Rusty Russell, stripper Chloe Carter, singer Win Mayo, stripper Kirsten Dahl, and comedienne Tiny Kaye. A parachute behind the stairs provides an elegant backdrop.

ing theater revue, until the Depression closed both. Norman was drafted into the army in 1943 and there he produced various troop and hospital shows. Returning to civilian life, he worked as a comic before Whitey Weiss of Cavalcade of Amusements in Joliet convinced him and Bonnie to take over the girl show. Two seasons passed and they moved to Hennies, then finally to the Strates Shows, where they stayed. Jack Norman was often described by those who had worked for him as a gruff 131

Jack Norman, seated far right, grinds in the late 1960s on Strates. By this time, he had dropped the variety acts, instead promoting his "Battle of the Strips" with burlesque strippers such as Crystal Ames, Ann Perri, Gigi, and Taffy Castle.

Norman's ID card on Strates when he was looking after the funhouse in 1975.

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Producer Gene Vaughan and burlesque comic Art Watts do a bit on Vaughan's revue show on Strates, 1972. These two guys had hundreds of comedy routines at their fingertips.

and often vulgar loudmouth. But people still liked him and found him more than fair to work for. Chuck Scharbaum remembers, "Jack was good on the front but he still had that comedian in him. He wanted to entertain them out there. But if he was upset about something, he would tell everybody, go on and on. People in the tip would be wondering if this guy is going to tell them about the show or not!" Despite Norman's grousing, he really liked the business and was proud that his

revue on Strates was going over the same towns year after year and bettering the grosses each season. Part of his success was his impeccable choice in strippers. Over two decades he featured the top woman peelers of the day: Vicki Wells, Mitzi, Baby Dumplin', Bonnie Boyia, Chloe Carter, Darlene Drake, Val Valentine, Pagan Jones, Crystal Ames, and Taffy Castle. Blaze Fury and Betty Blue Eyes Howard also worked for Jack on some special fair dates. In 1965, for the first time, Norman dropped the novelty acts, placing more emphasis on the

The Star-Garter girl show was produced by Gene Vaughan on Olson Shows, 1960s.

strippers. The price was increased to $1.50 from $ 1, and he was sticking to the price morning, noon, and night, no jamming. Norman told Amusement Business, "We added strippers and we are selling hotter without jugglers and acrobats. Listen, you can't have everything on the midway for kids, so we added sex without being offensive. Earl Carroll didn't exactly starve to death, and neither does Vegas." Stripper Pagan Jones reinforces Norman's remarks: "Guys don't want a chorus line, they don't want show tunes, they don't want choreography. All they want is sex, bumps, and grinds. They want something they can't see at home." If you told Gene "Broadway" Vaughan that, you would have broken his heart. He was one of the last old-timers still produc-

Some of Gene Vaughan's show-biz family, late 1960s. Back row, from left: Sandy Hanson (chorus line), Paula Graham (chorus line) Mary Anthony (chorus line), Val Valentine (feature exotic), Val Graham (chorus line), Barb Shevrette (chorus line), Darlene (chorus line), Mary Beth Johnson (chorus line). Front row, from left: Art Watts (comic), Roland Porter (talker), Molly Parks (dancer), Gene Vaughan (producer), Vicky Parks (dancer), Ray Como (trumpeter),' Norma Jean Watts (talking lady). Kneeling: Ava "Red Hot" Graham.

ing a girl revue along the old burlesque show formula. When Dick Flint interviewed this Southern gent from Lynchburg, Virginia, on Strates in 1974, Vaughan said, "What I am producing is an old-time burlesque show. I don't know if the audience knows it or not, but that's what it is." Sitting down in the girl-show seats after the last show that night, he told Flint he had 733

Left: The finale production number of the Moulin Rouge girl-revue on Royal American, 1951, produced by Leon Miller. Yvette Dare, the feature, stands in the center with her sarong-stealing parrot. Miller became famous for the huge feathered headpieces his showgirls wore.

started his career by taking dance lessons. He won a Charleston contest put on by a traveling show and left home with them. He spent time in vaudeville and burlesque, and worked in musical tab shows as well. In burlesque he became a producer and choreographer, working at the Grand in St. Louis, the Fox in Indianapolis, and the Folly in Kansas City. When stripper Rose La Rose opened her theater in Toledo, he became her producer. Vaughan had seen burlesque in its best years and through its decline, and by the late 1940s he moved on to carnivals where he found the owners receptive to his style of revues. He spent a dozen or more seasons producing the girl revues on Olson shows and then replaced Jack Norman on Strates, closing out his career in the late 1970s. 134

/Above: Miller does a dance routine at the Tampa Showmen's Club during an annual installation of the new president of the Ladies' Auxiliary of the Tampa Showmen's Club.

Miller does a comedy bit with one of the showgirls on his girl revue on Royal American, 1950s.

A program for the last girl revue Leon Miller produced — Sexpots of the Seventies, featuring Club Lido veterans Diane Mario and Flo de Voe, on Royal American, 1971.

Talking with anyone who worked for him always evokes the same stories of love and respect for a man who wouldn't fire anyone, no matter how bad they were. People working for him became his extended family. Vaughan was notorious for hiring too much show, too many acts — and if he couldn't use you in his shows, he would find someplace for you to go, then give you bus and meal money to get there.

Magician and juggler Bill Karlton, who worked for Gene Vaughan in 1971 on Strates, says, "Once I was talking in the dressing room with the comedian Ernie Callor, who was telling me this old comedy routine he did. Gene came in and started feeding Ernie all the straight man's parts even though he hadn't done it in twenty-five years. Gene was one of those old vaudevillian burlesque showmen who carried hundreds of comic routines, song tunes, dance steps, and chorus numbers around in his head." When Vaughan died in 1977, he received "two or three roomfuls" of flowers at the funeral home from show-business friends on the road, remembers former stripper Val Valentine. And at his funeral, she continues, "The revue people all stood up and sang his favorite song, 'Girls, Girls, Girls.' We sent Gene off properly." Leon Miller produced on Royal American Shows for twenty-odd seasons. The Sedlmyr family that owned the "world's largest midway" were proud of their girl revue — it was the classiest revue show under canvas, a slice of Broadway delivered on a route that consisted of cities depending more on rural agriculture than

Miller's 1962 Club Lido show, Follies de Femmes, featured Blaze Fury, the Human Heat Wave. In the Vineyard of Girls production number, Blaze (center) wears a grape headpiece and an open skirt bearing grape bunches. The theme is echoed by the showgirls' headpieces and the grape backdrops.

Miller was meticulous in his attention to scenery and costume detail, as shown in this girl-revue production number on Royal American in the 1960s. The curtains boast elegant braids and the two featured showgirls have sequin patterns on their capes that match their headpieces.

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Leon Miller works on a costume design for his girl revue on Royal American, mid-1950s. He offered a completely new show every season.

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Costumer Jean Porter cuts fabric for one of Miller's costume designs on Royal American, mid-1950s.

Bertha Zimmerman (left) and Esther Holiday sew sequins, rhinestones, and bugle beads on a costume for the Club Lido revue, mid-1950s.

heavy industries. For thousands of rural fairgoers from Edmonton to Little Rock, it was their Broadway, even if sawdust had replaced patterned carpets and the theater was a tent. Flashy, funny, and sexy, Leon Miller's show had lots of showgirls displaying partial nudity, surrounded by terrific variety talent, hilarious comedians, and one gorgeous feature stripper who made sure plenty of men and not just couples stepped up over the bally into the tent. His sister Vista says that Miller had danced since he was a little boy. He dropped out of high school to join a touring tab show. He was a producer for the A. B. Marcus Revue for eleven years. (Marcus was an extraordinary revue showman from Boston whose elaborate shows made extensive world tours.) In 1939 Miller left

Marcus to produce shows in Chicago for club and theater entrepreneurs Balaban and Katz. Danny Kaye was a very young performer on the Marcus show with them. Vista relates that the "Balling the Jack" number in one of Kaye's movies was adapted from Leon's act. "My brother was a showman," Vista adds. "He usually started by telling the audience, 'I want to do for you a few dances I remember doing when I was a small boy,' which led into his 'Walking the Dog' routine. Then he did 'Balling the Jack,' a talking dance routine, and then his finale of'Doing the New York.' His routine was ten or fifteen minutes long and often stopped the show for that long, encore after encore before the people let him leave the stage. Danny Kaye tried for

Seamstress Jewell Shelly (right) fits a costume for showgirl Dorothy Goss. Both were veterans of the Club Lido girl revue on Royal American, and Dorothy's husband, Carl Goss, was the show's boss canvas man for over two decades.

many years to get Leon to come out to Vegas and produce shows there but Leon liked the carnival business and Tampa." Vista says regretfully, "Of all the years my brother was around producing and working in outdoor shows, he never did his dance routine in those shows. He produced, designed costumes, made costumes, danced in the production numbers, sang, and did comedy bits but never his own act." After Sedlmyr's poor 1950 season with singer Bonnie "Oh Johnny" Baker, they hired Miller to revamp the show. He added more production numbers and hired Yvette Dare and Her Parrot. Dare was one of the hottest burlesque stars — a small brunette

George Pronath (left), Dottie Ann Cook, and Faye Lawrence in the wardrobe wagon on Royal American in the 1960s. Pronath was a longtime burlesque-show producer who helped Leon Miller design and make his girl-revue wardrobe. Lawrence made wardrobe and worked on the revue, for which Dottie Ann was a performer for several seasons.

Seamstress Lois Morgan works on a headpiece for the girl revue. Each headpiece took up to two weeks to create.

whose Oriental-style routine featured a parrot that plucked off her floral brassiere. She tried to train the bird to swipe her Gstring, too, but it could never get the side clasp undone, and so in the climax of the act the parrot pulled off her sarong. Dancer Jackie Duggan remembers Leon as being very choosy when selecting girls. "The show rehearsed in the tent in St. Louis," she says, "and six or eight girls would come in from NYC, but usually only two or three stayed. Leon would send them back if he didn't like them. He was hard on dancers. I can still hear him say, 'How could you do that, kid! You're on the wrong foot. You're out of time!' Even during the show on the road, if you did something wrong, 137

An elaborately costumed showgirl on one of Leon Miller's revues.

Jan Street poses in a chartreuse outfit as Mademoiselle de Paree for Leon Miller's Club Lido Folie de Femme revue, 1962.

Leon would stop the show and say, 'Let's take it from the top again.' He was a perfectionist." The various seasons saw the show continue to feature big-name strippers: Mitzi, Blaze Fury, Ricki Covette, Tsu Li (Soo Lee), Bunny Ware, Courtney Kaye, Delilah, and Diane Swenson. But by the 1970 tour it was getting hard to attract big strip stars onto the carnival shows. In 1971 Miller welcomed the first black showgirl, Fanita Troupe, to his stage, as well as showgirls 138

Below: Molly Parks performs in the production number for the Girl in the Rose show on Club Lido, staged by Miller in 1964. Molly performed with her mother, Vicki, on Royal for three seasons — press agents had a great time with the motherand-daughter dance-team stories.

Flo de Voe and Diane Mario as the Sexpots of the Seventies. It would be the last time the fifteen cities on the show's annual route would see Leon Miller's famous revues. Miller took the closing of the show very hard, Vista recalls. She hoped he would polish up his old act and play clubs with it, but he never did. Revue producer Dave Hanson visited Royal American to see Leon's show at the old Tampa fairgrounds in the 1960s. "Leon had hired this organist that had a drinking

problem," Hanson relates, "and he started showing up later and later each day, finally coming in just a few minutes before showtime. I went to see the show on Saturday, , the big day of the fair, and the girl show opened mid-morning. Three bailies had filled the big tent and by showtime the organist hadn't shown up. Leon stretched out the program pitch as long as he could but finally had to start the show. He took the microphone backstage and sat in his dressing-room wagon and hummed and

sang the whole show through the house speakers! The drummer was banging away like hell trying to keep up with Leon's humming. I found out later it was chaos backstage — the performers were laughing so hard they could hardly make their wardrobe changes on time. Leon would do the introductions — 'Okay, folks, let's put our hands together and welcome to our stage . . .' — then go into the humming sound of the organ. The audience accepted it. Nobody asked for their money back, but

Three lovely showgirls in three terrific costumes on Leon Miller's revues on Royal American Shows.

many looked over their shoulders at the vacant organ as they left the tent to some show tune Leon was still humming as exit music."

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GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS,

AND TUBBY BOOTS A Typical Under-Canwas Corniwal Revue Show

he talker has convinced you to buy a tick* et and cross the bally into the canvas •» world of bump and grind. You enter the tent to see two long rows of low seats running forward to a big curtained stage on one side of which is an organ and drum set. Going in on the first bally means you have about twenty minutes to wait while the talker makes another two bailies to fill the tent. Before the third tip are seated, a neatly dressed gentleman comes center stage in front of the curtains and informs you how lucky you are. The Casey Candy Company, one

of the oldest confectionery firms in the United States, has selected this carnival to introduce its new line of candies. Not only can you sample a new product, but as a special inducement the company has put a valuable prize into each box. For trying the candy the gentleman is also throwing in a little joke book that, because of its racy material, is not sold in ordinary newsstands. As the sale winds down and the pitchman instructs the last buyers to open their boxes containing caramel candy and a cheap pen, the band swings into the overture. The 141

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Above: Everybody loves a parade, and whenever a fair or sponsoring committee staged one, the performers from the girl show were leading the way. Here they sit on a car driving by the front of the fair grandstand, promoting Jack Norman's Broadway to Hollywood revue on James E. Strates in Lockport, NY, circa 1950. The show's stars were Margo and Renee Baron. Above right: Girl-show performers were prime publicity subjects, appearing on radio shows, newspaper interviews, parade floats, and whatever stunts the carnival press agent could arrange while the show was in town. Here the girls of the 1963 Broadway to Hollywood revue on Strates take part in a parade.

Page 140: Leon Miller (kneeling front left) as a young dancer choreographer on the A.B. Marcus revue. Carnival revue producers aimed for the same high standards with elaborate scenery, gorgeous costumes, and lots of attractive girls in their shows.

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emcee welcomes you as the curtains open on a parade of well-costumed girls coming downstairs from the back of the stage, and the male singer breaks into a few lines of "Girls, Girls, Girls." The opening act is a big production number with all the people in the cast except those members who are in the act that follows. The comics — a man-andwoman team — come on next with their risque, sometimes corny, but always fastmoving patter. Then the chorus girls return in new costumes for a short dance routine or production number. The feature dance act is up next — a comedy dance act with

a lot of acrobatics or perhaps a smart tap or jazz routine. Things begin to take on a new momentum as the co-feature stripper comes out, peeling for three or four minutes to a raucous number by the band. And almost as quickly as she appeared, she's off, replaced now by the variety act — an acrobatic or balancing number, juggler, unicycle act, or a magician. Then the comics return for a fleeting routine before the feature strip finally appears. The chorus line and parade girls come out and line the stairways at the back of the stage to provide an entrance for her, and she sashays out to her signature number.

Sulo Keppo balances one of this daughters on jack Norman's Hollywood to Broadway revue, 1950s. The Sulo Keppo Trio was a backbone variety act for several girl-show producers. His daughters Rae, Tris, and Anita all worked in the show as chorus girls.

Once onstage she begins bumping, grinding, and teasing as she removes first her gown, then her tantalizing undergarments. She moves back and forth across the stage, twirling her tassels and throwing flirtatious glances into the crowd. A finale production number with the feature strip posed in the middle gives the show its big flash finish. The emcee thanks you for coming and

directs you to where the canvas crew holds up the side wall, pointing your way back out onto the midway. Out front, the talker is well into another opening, and the cycle repeats, ten or twelve times daily. Jack Norman's bandleader, Charles Schlarbaum, recalls, "The band would start right after the pitch. We would go into the overture, usually 'There's No Business Like Show Business,' or something similar. Then you went right into the curtain-opening music. Jack had different ideas. One year the production number was a beach scene.We had comedy team McConnell and Moore's dachsunds running around out there with hot dogs out of a picnic hamper, all the cast playing beachball, and the band playing 'Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer.' Then the flash pans would go off. You had lightning flashes and the band would go into some storm music. Jack had a series of overhead pipes that rained water down onto the stage into catch pans hidden by rows of stagelights. We would go into a blackout and the band would swing into 'Smile Under Your Umbrella' and another tune Jack wrote called 'Rain.' When the lights

came up, all the chorus girls would be twirling umbrellas in a black-light number." The production numbers were not without their occasional inadvertent comedy. "I've seen a few girls come tumbling

Longtime carnival girl-show performer Tubby Boots always gave audiences their money's worth, cracking them up in nightclubs or under canvas.

m

Most revues featured a four- or five-piece band, but Leon Miller seemed content with just an organist and drummer on Royal American. Here Buddy Roye, at the keyboard, and Vince Villanova, on the skins, perform on a wood floor by the side of the tent in front of the stage, early 1960s.

On Elsie Calvert's revue on Royal American during the 1929-30 season, the band was situated above the stage.

down those stairs of Jack's," chuckles Schlarbaum. "They were so narrow that you had to place your feet on them sideways, trying to do the perfect sexy walk with big dresses and heavy headpieces, all that wardrobe hanging out. It was impossible to see your feet." Schlarbaum stresses the importance of music to the show. The strip act, he says, was divided into three "trailers," or sections. The band would start with slow music while the stripper worked out of her gloves and evening gown. Then they'd

provide a middle bounce and finish with something up-tempo. "On the slow strip you might play tunes like 'Sophisticated Lady,'" he explains, "things that had a little class to them. If she is doing bumps in her act, you have to have something that has a lot of drive to it, stuff like Count Basie, real jazz jumps. Bop-bop-bop. Make them jiggle those tits out there. Go do your thing, baby! Those were the things you thought about in putting the music together." But, he explains, "You had to cut sections out on the big days. You're not

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Jack Norman's girl revue on Strates, 1950s. Veteran revue emcee and burlesque producer Al Golden stands at the mike at left as his wife, Anita Marie (in black) aka Siska, poses onstage. Behind Siska stands Rusty Russell, the Smokey Mountain Girl, surrounded by five chorus girls. A small band is set up in front of the stage.

Right Billy Zoot Reed (left) and his wife, Carol, with feature strippers Pagan Jones and June Knight, on the Pin-Up Parade girl show on Strates, 1960. Pagan and her husband produced the show, with the Reeds doing the comedy.

Veteran vaudeville and burlesque performers Jay Aldrich and Gloria Kaye played all the big carnival girl revues throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Theirs was an acrobatic or "sight" act.

worried about the art form then. Your biggest worry is about the art of getting them in the seats and out again quickly." One of the very fine comedy acrobatic acts that spent various years on girl revues was Gloria Kaye and Jay Aldrich. "Our act was a 'sight act' at first," explains Kay. "Acrobatics and no talking. As we got older we developed it more into a talking comedy act. We played vaudeville and burlesque, although we kept the burlesque part a secret. A lot of vaudeville people looked down on burlesque. In burly we were like

an 'intermission act'! A straight act. When we came on, half the crowd got up and went to the washroom. They were there to see the girls and the comics. "We soon found out we couldn't do our standard acrobatic act eight to ten times a day like we had to in the girl revue. So, we developed an act that was more talking comedy. We kept in some of the acrobatics but took out the tricks that really tired you out." No true girl revue was complete without the comics. The biggest names around

Billy Zoot Reed, oka Boob Reed, was one of burlesque's finest comedians. He usually removed his false uppers and lowers for his comedy routine, making his stage entrance demolishing an apple, toothless. By the late 1940s, he was a fixture on carnival revue shows, never failing to draw a big crowd.

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Burlesque comic Si Corley hams it up with dancer Jean Lawrence on the Moulin Rouge girl show on Royal American, 1950s. With his short, baggy pants and floppy shoes, he was the epitome of burlesque comics.

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Gene and Eva Graham, seen here on Leon Miller's Club Lido in the 1 950s, made a career working carnival revues. Gene was a comedian, emcee, and singer, while Eva worked comedy and did a comic striptease act. Producer Gene Vaughan affectionately nicknamed the Graham family "the Barrymores."

Veteran vaudeville and burlesque comedians Hanlon and Clark play the Club Lido on Royal American, 1 950s. While they perform in front of the curtain, stage hands behind are assembling scenery for an elaborate production number.

carnival girl shows were Billy Zoot Reed and Tubby Boots. "I first worked with Joe and Tirza on Bernard and Barry Shows in Northern Quebec," Boots told me. "The guys came right out of the mines and the woods to the girl show. There was a line of girls, myself, a puppet act, and three strips on the show. Organist and drummer for music. Joe had the candy pitch. We all stuffed candy boxes every day. I don't care

who you were, if you worked for Joe you had to stuff those boxes. "I think we held the record in Ottawa with girl-show grosses for a long time. Joe was a wild operator. One show was a revue and the other was a cooch show. We had the revue down to eighteen minutes or so. It took longer to fill the tent than to do the show. The chorus girls did an opening number, the puppet act did two minutes, I

Veteran vocalist Lonnie Branch is joined by the chorus line on a Jack Norman revue; 1951. His rendition of "Donkey Serenade" was a reliable show-stopper.

An all-ages crowd watches as girl-revue comedy star Tiny Kaye prances on the stage of the Charm Hour show. She was a feature on many of Norman's early revues on Strates.

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did about seven, eight minutes, and the three strips did about two minutes each. Get them in and get them out. Joe counted on me to really entertain them and make them like the show for the $1.50 ticket they had bought. We did a ramble show the last night on the last show and I told some jokes that were rawer and the girls flashed a bit or undid their net bras, but that was it." One of the last of the old-time comics to work on the carnival revues was Art Watts, who was teamed up with his wife, Norrna Jean. After burlesque died they Paul Anka (second from left) with his band on the front of Joe Boston's girl show on World of Mirth at the Ottawa Exhibition in Ottawa, Ontario. Magician, juggler, and future ice-show owner and producer Bill Karlton with his assistant Judy Jenkins. They are sitting on their "sub-trunk" illusion. Karlton worked Joy Fleenor's girl revue on Gooding Amusements in 1970 and Gene Vaughan's revue on Strates in 1971.

Dottie Goss and Jean Wunder do a specialty dance number similar to the "Dance of the Lovers," wearing both male and female wardrobe, circa 1950. Dottie and her husband, Carl, a boss canvasman, were on Royal's girl shows for close to 30 seasons. Jean and her husband, Paul Mush, who was considered the number-one side-show talker in the business, also worked Royal for a number of years. Every girl-revue producer and every large railroad show had husband-wife teams such as these, where he was an executive, talker, or worker, while she was on the chorus line every season.

Comedy team Little Jeane and Robert Drake were featured on Leon Miller's Flashes of '55 girl revue on Royal American Shows in 1955.

worked carnival revue shows for seven seasons or so. In burlesque a comic had to know hundreds of bits. Many bits were taken from daily life and developed into current scenes, while hundreds of others were standard routines handed down through generations of comics. Standard scenes were the courtroom, schoolroom, doctor's office, bar, bus stop, crazy house, and so on. Each comic had his own way of doing each scene, and many comics were known for certain scenes. Art knew all the old burlesque scenes. His best were the schoolroom, the court-

Bozo Harrell and Vicki Parkes backstage of the Club Lido show on Royal, 1958. Vicki had a dance act with her daughter Molly, while Bozo offered up a comedy striptease and his famous table rock act.

house, and Sloppy Joe. "Sloppy Joe was a bar scene," says Norma Jean. "The scene had a man and one or two women sitting on stools at a bar. The comic was the bartender and he mixed all the drinks wrong and insulted the customers. Art made it a very funny bit. His other favorites were Here Comes the Judge, 42nd and Broadway, the Mad Doctor, and his hilarious Nudist Colony scene.

For this number on one of Jack Norman's shows, the singer thinks all the applause is for him, seemingly unaware that there's a girl stripping behind him. This is an old-time burlesque classic, here performed circa 1950.

"On theaters showing movies we would do one long show. I remember in the theater in Baltimore we would do a matinee. There was a break while a movie 149

was shown. Then we would do another show and then a long break for supper and while the burlesque people were on break they would show another movie. Then we came back and did one long show at night. Eventually the theaters Art and I worked started showing sex films and they just had a few strips and one comic. Art would come out and tell jokes between the strips. There were no other comics so he couldn't do scenes, just ten or fifteen minutes of jokes between each strip. "The strip numbers became longer and longer. In regular burlesque if an exotic did four or five minutes, that was a long routine. Now you had girls out there for twenty min-

One of the mainstays on Club Lido during the 1960s was Jackie Duggan. She began as a dancer in the chorus line where she met talker George Duggan, and they were married on the Lido stage. Besides leading the chorus, Jackie also stepped out and did a feature fan dance.

Sulo Keppo and his daughters Rae and Anita perform their contortion and acrobatic act on Jack Norman's Broadway to Hollywood revue on Strates, late 1950s. The Keppos toured their own variety-circus show in Finland before coming to the U.S. at the beginning of the decade.

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Gene Vaughan's girl show on Olson in 1967 featured (from left) exotic Linda Lane, comic stripper Sweet Rose, feature stripper Val Mason, June Rich, stripper Terry Venezia, and old-time burlesque cut-up Everet Lawson.

June Knight with her stripping marionette. She spent a season in the 1950s on Jack and Bonnie Norman's girl show.

utes.They had props and tons of wardrobe on so that they could eat up all that time." Magician, juggler, and ice-revue owner Bill Karlton spent several seasons with Gene Vaughan on Strates and also with Joy Fleenor on Gooding Amusements when he was first breaking in his acts. Bill recalls, "The best thing about revues was that there was nowhere else in the country then where you could work that many times each day with professional artists — espe-

cially the musicians, who followed your moves with the music. "There was a crippled guy on the show who had a very ugly face and his legs didn't work, he got around on crutches. Of course in true carny fashion he was nicknamed 'Hoppy.' He was born crippled, polio or something, but he was one hell of a candy pitchman. One day the organist Nick Pitt and I were fooling around with music and Hoppy comes up and asks, 'Do you know 151

Comedic dancer Mimi Reed limbers up backstage at Royal American's girl show in 1959. The tent's quarter pole isn't quite a ballet bar, but with Reed's flexibility, it serves the same purpose.

By the glow of a bare lightbulb, a chorus girl does a quick repair on her costume before making bally on Jack Norman's Broadway to Hollywood revue on Strates, 1960s.

"We did a ramble show the last night on the last show and I told some jokes that were rawer and the girls flashed a bit or undid their net bras." TUBBY BOOTS

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"Ramona"?' Nick starts playing it on the Hammond and Hoppy starts singing in the most beautiful, glorious voice you would ever want to hear. He had a face like a mud fence yet he was a beautiful baritone singer. We both looked behind the stage curtain to make sure it wasn't some kind of joke, but Hoppy was for real. Big operatic voice like Jim Nabors. Every time the band was jamming or we were rehearsing Hoppy would come in and give us a song." Bill believes the record for the most

Comic Harry Savoy and his wife, Sabrina, the co-feature on Royal American's girl show, 1959.

revue shows in one day on a midway must be the twenty-five he put on in Atlanta working for producer Joy Fleenor. "She carried one bally girl who stayed on the front all the time with talker Peter Carey," Bill remembers. "The chorus girls quickly opened the show and then went right back out to the bally. On a normal show, they did several numbers, plus two of the girls did separate strip routines. Paul Franky was emcee, vocalist for the production numbers, and comedian if needed.

Sabrina poses in front of her dressing-room wagon. The two girls to the left are on the ramp leading to the stage from the chorus girls's wagon.

The next best thing to applause for a performer is payday. Here, members of the Royal girl show line up for their loot at the office wagon. At right is the world's tallest exotic, Ricki Covette. Next to her is producer Leon Miller, and on the bottom step is exotic dancer Sabrina. Mimi Reed stands by the pay window.

"That day, Paul just emceed, and after the opening chorus number, he introduced m y Jug§nng or magic act, followed by comic Gene Graham. Then June Knight, the feature stripper, closed the show. A short show, but very entertaining. "It was a grind with shows back to back and people coming into the tent continuously. Peter told the audiences as they bought a ticket, 'When you see the same act in the show as when you came in, you know you have seen the complete show.'" 153

PECKERHEAR

MUCHINFUCH It's 19 74. The Georgia Peach finishes her strip act, and comedian Art Watts, aka Peckerhead Muchinfuch, walks onstage with his talking woman Norma Jean. "Wow-wow, goddamn," he gushes, "did you peckerheads see the knockers on that chick? I like them cupcakes with raisins in them!" Norma Jean replies, "All girls have cupcakes with raisins." Art says, "No, I got an old hillbilly gal in Arkansas, and she doesn't." "What has she got?" asks Norma Jean. "Oh, hell," Art answers, "she has watermelons with prunes!" Later in the show, Art and Norma Jean come out again. He tells her he's figured out a commercial for all the cigarette brands: "One Kool morning Miss Pall Mall took a stroll down Chesterfield lane in Salem where she met Philip Morris who took her to the Raleigh hotel in Winston. They got in that old Gold bed. He slipped his King Size L&M in her old Zip Top Box. Man, he was in Marlboro country and was having a Lark because he was a Marvel with his Silky One Millimeter Longer. Now, after nine months if she doesn't look like a Camel, baby, it's got to be a Lucky Strike. But she's not worried — she made him use a Filter Tip. They said it couldn't be done, but it's What's Up Front That Counts." Norma Jean Watts does the woman's talking parts while husband Art Watts performs a comedy routine behind her. Vaughan also produced this girl show on Strates, 1971.

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A TYPICAL LINEUP Following is a breakdown of the acts and their running times on Gene Vaughan's Girl Revue on James E. Strates Shows, 1974. The talker was Roland Porter. Overture: 0:15 Opening number, including 20 seconds of dialogue by comic Art Watts: 2:00 The Georgia Peach, stripper: 5:10 Comic Art Watts and Norma Jean: 5:30 Kathleen, singer (two numbers): 4:00 The Lovely Gaila, stripper: 5:18 Comic Art Watts and Norma Jean: 2:00 Val Valentine, feature stripper: 5:30 Total time: 29:30 The cast of one of Jack Norman's revues in the late 1950s featuring Pagan Jones in the middle. The young man in the white tuxedo on the left is Charles (Chuck) Schlarbaum, one of the the greatest circus band leaders of all time. On either side of Chuck is the comedy team McConnell and Moore comprised of Frank Moore and Tilley McConnell. Beside Pagan is stripper Gale Winds. On the very right is singer Paul Coslow, then Anita Keppo, the third lady is Rae Keppo and man behind her in the dark suit is her father Sulo Keppo.

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"WELL, JUDGE, IT'S LIKE THIS" The Strippers

^ I undreds of big-time striptease stars ^ ? headlined in burlesque and carnival girl 1 - shows of all kinds. Finding those still alive was not easy. The ones I did manage to find were, with few exceptions, interesting and delightful women, leaving behind the tough burlesque image of their youth, although occasionally the competitiveness of the business crept into their stories about other strippers. -Since I started researching girl shows in the early 1990s both Blaze Fury and Bonnie Boyia have died and Mitzi recently had a stroke. Baby Dumpling died some years back

and Pagan Jones and Val Valentine have new careers. All these girls were feature strippers appearing at the top-rated nightclubs, burlesque theaters, and carnival revue shows. None, they pointed out adamantly was a cooch-show dancer.

RICKI COVETTE At six foot eight, Ricki Covette was a burlesque and carnival press agent's dream — the tallest dancer ever to grace a burlesque runway. Her only rivals in the height category were veteran burlesque star Lois De Fee, a sixfoot four-inch Bostonian billed as Queen of 157

CHAPTER

11

Left: Ricki Covette, at six foot eight, dwarfs girl-revue producer Leon Miller. Billed as the world's tallest Glamazon, she was featured on Miller's Take-Off's of '59 girl show on Royal American. One of the nicest and most talented women in burlesque, Ricki was dubbed "the Tower of Power" on Toronto's Casino marquee.

Right Ricki's exotic act, set in her boudoir, finished when she dashed offstage, clad only in a mink, to meet her boyfriend. Her career lasted twenty-five years on carnivals, burlesque theaters, Broadway shows, movies, and television.

Denise

Uninterested in cooking in lumber

Darnell, who appeared in the forties on

camps or anywhere else, she left home, join-

Hennies. Born in Onaway, Alberta, to America parents, Ricki Covette didn't have it easy when she was young. She wanted to go

ing the chorus line of one of Gypsy Rose Lee's touring revues, then worked at a Minsky theater. After a few months with Minsky, she

to art school but her father said she was so

headed for NYC and within a year was mak-

plain and so tall that she should take home

ing $500 a week. Lou Walters of the Latin

economics and learn to cook. He hoped she

Quarter encouraged her to become an exotic.

could get a cook's job in lumber camps

"To me a stripper teases before taking her

where there were thousands of men and

clothes off and an exotic goes through an act,

few women — that way she'd surely find a

a routine," Ricki explains.

the Amazons, and six-foot-six

Page 156: These three boys are clutching their brown bags full of free samples from the Pure Food Building can only imagine what Jennie Lee, the Bazoom Girl, is going to do in the tent behind this show front. In 1954 and 1956, the Bazoom Girl filled the Toronto newspapers while the Canadian National Exhibition — or Sexhibition, as the papers called it — was running.

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husband. Besides being so tall, Ricki also

"I had looked at my height up until

stuttered. In high school she took public

then as a disadvantage in show business

speaking lessons to get over her stuttering

but quickly learned to use it to feature my

and studied modern jazz and ballet to over-

act and turn it into a career. I didn't drink,

come her awkwardness.

smoke, or use drugs. I'm a churchgoer, a

real prude actually. I chose stripping as a career and made it a business. I did all the publicity venues the clubs and theaters lined up. I went on radio shows and visited veterans' hospitals. I did newspaper interviews and whatever it took to promote my act and my height. "The act I developed was a production number where I carried a couch, boudoir setting, and I did a shower behind a silhouette screen. The act I eventually worked out, especially for clubs, was this: I come home from a date, undress, take a shower in a bubble-making machine, get into bed, receive a phone call from my boyfriend, and dash off to meet him wearing only a mink."

As a strip she quickly learned to pay attention to the policy of each theater regarding how much she could take off and how she could do it. "Most theaters," she recalls, "had a setup where the cashier girl could push in her cash drawer which activated a switch controlling a light at the front of the stage. When that light went on, you knew the police were coming into the theater and you slowed down your act if you were doing bumps and grinds, you finished your act leaving on more wardrobe than usual." Covette also worked in legit theater, the road company of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Marriage-Go-Round. She

Left: Striptease star Jan Marvis featured on Jack Norman's early Strates shows in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Center: Another feature with staying power was leggy Peggy Reynolds, who also worked for Norman on Strates during the 1950s. Her career began in the 1930s, when one reviewer wrote: "Miss Reynolds did not waste any time, but gave them the works in short order, and she always has plenty to give!" Right Strippers were among the most creative performers in show business, as they had to continually come up with new gimmicks and routines. Vicki Wells, a feature on Jack Norman's Strates revue during the 1950s, was a top performer who did her routine on top of a drum. In burlesque theaters, she distributed various doodads among the audience, one week novelty keychains, another, wallet-size photos of herself.

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Left". Lucia Parks left high school at seventeen to enter the burlesque business under the guidance of her mother, burlesque producer Frances Parks. She later shot to fame, taking on the name Blaze Fury, the Human Heat Wave, a moniker she footnoted with "Often imitated, but never equaled!"

Be/ow: Blaze Fury in later years, performing at the Victory Theatre in Toronto, Ontario. She called the see-through piece of fabric covering her brassiere her "bib. Next to this woman, most dancers looked like they were standing still.

worked in summer stock, did TV commercials, and appeared in the movie The Swingers. "I quit stripping cold turkey, so to speak," she says. "The last place I worked was the Copacabana club. By this time burlesque theaters were finished and it was just club work. All the clubs along 52nd Street in NYC wanted go-go dancers and girls to hustle drinks. You had to go nude and I didn't want to do that. The thing I hated about burlesque was having to take my clothes off." LUCIA PARKS TIMLIN A.K.A. BLAZE FURY, THE HUMAN HEAT WAVE

Blaze Fury was a Detroit gal whose mother (Frances Parks) and grandmother (Opal Parks Gilmore) had both been in the 160

At five-six, with measurements of 39-25-36, Zorita made her mark in burlesque, film, and on carnival midways with a dance routine she performed with a snake. In 1950, her act was featured on World of Mirth, and she starred in the film / Married a Savage.

burlesque and variety business. Her last appearance as a stripper was in 19 7 8 at age fifty. At first she had hesitated to work on carnivals. "I thought it was beneath me," she recalls. But her first stint, on Royal, was "perfect. I couldn't have asked for anything better for five and half months of steady work." Blaze contrasted the performers ofbur leque's golden age with today's club strippers. "In burlesque you had to have an act, or you were so beautiful you didn't need one, like Tempest Storm. Lili St. Cyr

was one of the most gorgeous women I had ever seen, but she always had an act, always new wardrobe, new props. Just like Gypsy, she always had a gimmick. But these girls today are just naked ladies, they do nothing with nothing on!" She remembered when her mother worked in a Columbus nightclub called Extras, with Zorita, who performed with a live snake. "Zorita would come backstage and get me. 'Kid, have you got your icecream money today?' she'd ask. I would say no. She'd go get her snake and take me by the hand into the club and walk up to a table with several couples at it and announce, 'Give me a buck for the kid or I'll throw the snake on the table!' After doing this at three or four tables I would have four or five dollars and she would wrap the snake around me and I would take it back to her dressing room for her."

Top right The marquee of Chicago's Rialto puts stripper Blaze Fury and comic Benny Moore in lights. The "Glorified Burlesk" claim recalls the "Refined Vaudeville" slogan of decades earlier.

Bottom right Tommy Timlin, Blaze's husband, helps her slip into her production-number wardrobe on Leon Miller's Royal American show, Folies de Femmes. Timlin was a terrific dancer, and his next career was as a writer and voice actor for a popular Detroit kids' TV show.

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Above left: Chloe Carter was a feature on Jack Norman's revues on Strates during the 1950s. In 1957, she had the number-two revue on the show. Center: Peter Garey, once a movie actor and singer, went on to become one of the best carnival gal-show talkers. Here he is in action, on Johnny J. Jones's girl show in the 1940s, introducing Chloe Carter, "the Fig Leaf Girl." Right: Jessica Rogers earned the "Wow Girl" tag with her curvy 36-25-36, five-seven figure. Besides working in theaters and clubs, she featured for various carnival girl-show producers and in the 1950s developed an act with two albino parakeets. Born in Tampa, Florida, she lived in Canada for a few years before hitting the burlesque big-time.

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Blaze was proud that after Sally Rand and Gypsy Rose Lee, she was the biggest draw on Royal at the Minnesota State Fair. The terrific speed of her act earned her the Human Heat Wave moniker. Soon there were all kinds of strips imitating her name: Flame Fury, Blaze Starr, White Fury, Blaze Galore. But few could equal the care and humor she put into her act. "I used a big devil head prop in my 'Heat Wave' number. One eye of the devil has a patch on it and the other eye is a hole that a spotlight shines out of onto my back as I do the routine. I did a living-room number

with a chaise lounge and a vanity table. I also did an island number with a prop palm tree, and at the end of my act I would do a bump and shake and the tree would blow up! I carried a flash box and powder and grass mats. I would give one of the stage hands a cue and he would set off the flash powder and the tree fell apart. It always got a big laugh!" Blaze was the first stripper to play the Brass Rail in Detroit. The owner insisted she go down to the police department for orientation. "I moved into this neighborhood in 1957 and there were only twenty houses here and I had a five-and-a-halfyear-old son, so I didn't want the

neighbors to know what I did for a living until they got to know me first. I figured I might get some press going down to the police station so I disguised myself. I put my hair up and wore a bandanna around my head with a big hat and sunglasses. One of the neighbors said, 'Hey, that's you — your picture's in the paper. I recognized your feet!' I have very big feet." Blaze died of heart failure on May 28, 1997. In a fitting tribute to a lovely lady, the family placed two blowups of her doing her act beside the coffin, at a funeral attended by many local show-business people.

Above: The front and bally for Pagan Jones's Pin-Up Parade revue on James E. Strates, 1960. Produced by Pagan and her husband, this number-two girl show featured comic Billy Zoot Reed, talking woman Jean Carroll, and stripper June Knight. Left: Pagan Jones was one of the best-loved exotics in the business and a feature for many seasons on carnival girl revues for producers Raynell Golden, Joy Fleenor, and Jack Norman. She also managed her own revue on Strates for two seasons. Often billed as "the Golden Goddess," Pagan began her career at the Casino Theater in Boston, Massachusetts, but was soon working the premier supper clubs and theaters in the U.S.

PAGAN JONES

Born and raised in Boston, Pagan Jones spent about twelve years working theaters and nightclubs in her hometown. In 1956 and 1957 she joined Joy Purvis on Gooding Amusements, then, with her husband, Russ Lyons, went over onto Strates on the number-two show, a Hawaiian production called South Pacific Revue. "It was a real Hawaiian show with Hawaiian performers," Pagan remembers, "a very good show, but the people weren't interested in Hawaiian shows by this time." When she and her husband took over the show in 1959, the Hawaiian guitar

player and his wife stayed on, but everyone else had already left. "We went out and got a tape recorder and put some music together. I called an agent I knew in Boston to get us some girls, and he sent out one strip. So for the Syracuse Fair she would go out and do a strip, then I would do my black-light number in a 163

Left: These photos of Pagan Jones during various stages of her act at the Victory Burlesque Theatre in Toronto, Ontario, 1964, were shot by Robert Suzuki and sold at the theater. Many strippers prized Suzuki's photos as their favorites.

Top right Siska and Al Golden on the bally of Jack Norman's Broadway to Hollywood revue on Strates, 1957. Five years earlier, Golden had written to the producer: "I am writing you first as I think we have what you want. Never any censor trouble, as when Siska can't work she can always do a dance with the bird."

Bottom right. Siska bought her macaw, Petey, for $1,000 and trained him to help remove her clothes. A couple of his goof-ups resulted in her receiving stitches in her cheek and her side. Petey was a handful on the road, as he often went AWOL, necessitating frantic searches about the showgrounds.

black wig, then she would put on a wig and do another number and then I would come out and close the show with my regular number, as the 'Golden Goddess.' It was a pretty hectic ten days! "The whole season had been bad. When we opened in Binghamton and the show was set up, there was no scenery in the wagons and the stage had no traveler curtain. I got my sewing machine out and was madly sewing a curtain so we could open that night. My husband went out to buy sheets of masonite to make scenery for the back and sides of the stage. You had nowhere to exit. The tent was full of holes and when it rained the audience and the performers all got wet." Pagan and Lyons had more success the following year with Pin-Up Parade on Strates. Over the next decade, Pagan was featured on Jack Norman's show several times and spent two seasons with Raynell on Deggeller, plus a spell with Joy Fleenor before going back to Strates. Leroy Griffith was one of the last burlesque theater operators, with several locations in Miami, a few more up north,

and one in NYC. Pagan worked all of them. "That's where one of the funniest things in my career happened," she laughs about her time at Griffith's New York theater. "They had hired this spotlight operator, off the street I think. I go out to do my first show there and my music comes on and I step out between the curtain opening into darkness. No spotlight. The spotlight comes from the back of the house down along the side wall over the top of the stage curtain and up the other wall, then the ceiling. I finally say 'Here I am!' The spotlight hits the stage but not on me, then on me, and then off me. The audience is in hysterics by this time. I'm into my routine and I go over to the curtain and do a freeze and the spotlight is two feet away from me. I reach back and put my hand in the light and with hand gestures coax the light over to me, like Emmett Kelly sweeping the spotlight under the rug at the circus. I made a comedy routine out of it. But it was real work each show because you never knew where the guy was going to shine the light."

Ann Pern, who featured on several carnival revues and girl shows, was billed as "the Jane Russell of Burlesk." Her heyday was during the early 1950s, but through the late 1960s she was working for Jack Norman on Strates.

"When men see an attractive woman, they alway mentally

undress her, If anybody is going to mentally undress me, it's a good feeling to know I'm wearing my best black lace." BONNIE BOYIA

Top: Jack Norman used a blowup of this photo of Bonnie Boyia on the front of his girl revue for many seasons.

Right A classic publicity shot for a classy lady — Bonnie early in her career. After she quit stripping, she worked as a Keno girl in Las Vegas.

In 1969 Pagan quit working, and in 1975 her husband was transferred to Los Angeles. "I went down to one of the theaters there and sold some wardrobe I had made. They offered me a job stripping and I took it. They had an organist and drummer who put out a lot of music but it was only strips in the show plus movies. The strips that were working were so raunchy that I quit. I said to myself, 'I can't do this.' I could see that the burlesque and strip business had degenerated to the point of no return." BONNIE BOYIA Bonnie Boyia, born Bonnie G. Boyer (1923-1998), was one of the big-time strippers who appeared on carnival mid-

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ways in the 1950s. A contemporary of Georgia Sothern, Blaze Fury, Vickie Wells, and Rose La Rose, she headlined every major burlesque theater in the country. Bonnie was born in Brooklyn, Michigan, but moved to Detroit with her mother to attend school. Upon graduating, she and a chum hitchhiked to Chicago lookingo for o work. Bonnie answered an ad for a bally girl on a magic show at Riverside Park. "The talker turned out to be a drunk," Bonnie told me. "One day he didn't show up when it was time to open. The Great Mortinelly — the magician — was Russian or Polish and couldn't speak English very well. He was in a panic. I told him I could

do it and so I started doing the openings and talking. I repeated the same sentences over and over so it was more of a grind than an opening. I asked him for a half hour off and I went away and wrote out a spiel and came back and asked him to raise my salary to $125 a week. He did and I became the talker." O

When the season ended, Bonnie got a gig traveling with Cello, a mechanical doll that went to stores and events to promote Zenith radios. When her boss got fresh in Cincinatti, she got a spot on the chorus line at the Gayety. "I didn't smoke, drink, or swear, and the chorus girls gave me a rough time. They made me dress in the

Left: Betty "Blue Eyes" Howard, a glamorous redhead, was one of the most vivacious stars of the burlesque runway and carnival revue stage. Her burlesque career dated back to early work with comic Phil Silvers. She was still working carnival midways into the 1960s. Center. Bobby Mack was one of Jack Norman's three strippers on his revue on Strates in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Right: Sylvia Cassidy began her career as Mari Krismas before sticking with the stage name Delilah, although she was once billed as Little Jesse Chesty James. Her mother (stripper Roxanne Mason), father (talker Johnny Arneallas), and step-father (producer/ comic Ron Mason) were all in the girl-show business. In the mid-1960s, Sylvia was the feature on Royal's Club Lido show.

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Sylvia Cassidy (center) was one of the top exotics on carnival revues during the 1960s. Often billed as "the Girl from the Pearl," she began one of her numbers by emerging from an oyster shell. One of her earliest show-biz jobs was as a bally girl on Western star Lash La Rue's show on Olson. These days she runs her own midway concession company.

washroom. I took all their tricks for about six weeks and then one day during a routine I stepped out of the line and marched to the manager's office, tore off the wardrobe, and told him I was finished working in his chorus but the next time he sees me I will be a feature. Two years later he was paying me as the feature in a road show that played there." In the meantime, besides stripping, Bonnie did talking parts for comics. "I liked the comedy better than stripping at the time," Bonnie said. "There was nothing better than working a big house like a packed Saturday night at the Howard in Boston and you had the audience laughing so hard they were wetting themselves. We would do scenes where the whole set would get destroyed. 168

"I remember one courtroom scene when I was a talking woman for Binder and Rosen. Binder is playing the judge up on the stand. Rosen as the cop brings me in and sits me down on a chair beside the stand. I'm dressed in a slinky short, short, black dress with black garters and stockings. The judge asks me a question and each time I lift my leg way up in the air and cross it over my other leg. My line was 'Well, Judge, it's like this . . .' My short dress rides even further up my hips. A few rounds of this and the cop throws his nightstick under my chair and dives under the chair to get it and the chair collapses on top of him, pitching me into the judge's stand, and it collapses, throwing the judge backwards into the curtain behind, which collapses down on all of us!"

A girl-show star bides her time before the show in her dressing-room wagon.

Left: Stripper Val Valentine (on steps, center) as the feature on a Jack Norman girl revue on Strates, 1960s. Front row, from left: two unidentified musicians, stripper Gale Winds, acrobat Rae Keppo, unidentified bally girl, acrobat Anita Keppo, unidentified bally girl, acrobat Sulo Keppo, and singer Paul Coslow. Behind Coslow are the comedy/juggling act McConnell and Moore. The chorus line surrounds Val on the steps.

Below: Val began her career in exotic dancing working as a chorus girl for Raynell Golden in 1955. Tutored by Mitzi, she soon became a feature act and by 1958 was headlining the burlesque theater circuit as "Cupid's Cutie" and "the 1958 Anatomy Award Winner." She spent most of her summers and falls on carnival revues.

From burlesque, Bonnie moved on to carnival girl shows with Al and Hatti Wagner's Cavalcade of Amusements, one of the major railroad carnivals in the 1940s and early fifties. "Al and Hattie were larger-than-life characters," she recalled. "Al was hard on help. The new rides guys and workers would go up to the office to get paid and he would say there was no money left, ride the train over to the next spot, and he would do this to them several times until they disappeared. This way he got two or three weeks of free work out of them. "Hattie, who ran the cookhouse on the show, was rumored to be a former whorehouse madam. She was still selling meat — hamburger! She would stand in front of 169

In 1959, at age 22, Val Valentine was the feature on Jack Norman's Broadway to Hollwood revue on Strates. Despite doing twelve to fifteen shows a day, regardless of the weather, she still preferred the freedom of carnival work to theaters and clubs.

the cookhouse swinging a string of wieners, yelling, 'I got your meat!"' In the early 1950s, Bonnie joined the Normans on Strates, setting a new gross record on the Norman gal unit. "That was

the Star and Garter in Chicago for Minsky. However, she counts among her favorite theaters the Casino in Toronto. "The first time I worked the Casino, they had no footlights on the front of the stage. In the

the toughest show I worked on. I followed a very young girl named Mary Lou Evans

finale, as the curtain was closing, the whole audience stood up. I got scared, thinking they were going to rush the stage.

who wore blue cowboy boots, and little tight blue leotards under a cowboy vest and small skirt. She had forty-inch boobs and a twenty-inch waist, played the guitar,

I didn't realize the pit band had started to play 'God Save the Queen' and that's why they were standing up."

and triple yodeled. Try topping that! I had to, as I closed the show."

VAL VALENTINE

Bonnie was the last headline strip to play the Rialto in Chicago and she opened

Val Valentine was often billed as "Cupid's Cutie," the "Sweetheart of Burlesque," or as

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Above: Val, Norma Jean Watts, and Valerie Mason pose in the dressing room at the Star and Garter girl show on Olson, 1969. All three were veteran midway girl-revue features of the era.

Be/ow: Val's ID card for Strates, 1977.

talker Peter Garey introduced her, "The Queen of Hearts," and offstage she matched her billing. Val grew up studying dance. "I skipped school but never ballet class," she explains. "My mom's best friend was (striptease star) Mitzi. By April I couldn't wait until school ended in June and I could go on the carnival with Mitzi and Roland for a couple of weeks. In 1955 I was old enough to go on the road with Mitzi as a dancer in the chorus line working for Raynell Golden on Cedin and Wilson Shows. The last few towns they let me work the feature spot. "Mitzi had taught me a lot so I had a jump start. I knew to put money in good wardrobe and what to do and how to do it. I was getting raises without asking for them and I moved quickly up to co-feature and then a feature. In Chicago, I worked at the Follies, a nice little theater with a great band, comics, and five or six girls." Legendary strip seamster Tony Midnight was making her wardrobe at his Chicago shop. "You told him your ideas, what your dance number was about, and your favorite colors," Val remembers. "He would then prepare some sketches, then fit you and make it. He made a muslin fitting of you which he kept on file, so if you didn't gain or lose too much weight you

Headline stripper Val Valentine poses in the center of the chorus line with Gene Vaughan's 1963 revue on Olson shows. (Left to right) Rae and Anita Keppo, Cindy, Val, Lannie, Marti Calvert, and Elda Bohn.

could order a costume over the phone." The pay was decent for a headline stripper, but she still had to watch her money carefully — and contend with an often exhausting itinerary. "When I started there were still road shows. I was booked by Milton Schuster and he took 10%. The theaters took it out of your pay and sent it in, but in clubs you had to send it to Schuster's office. The road shows paid your railway coach fare between cities, no matter if you rode the train, drove, or flew. If it was a long jump and you wanted a

Blonde stripper Taffy Castle, "the Lady of the Cameo," worked on various Jack Norman revues. In 1950, she danced on Norman's show with fellow exotics Vicki Wells and Renee Baron, and in the 1960s she was featured on Broadway to Hollywood, along with Crystal Ames and Ann Perri, in a "Battle of the Strips."

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roomette on the train, you paid for it. The road show also paid to ship your trunk. Mostly you closed in one theater Thursday night and opened Friday in the new one. You packed your trunks early Thursday and set them out. You kept out one costume and one set of music to finish the shows that day and to have something in case the trunks came in late. They usually arrived just before the first show." A reporter in Raleigh, N.C., who saw Val work during the fair there in 1977, described her act this way: "She starts out smooth gliding around the stage to 'You Stepped Out of a Dream.' By the end of her act she has stepped out of more than a dream. Her last number is an energetic rock and roll version of 'Ode to Billy Joe' with nobody caring who jumps off the bridge. She really sells — smiling, flirting, even mugging as she gyrates through the finale." Asked by the same reporter what it takes to be a stripper, Val answered, "You have to be a ham!" She also cherishes the independence her career gave her. She wound up the interview saying, "It's a fantastic escape from reality, for myself, for the crowds that come inside the tent to see what's going on here. They didn't come in

here expecting to see girls who look like their wives and sister. They want to see something glamorous and we try not to disappoint them." She was featured on girl revues from 1960 through the late 1970s, and was Gene Vaughan's favorite artist. Val's last stripping job was in a theater in Columbus, Ohio, in 1986.

CRYSTAL AMES

Crystal Ames had a long career as an exotic dancer — her striptease headliner days began in the late 1930s, and in the early 1960s she still appeared on carnival revues. During the 1950s she moonlighted as operator of the Follies Costume Shoppe in New York City, making wardrobe for various nightclubs and burly houses.

Peter Thomas remembers seeing Crystal Ames perform in the 1940s: "She was something else!! I often wondered whatever happened to people who were so prominent in burlesque and then . . . poof . . . vanished. I never worked with her but caught her act from the front of the house when I was in college. This was at the Alvin in Minneapolis. The house was well run, with certain rules. The owners of the theater were very strict and heaven help the comics who worked too strong or a strip woman who flashed! Most acts were good about toning down their routines and material in appreciation of the fine dressing rooms and the big band. "One rule was that on the first-act finale, the feature women had to walk out with something over her pasties and G-string: a chiffon cape or coat, or a large feather boa. The twelve-girl line did a one-chorus routine. As the eight showgirls posed, the other girls danced the signature chorus and then the offstage announcer — often me — would announce each act as they trouped onstage, including the vaud act. Then the lights would dim down and the spotlight would pick up the feature woman entering from stage right to center where she would hold a pose until the grand curtain slowly closed. "Well, well, well! That first show with Crystal Ames, she did a nice routine but when the finale came, out she sailed in a little black lace chemise, sort of hanging loosely in front of her, and the back unzipped. So far so good. Then she proceeded to squat on her heels and did what used to be known as the Russian Kazatzka, where your feet shoot out straight ahead of your body, with your arms folded up right in front of your chest. The audience didn't know what to think but they knew where to look! With only her G-string on, her Russian dance was quite startling. The curtain was barely closed when management came running backstage and, needless to say, no more Russian dancing that week!"

BABY DUMPLIN' One of the biggest stars by pounds and reputation in the carnival revue business was Rosa Mack Chagnon, known professionally as Baby Dumplin'. She headlined a Hirst Circuit road show in 1946 as a talking women and tassel shaker, then featured on the Midwest and Empire circuits and on the Johnny J. Jones revue show Follies. For the next ten seasons she was a headliner on various rail carnival revues — Strates, Model Shows, Royal, and Cetlin and Wilson. Bonnie Boyia was a friend of hers and recalls, "When Rosa played Detroit she would stay at my place. She had the cutest act. She had two tassels on her boobs and two on the cheeks of her ass. She would get all four going at once and then all four going in different directions. She started off her act singing,

The one and only Rosa Mack Chagnon, who danced under the name Baby Dumplin'. One of the great crowd-pleasers in burlesque, nightclubs, and under canvas, she was featured on every major carnival revue show from the late 1940s to the 1960s. She had tons of personality to go with her other generous assets, and she could twirl her tassels like nobody else, as she demonstrates here at the Charlotte, North Carolina, fair on Strates in the 1950s.

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'Lt ain't what you do but the way you do it. It ain't what you do but the way you do it. It ain't what you do but the way you do it. That's what makes it right!'

Baby Dumplin' working a showmen's gathering, backed by a trio who seem to be having a great time!

"Upon singing the last line she would start her tassels twirling. One night when she stayed over with me as we are going to bed she called out, 'Hey, everybody, be careful where you step, I'm going to take my bra off"

RITA CORTEZ One of the most dynamic strippers in the girl-show business was Rita Cortez. She was not only a feature on many of the large revues, and she also produced many of her own shows. She wrote, "I was born in South Philadelphia. Left home, tenth grade, as I was one of thirteen children at the time. My family needed help, so I joined a carnival when it played my town and started selling popcorn. After one season I had a chance to purchase a Loop-oPlane. Set it up and down. "After the third season Mr. James E. Strates gave me one of his girl shows. The show burned down in 1945.1 joined Endy Bros. Shows for two seasons. Strates built me a new girl-show front and back and I was with Strates up to 1960 with the exception of one season with Royal American Shows. "I never took a dance lesson in my life and was featured for Harold Minsky in all his theaters. On Strates all summer, worked theaters in the winter." Above and right: Rita Cortez performs on Strates, 1950s.

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THE SOUL OF BACCHU Tirza the wine Bath girl

* ompetition on the burlesque circuit was I tough. To work steadily and make good % money, a dancer had to have a gimmick, One of the most unusual was that used by the legendary Tirza the Wine Bath Girl. Tirza's mother, Emelita (Daisy) Duval, had been in the Ziegfeld Follies, Earl Carroll's Vanities, and George White Scandals, so it was only natural that her daughter would get into the business, too. Tirza started working as a chorus girl during school vacations in the 1930s. "I worked in the chorus for a while until I saw these girls coming in and they were the x

feature dancers. Now, I was making $29 and change a week for five shows a day plus rehearsals for the following week's show and here is a girl coming in who doesn't have to rehearse and she is getting $125 a week as a feature dancer — not a stripper, just a feature dancer! I said to my mother, 'Gee, Mama, I don't understand this. I can dance as well as these girls and look what they are getting!' "My mother said it was up to me to do something, so I spoke to the costumer who made the G-strings and costumes for the girls in the theater where I worked. I asked her to make me two costumes for numbers I wanted 177

C H A P T E R 1 2

Tirza's first wine bath had a simple metal frame supporting a clear plastic shower curtain.

Page 176: Tirza stands on the roof of the show front, overseeing the packed tip, as talker Joe Boston waxes eloquent about the assets of the dancer standing beside him. Titled Wine, Women & Song, this show is not a revue, but a straight girl show featuring the legendary Wine Bath Girl.

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to do. She made me a waltz costume in which I danced to 'Tea for Two' and then another for a Japanese Oriental number. "I auditioned and got a job as a dancer. Now I was getting much better money with no rehearsals and I could spend more time at home with my mother. I worked like that for a while and then one day I told my mother that features would come in the theater like Sally Rand with her fans and bubble, Rosita Royce with her birds, and Zorita with her snakes. Could she think of anything I could do that was different?

Something that hadn't been done before. So my mother comes up with this idea of having a fountain built and I do a dance in the fountain. That's how I got started as Tirza the Wine Bath Girl." The Duvals found a fountain man who designed and built fountains for estates. They told him they needed something portable in which Tirza could stand and the fountain would come on. Tirza recalled, "He came back with a design and a price. He built the first wine bath. It had one motor and one pump and I stood on a platform that had lights coming up through the center of it. It had a shower and shower curtains on a circular rod that kept the water off the stage. I did very nicely with it until I decided to improve it." The fountain did have its drawbacks, though. For one, the water was not heated and it was no fun to work in cold theaters. Also, in his eagerness to make the fountain look authentic, the builder had cemented real boulders weighing about fifty pounds each into the base, making the fountain unwieldy. And Tirza discovered that people in the back seats of clubs and theaters could hardly make out the streams of water. She corrected that by adding red wine to the water. Her agent quickly secured contracts

Left: Tirza's booking photo showcases her new and improved fountains, featuring two illuminated glass columns that spray wine and mirrors that reflect the dancer's image as she performs in the wine shower. Tirza is covered by a fine mesh bodysuit with pasties and G-string underneath.

Be/ow: Tirza poses in front of the new fountain. An article in Pic mag azine, 1 939, referred to her as the virgin Aricina, who was in love with Bacchus, the god of wine.

with the Chicago Wine Co., who sponsored her at the New York World's Fair in 1939-40. "The new improved wine bath cost me $5,000!" Tirza remembers. "It had three motors and three pumps, different water jets and sprays. The background, instead of being a shower curtain, was four mirrors that reflected my image. Depending on where you were seated, it would often look like there were five girls o in the wine bath. It was very beautiful and

I did very well with it as there were not a lot of girls with props then." The new fountain had several motordriven pumps: one that propelled two upright glass cylinders that shot out a constant stream of red wine, one that created a spray, another that sent out a dry-ice mist, and a fourth that spewed out bubbles. New red-and-blue spotlights enhanced the act. An eighty-gallon stainlesssteel tank, a 1,500-watt electrode heating plant, and thirty-some feet of half-inch copper tubing with brass-plated fittings sent the room-temperature liquid into the shower. The girl acting as Tirza's maid ran the apparatus's controls offstage. The new fountain had a new problem: its setup. In the theaters, if she called in an outside plumber the backstage staff threatened to walk out, and if the house plumber came in to set up and fix the pipes, a different union beefed. In 1941 Tirza solved the problem by passing the exams for a journeyman plumber and joining the AFL union. She could now set up the fountain herself. 179

Tirza, a certified plumber, assembles her wine bath. Before each show, she must fine-tune the small nozzles that spray wine up the sides of the unit.

With the fountain problems behind her, she set to work on her image. "I was using the name Lee, short for Leona, and Val, short for Duval. I called myself Lee Val. I wanted something more theatrical sounding and started looking in books and came across Thyrzha, who was a goddess or handmaiden to Bacchus. Because it would have been difficult for theaters we changed it to Tirza. We spelled it like it sounded, cut it down, and it went over very nicely. It was both catchy and exotic and matched the act. "I now needed new wardrobe to go with the act. It couldn't be American or 180

stripper-like, it had to be Grecian. I had a man make me two gowns, and next to improving my wine bath that was my biggest expense. I think I paid $2,000 each for them but they were beautiful, fully sequined, and looked Grecian. He made everything in purple, so the costumes were purple and the wine was purple. "So now I have the wine bath, I have a name, and I have props. I buy a Chev panel truck to put all the pieces of the fountain and my wardrobe in. My mother wouldn't let me go on the road alone, so I hired a fellow my mother knew to travel with me. "My only problem was that I was thirty years too soon for the really big money. If I was doing that act today I would be making a fortune."

Tirza's Wine Bath girl show on Prell's Broadway Shows, 1954. Posted behind the girl to the left is a blowup of an article about Tirza from Sir! magazine. Joe Boston is just visible at the bottom right.

Tirza broke into burlesque in the big days of the business, the mid-1930s. Lois DeFee, Queen of the Amazons, at six foot four inches, was claiming to be the hottest box-office draw on the circuit. Sally Keith, the original tassel twirler, was still a headliner. Ann Corio was fast making a name for herself on burly stages, and Walter Winchell's N.Y. columns featured more strippers and burly comics than politicians. When Coney Island's season began in June 1940, Tirza was there in the "battle of the bathtubs." Longtime Coney producer David Rosen featured Tirza and her wine bath in his Streamlined Follies, while rival Luna Park offered up Dorothy Henry's milk bath act over at the Star Follies show.

There's no record of a victor in this winevs.-milk warfare. A Billboard reviewer wrote of Tirza's act at the Republic Theatre in January 1942, "The specialty numbers with the exception of Tirza were poorly done. Tirza the wine dancer is palmed off as something of an injecture of culture posing as the soul of Bacchus showering in red wine after an exotic bit of modern dancing before the shower is turned on. Even without the schmaltz, it's a good flash act that the nonartistic souls, too, can appreciate." June 1943 saw Tirza back at Coney Island, this time opening her own show, with her mother as manager and ticket seller. About her Coney Island days, she

From left". 1. Backstage, Tirza dons her costume for the wine bath routine. She carried a dozen costumes and was always drying out a set when working her big carnival revues, when she did ten or more shows a day at the big fairs. 2. Tirza tops up the wine bath. Her "wine" was actually a mixture of coloured water and half a bottle of wine — otherwise the liquid would simply become a sticky mess and not flow properly over her body. 3. & 4. Tirza, drenched in purple liquid, finishes her act.

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Joe Boston talks on the front of the Top Hat girl show on a truck carnival, late 1960s. Both black and white dancers appear on the bally, something that was unthinkable just a decade earlier.

Above left: Tirza graced the cover of the menu from her Chinese restaurant at Coney Island. She will certainly be remembered more for her wine-bath girl show than her Chinese food — she lost $10,000 in the food business! Above right Tirza's mother placed this ad in a 1951 issue of Billboard. She wanted to sell off their nine-year lease on Coney. She did, and a pizza joint arose where Tirza once performed.

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enthuses, "The best run I had was operating Tirza's Wine Bath Revue each summer there. I had to go to Mayor La Guardia to get a license and of course he said, 'No!' He hadn't closed all the burly houses in NYC yet but he was pressuring them. He was a tough mayor. I went home and told my mother that he wouldn't give me a license. So she went back down with me and we got another meeting with him. My mother wanted to know why he was stopping me from making a living. She explained I was a working girl operating a business to take care of her mother and her son and not running a playground. "The mayor was concerned about the wine-bath image. 'What does she wear?' he

asked. My mother explained that I wore a flesh-colored leotard. The mayor wanted to see what I was wearing before he would decide! So we had to come down again. He told me I had to wear a bathing suit, one that every lady would wear on the beach — not clear, or see-through, but an ordinary beach bathing suit. I said O.K. So he gave me my license and it was the first time there had been a girlie show at Coney Island in a few seasons. "So I worked there every summer and I had the lease on the place for ten or more years, which I fulfilled up until about two years of the lease. Coney Island had deteriorated so badly I was afraid to open and so I sold my lease to a guy who put in a pizza

joint. I had a very pleasant run there. That is where I met my husband , Joe Boston." Boston's name is one that crops up contantly among carnival girl-show people. "He was never in the business before I met him at Coney Island," says Tirza. "He was enthralled by it and we got to talking and he asked me if there would be a job around a girlie show for a guy like him. He said to me, 'I know all the people around here, I grew up, was bred up around Coney Island!' He suggested he be our bouncer and so I tried him out. "Then one day I was short a talker and I said, 'Joe, you have a good voice, why don't you try and talk? You'd get much better money.' He said he would give it a try but if his friends came they would boo him off the stage. So I told him he could stay behind the curtain and I would hand him back the microphone and he could introduce the acts. Well, with his deep voice the crowd listened to everything he had to say and he turned out to be one of the best girl-show talkers in the business." Tirza was still going back to Coney in 1951, but her outside bookings were starting to earn her top money. In April she was playing Giro's in Philly for $1,500 per week and leading a striptease boom in the city. The Holiday Manor put in a strip

TUBBY BOOTS 'TONS OF FUN

Left: Tirza and Joe Boston took over the girl shows on the World of Mirth's French Casino revue in 1958. Tirza (right) makes the opening. Right: Joe Boston (right) makes an opening on the revue show on World of Mirth, 1963, the last season WOM was on the road. Tubby Boots (third from left) was featured on the show that year. Various other strippers and comedians are on the bally.

revue. The Wedge rushed in fan dancer Dottie Winters. Big Bill's ran newspaper teaser ads headed, "Are Women Frigid — See Big Bill Wednesday" as advance bally for June Blake and her frozen-alive-in-ablock-of-ice act, an old midway routine. Tirza s career was now clubs and theater dates in the winter and spring, then Coney for the summer and carnivals for the lucrative fall fairs. Joe was talking Tirza's front at Coney, then hopping onto a carnival girl show in the fall as a talker. In 1954 she and Joe spent their first full season on a carnival, presenting both a revue and a posing show on Prell's Broadway Shows for twenty-seven weeks. 183

Left: The girls ready themselves for a publicity or newspaper photo on the front of the 1958 French Casino girl show on World of Mirth. Tirza was a featured performer, along with comic Tubby Boots and "cafe society singer" Jack Small.

Below: Four strippers from Tirza's girl-show revue on World of Mirth, circa 1960, pose in front of the empty bandstand.

They were delighted with the business. The next season they had a girl show on the Amusement Corp. of America rail carnival and were routinely topping the midway grosses, even beating the new Rotor ride. In fall 1957 Joe and Tirza took over the number-two girl show on Strates. George Sollenberger contacted the couple, on behalf of Frank Bergen who owned World of Mirth. He wanted them to come to their Richmond, Virginia, winter quarters to talk to him. There they signed to produce the revue and posing shows for 184

him in 1958, and they remained there until the show folded. Tirza fondly remembers her World of Mirth days. "Bergen was one of the nicest guys and very honorable. If you had bad weather or slow business and your finances were low you could go to the office and he would give you a couple of grand. When you needed it, you got it. He always got it back from us. "One day it rained so hard the whole midway was shut down but there happened to be people out on the midway that had come out to the fair earlier in the morning before the rain started. Joe, he had to open regardless of weather. 'OK,

girls! Bally time!' The girls put rubber boots on and waded through the mud from the tent up onto the front wagon to bally. At the end of the night the show had taken in $600-odd dollars. When Joe went up to the office to turn in the money, Mr. Bergen said, 'Hey, Joe, what did you do to get this money?' Joe said, 'Nothing special, just opened up!' It gave people someplace out of the rain and they wanted to do something at the fair. They couldn't go on the rides and so they came into the tent and we gave them a good show. One thing, Joe was always going to put on a show as he wanted that candy-pitch money. Joe did a good candy pitch, too. Mr. Bergen, he

was so happy when you made money. He was one of the few owners that let you know it when he was pleased with your work." Sometimes it was a challenge forTirza to protect her image. Working at one of Lowe's theaters up in Hartford, she saw her photo outside above a sign that read, "See Tirza Bathe in Grugan's Ale." She laughs. "Well, beer is an amber color and I used purple, reddishcolored wine in my wine bath. I was furious. I found the manager and asked him how he dared to advertise that without my permission. I don't bathe in beer, I told him. I get paid to bathe in Chateau Martin

Left The cast and band of the French Casino revue on World of Mirth, circa 1960. Tirza stands beaming immediately to the drummer's left. Right'. The same cast poses, minus the band and the male limbo dancer. Tirza stands with her arms outstretched.

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During the last couple of years that Tirza and Joe Boston had the girl show on the Strates midway, Joe's health prevented him from making the openings every night. Here, at the New York State Fair at Syracuse, 1985, Tirza checks ticket numbers to see how full the tent is while ticket seller Ernesto "Ricky" Ricciardi looks on. Later, she jams to get the crowd in. Two for the price of one!

Wine. He says, 'How much will it take for you to bathe in beer this week?' "I said, 'Five hundred dollars.' So, he came up with the money, and instead of adding red coloring and some wine to the water I added amber coloring to it."

"My fans talk to me, I did a swan, Indian,clam,

flutter flutter, a lot of different things." TIRZA

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Traveling from town to town sometimes brought with it absurd challenges, that broke up the endless routine of the road. "I was traveling from Miami to Dallas," Tirza remembers, "and driving the panel truck with the wine bath in it. I've got Ray my helper with me and I have to go to the bathroom. We see a gas station in the middle of nowhere and I pull in. There was no inside toilet, just an outhouse out behind in the field. I had my two Pomeranians with me, the father and the mother. One was named Micki, she was the little girl, a blonde dog. She would always

jump up on a chair. That's where I fed her when she was sitting next to me. I hurried back to the outhouse, quickly opened the door, and went inside. I was about to sit down when Micki jumped up on the seat, slid across the top and down the hole into all the crap. I can't see her down there but I can hear her frantic little bark. "I have to get her out. So I run back to the truck and get Ray. I got to get down there and find her. Ray takes the toilet seat frame apart and opens up the top. I take my shoes off, my socks, my pants, my blouse, strip down to my bra and panties. Ray grabs one wrist and lowers me into the hole. I'm down there feeling around in all that mess and I manage to grab Micki and pass her up to Ray. We sneaked back to the truck and took off. The first motel we came to I sent Ray in to rent a room and Micki and I had a good bath!" Like other dancers of her era, Tirza had to be careful to stay within the law. "I would strip down to my bra and G-string. That was as far as you could go. Most times I wore pasties under my net bra and something under my G-string, too. I used to carry around ten outfits. I was never a bump-and-grind act. I was a dancer but sensuous. I also did a fan number. I have been told I did more with my fans than

Left: Tirza works the bally with a few of her dancers on Strates at the New York State Fair at Syracuse, 1985.

Sally Rand did. I did pictures and poses. I had my fans specially made for me. My fans talked to me. I did a swan, Indian, clam, flutter flutter, a lot of different things." She and Joe worked the last girl show on Strates in 1986, and Joe died of cancer the following year. I ask her if she misses the business. "That year after Joe died," she says, "I'm sorry I didn't go back but things didn't work out. Strates contacted me suggesting that Rita Cortez and myself take the show out again. But there just

Right Joe and Tirza added a male stripper to the show's program during their final years in the business. Taking advantage of the mid-1980s Chippendale craze, they hoped this would draw in the ladies. The male stripper here, on the bally in Syracuse, New York, was one of the show's canvasmen. The woman in the black dress was the wife of one of the show workers, and the woman to the right is from an agency.

"It is very lonesome here, you know what I mean? You can't make a dollar in Miami now. That's all you can make in Miami now is a dollar!"

wasn't enough money there anymore to justify buying a house trailer and doing all that work. I have a dog to look after here, so I declined.

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HAVE YOU SEEN MITZI? The Bump, the Grind, the Freeze, and the Shake

o met Mitzi by accident in the early 1990s. I \ * was in Miami to see Tempest Storm at the * Pussycat Club. A few minutes before Tempest was to go on for her last time, I showed the cashier some of my girl-show photos and inquired if Miss Storm might identify any of the dancers for me. The cashier said, "Let me see those!" She flipped a couple 8 x 10s over and asked, "Where did you get these? These are all people I have worked with all my life — my name's Mitzi." She lived in a trailer park behind a strip club out farther on Biscayne. A 1991 Miami Herald story described her as seventy-four years old and still holding

her 38-23-36 figure, weighing what she did when she was seventeen. Born in Chicago in 1917 to dancers Mickey and Elsie McGarry, Mitzi spent her childhood on the vaudeville circuit. "At three years old I was doing my own act, 'Baby Darling,' and I sang 'Ma, He's Making Eyes At Me!' to the drummer and he would act like he was shy and everything. People would laugh and I would take my little bow. I would do a little dance imitating my mom and finish with the splits. "When it was time to go to school, I was sent to Toledo, Ohio, to stay with my aunt and W

C H A P T E R 1 3

A vaudeville advertisement in a newspaper features "Toledo's Well-Known Vaudeville Favorites" Mickey and Elsie McGarry.

Mickey and Elsie McGarry, Mitzi's mom and dad, do a vaudeville song-and-dance act during the 1920s. Elsie used to say, "The worst two weeks in show business is the week before Christmas and any week in Toledo, Ohio." Ironically, the McGarrys wound up running a dance school in Toledo in the 1930s.

Page 188: Carnivals often supplied parade units, or people from the back-end shows, for various parades promoting the fair or a still date. Here Mitzi (second from right) beams for the crowds to promote Raynell's 1955 revue on Cetlin and Wilson. To her right is Junior Aldrich and his wife, Gloria, of the acrobatic comedy dance team Kaye and Aldrich.

uncle. But in the summertime I would be on the road. I know there are a lot of people in show business who don't approve of kids being raised backstage, but I loved it. I can't think of anything more fun. As long as the show had acrobats and magicians, I was a very happy child!" In the 1930s her parents opened a dance studio in Toledo, and Mitzi taught there for a while, in addition to dancing at

the Knights of Columbus, Veterans' Clubs, and hospitals. "I just kept dancing. When Franklin D. Roosevelt repealed prohibition and all these little nightclubs opened up again, there was lots of work. Of course I got taken off the stage a few times because I was so young. Margaret Slater was the policewoman who would check on you. She wouldn't let me work. I would change my name, go someplace else to try and hide from her. "Finally, Sally Rand hit this big thing with her fan number and the whole country was crazy over the fan dance. All the clubs wanted a fan dancer. I got the fans and my mother made a costume and sewed me up in it so there wouldn't be any eyes, hooks, or zippers showing, and I worked as a fan dancer locally for a long time. After a while the fad faded away, and strippers — actually they called them exotics — became the rage. "This was the end of the thirties or so. I was still a kid then, tap-dancing in nightclubs. The agents and everybody wanted strippers; not hoochie-coochie dancers but professional strippers. I decided to go into burlesque, where I had a chance of being a feature. I was doing my dance routine in Cleveland and I went to the Roxy Theater

A young acrobat rides the "giraffe" unicyle outside a vaudeville theater in Denver, Colorado, 1950s. Such stunts were meant to promote the vaudeville bill.

there to see a burlesque show. It was so professional with good acts and a great band." Impressed, Mitzi went to Chicago to see Milton Schuster, the main agent for the western circuit. He sent her to Detroit, where she turned her can-can number into a strip routine at the Avenue. After a week she co-featured, then was sent to Youngstown as a feature. "I wasn't thought of as a weak act talent-wise," remembers Mitzi, "but I didn't do that naughty, naughty stuff, you know. Rose La Rose from NYC did. When she

came in, managers were afraid she might close up the theater! She drew really big crowds and to keep the business coming in she would flash — none of the stuff you see today, just flash. Now you see it, now you don't. She really started the stronger stripping. In the midwest we called it 'cheating' when a dancer

Burlesque workers of her era say that nobody but Rose LaRose could get away with her act. Not even Sally Rand, Gypsy Rose Lee, or Georgia Sothern could match this gal for pure sexual excitement in a theater. Where their acts stopped, Rose was just getting warmed up.

would show something she wasn't supposed to! It was risky — you never knew when the police were going to come in. "If you were a showgirl in a line and you became a stripper it was like you graduated. Usually the ones who thought they wanted to be an exotic dancer or wanted to be one of the featured women on the show

This 1957-58 route book issued by Milton Schuster, a leading burlesque-act booker, marked his sixtieth year in show biz. He charged various acts and theatrical suppliers to advertise in his route book, which he distributed free.

791

Mitzi (center foreground) poses with the rest of the chorus line in a burlesque-theater dressing room near the start of her career — but she didn't stay in the chorus line long. Within months she was a burlesque feature.

would watch show after show from the wings. Watch what the girls did and what was expected of them. Today someone asks the girls if they want to be on the stage and the next day they are on it!" For nearly four years, Mitzi played the Rialto in Chicago for producer Paul Morokoff, who gave her fourteen-week contracts. Each week she had to change her act, music, number, and wardrobe if she could. "The routine I liked best was my Daisy Mae/L'il Abner one. Actually it was the old 'Dance of the Lovers' routine — half-man, half-woman — but I did it with Daisy Mae and L'il Abner. I worked it out so 192

Two views of the "Dance of the Lover" routine, in which the female dancer's costume is rigged to include a dummy male dancer. This fine novelty number was often seen in burlesque and carnival revue shows. Mitzi modeled her L'il Abner/Daisy Mae routine after this.

that Daisy Mae runs onstage in her little outfit, calling for L'il Abner, who she was supposed to meet. I would dance around and finally run off the stage calling, 'Where are you, L'il Abner?' As I went off, the spotlight man would shine the spotlight all around the audience looking for him. I used the song 'Where Are You Now That I Need You' while I made a very quick change into a costume that was L'il Abner on one side. "As the curtain opened again to show me sitting on a park bench, I had a man's voice on tape say, 'Here I am, Daisy Mae.' Then I would do the whole 'Dance of the

Lovers' routine. The emcee would come out front and say, 'Now that we have L'il Abner and Daisy Mae out of the hay, let's bring Daisy Mae back,' and while he was saying that, I would be offstage taking off the boot of L'il Abner's costume and be back in the little Daisy Mae outfit I had on underneath. I would come back out and finish the strip. I used to get a lot of applause and accolades over it, but it was hard work. "I also did a wedding number where I was pregnant and I wanted to get married. I put in a joke where I call up this guy and say, 'Hi, remember me, it's Mitzi!' Offstage a guy would say, 'This is who?' I would say,

Mitzi (center) starts into her feature strip routine on Leon Miller's 1958 revue show on Royal American. The mother-and-daughter dance team Vicki (left) and Molly Parkes flank Mitzi. Mitzi danced about the stage, periodically winding up behind the Parkes's umbrellas, where she'd remove a piece of wardrobe, until she was down to pasties and a g-string.

'Mitzi. I was here and you took me out to a restaurant and you said I was a good sport.' Then the guy's voice saying, 'I said you were a good sport?' And I would say 'You did... and now I'm here and I'm pregnant and you better marry me or I will kill myself!' The male voice would conclude, 'Oh my, you are a good sport!' I hang up the phone and my music starts and I begin to strip. I started the number with Frank Sinatra singing 'Get Me to the Church on Time.' "I did the 'Dance of Hands,' too — not an original with me but an old-time burlesque thing. After you took this piece off and that piece off, you're dancing around

not in little G-string pants but regular pants. You put one hand on one bum cheek and the other hand on the other one. Your hands are painted in black-light paint and when the lights go off and you turn your back on the audience, they see the hands glowing in the dark on your butt and it's cute. You move your hands around back and forth and then you go down front and bop. It was always so effective. I still use it today . . . Don't look at me like that! Even though I'm almost eighty I do still work at a lot of birthday parties for old people who remember that era!" Mitzi spent a good part of her career on 193

"The worst two weeks in show business are the week

before Christmas and any week in Taledo, Ohio." MITZI'S MOTHER

A classic Mitzi publicity still.

carnivals. She was married to Roland Porter for twenty years. Sometimes they had their own girl shows and sometimes she was a feature in a girl revue while he pitched candy and talked the front. She featured twice on Royal, three times for Jack Norman on Strates, and several times on Cetlin and Wilson for Raynell Golden. "On carnivals," Mitzi says, "a lot of the girls on the chorus line or on the bally were married to guys working in the office, or on the rides, or other shows, in concessions, whatever. In burlesque a lot of comics' and straight men's wives were strips or talking women — not everyone can do a strip and not 194

everyone looks good with their clothes off!" Perhaps Mitzi became a feature because she strove so hard to avoid the chorus-line ghetto. "If you were a good dancer, it was hard for you to get out of the line. You were more valuable to the producer there." But things weren't as rough as they once had been for the chorus girl. "Before my time, in the late 1920s and early thirties, they use to travel the whole show. Then somebody got the idea that they could just keep the same chorus girls here each week and hire a choreographer to change the routines weekly. That was four whole new routines the chorus had to learn every week. "They would rehearse between shows and after the shows at night. Sometimes they would work until 2 a.m. The last show would be over at 11 or 11:30 and the chorus girls would be up on the stage as soon as the house cleared. The chorus girls were always tired! The audience expected them to be smiling, jumping, and dancing. The

Mitzi and Roland Porter on King Reid Shows in Montreal, Quebec, 1955. They booked their act on this show until Raynell opened for the season.

work was too much and too hard." With her own vast repertoire of dances and routines, Mitzi is like a walking encyclopedia of exotic dancing. "The bump," she explains patiently, "is to the front, but you can do a side bump too. The grind is to move your hips all around. The freeze is to shake and quiver. Shaking is just shaking, but there are different ways of shaking. With the shoulder shake, you stand in one place and shake from side to side, and back and forth. The old-time shaking was like doing the Twist. And some girls could do belly rolls. They're hard to do. Some wouldn't do it because it developed the muscles there and made your stomach real hard. "Not all the girls did tassel twirling, either. You had to have a full enough bust so the tassels would stick out. I did a little tassel twirling to 'I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate.' That was a ogood swinging song you could tassel twirl to easy. I got myself a white-fringed outfit top with tassels. I just did it a bit before the close of my number. Before I know it, one of the Las Vegas clubs calls my agent and wanted to know if he could send them a tassel-twirling exotic dancer. Well, the agent was stupid to think that I would want to do it week after week."

Mitzi is featured as "the Silver Doll" on the program cover for Leon Miller's 1965 Club Lido revue on Royal American. This was her second appearance as a Royal headliner, and the show's suggestive theme was "Artists and Models."

Feature dancer Mitzi and comedy balancing star Bozo Harrell do a little two-step bit in this press photo advertising Leon Miller's girl-revue show on Royal American, 1958.

audiences, Mitzi laughs, "Oh yes, they knew you and you knew them. We had this old guy in one of the Chicago theaters I worked. He would come in and sit in the front row with his hands in his pocket. He would get all excited and you would hear the change rattling in his pockets."

Asked about regulars in the burlesque 195

SOME HOUSEHOLD TIPS The Millers, a Girl-Show Family

IRLS

GIRLS

$50.00

A

WEEK

Over the years the ads leaped out of

in his early teens, and in the 1920s, in the early days of organized shows, he owned his own carnival. He had a gilly show with a

issues of Billboard and Amusement Business: "RW MILLER WANTS GIRLS." Fred William Miller's daughter Shirley and her husband,

chair-o-plane, merry-go-round, Ferris wheel, and whip rides. During the tough 1930s he

Buzz Barton, ran girl shows on carnivals in

was involved in a tragic car accident — a

the last few years of the business. Shirley's

woman was killed, and he lost the show. He

brother Mike and his wife, Jodi, also ran girl

stayed in the carnival business by framing a

shows for many seasons before switching to large rides.

small girl show with a rag front. The whole

Miller, the son of a Chicago doctor, was born in 1895, just two years after the "Little

— loaded on a small two-axle trailer he pulled behind his car.

Egypt" dance craze swept the Columbia

Fred met his first wife, Leona, in Salt Lake

Exposition midway there. He joined a circus

City. His second wife, Evelyn, was a dancer on

thing — bally stage, front, tent, inside stage

197

CHAPTER

14

his girl shows, which she ran with him. Derby time found the Millers in Louisville, Kentucky, where Fred placed an ad in the local papers, seeking dancers for the summer girl-show season. Jahala, who was running a struggling dancing school, answered the ad. She had danced on Broadway, the RKO vaudeville circuit, and for NYC-based Nat Wayburn, one of the main suppliers of dancers for Ziegfeld and other big revues. By the end of the year, Jahala had become Miller's third and last wife. The couple wintered in trailer parks in New Orleans, where Jahala did interpretive dancing in various clubs, including a number she called the Jungle Swamp Fire Dance. Page 196: Mike Miller crouches on the bally as he gathers a tip in front of this girl show in the 1960s. His wife, feature dancer Jodi, beams behind him.

w

Left: Although this show, owned by Mike Miller in the 1950s, was called Silver Follies, the sign over the show front reads "Burlesque." The girls posed on high barstools, which were very popular on girl-show bailies of the era. Center: F.W. Miller makes an opening on the big girl revue on Cavalcade of Amusements, early 1950s. He is standing on a short runway that brought him closer to the crowd. Right: Mike Miller and Jodi "the French Doll" stand in the ticket box beside the bally platform of their Chez Paree girl show, the front of which is decorated with blow-ups of Jodi.

In the spring they would take out the girl show, head north, and open in Indiana. He booked the show by calling carnival owners from pay phones to line up his route. Not every town was a good gal-show venue. Fred Miller preferred to hopscotch as he knew where the best spots were. He liked the small cities that had car-manufacturing F.W. Miller and his son Mike advertised for girl-show bookings in the 1958 Cavalcade of Fairs, published annually by Billboard.

plants in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky. One season they were on nine different carnivals in eleven weeks. "Mom's show was called 'Mademoiselle,' and she worked it as a posing show," Fred Miller's daughter Shirley tells me when I visit her Florida home. "The front was built on a semi-trailer and had a fifteen-foot paneled living quarters over the fifth wheel area. The inside stage was at the back of the tent and it had a proscenium around it with a cut-out rectangular center section closed off by a rollup curtain. "The posing girls could work nude, partly nude, or topless in their various poses, maybe twenty poses or changes in the show. The curtain would open on a girl in a pose that was maybe described as 'Reaching for the Stars' and after a minute or so the curtain would close and then open again on another girl reclined over a draped box and depicting a famous statue or painting. On big fairs my mom's and dad's shows would be together. The emcee

in Dad's show, which was a regular girl show, would tell the audience, 'Make sure you see the posing show — it starts where we left off! Shirley's career started when she was five — she remembers doing a hula dance on her dad's show when it was booked on Cavalcade of Amusements in 1951-52. When she was eleven, her dad took her to the fairs at Dallas and Memphis where he sold Billboard and made openings on the girl

The girls on the bally brandish a coat hanger, a broom, and a big paintbrush as Jahala Miller makes her opening, trying to convince the crowd to witness the dancers' other charms inside.

799

shows. Mike, meanwhile, had a "Minnie the Mermaid Show" fishbowl illusion and Shirley replaced "Minnie" in the fishbowl for a day when the girl didn't show up. The rest of the fair she ballied for Ray Marsh Brydon's midget show. At sixteen Shirley was a regular dancer in her dad's show. Her brother Mike had

left and the family finished the season hopscotching around. Fred Miller died in May 1967 and the girl show stayed in storage until just before the Beaumont fair date in October. Shirley hired a couple of truck drivers and went down to set up the show. She contacted several agencies for dancers but only one dancer showed up. So she had one dancer, a three-piece band, and a talker.

worked the William T. Collins

Shirley's sister-in-law Jodi hadn't danced for a few seasons but she joined

Shows for several seasons, so their father knew which towns on the route were strong for girl shows. While Mike went out with rides, RW booked his girl show on Collins, and that is where Shirley met Buzz, who was Collins' office manager, in 1964. The next year they were married. "I was eighteen when I married Buzz and I was innocent, a virgin," Shirley remembers,

Shirley, and the three of them filled in all the girl spots until more dancers showed up. "When we opened," Shirley says, "I did a spot on the evening news. I had on a gray outfit with big silver tear-drop stones on it — the dress was low-cut and my bust pushed way up. I put my arm around the weatherman and tickled his ear while he tried to do the weather forecast! We got a lot of publicity out of that and did big business with the show.

smiling. When her father

"In 1968 I talked Buzz into operating our own show. We took the old wooden

and Collins had a disagreement over the route, RW

two-truck front of my dad's down to Mike's in Arasas Pass, Texas, and spent the

Shirley Miller, oka Angel Dior, danced on the girl show she owned with her husband, Buzz Barton, in the late 1960s. The show toured fairs in Missouri, South and North Dakota, and Iowa throughout the decade.

200

"We were the most glamorous girls that men had seen." SHIRLEY MILLER

winter building a new girl show on just one semi-trailer. We opened in Grand Falls, North Dakota, on the Wm. T. Collins Shows, and stayed there until 1972 when the Murphy brothers bought it. That season we had rebuilt the front out of aluminum. We went out with Murphy Exposition Shows in 1973, but that was our last tour, the last place I danced." Times had changed. Near-naked women, even glamorous ones like Shirley Miller, were no longer a novelty. Shirley Above: "If you're ready to go, we're ready to show!" On the big fairs, Shirley and Buzz's show was expanded into a revue. Here Buzz tells the tip about all the acts, the band, the chorus line, and, of course, Angel Dior, the feature stripper. Right: Jahala Miller with her daughter Shirley and Shirley's brother Mike. Shirley would grow up to be a feature dancer on her own show, and Mike would soon run his own girl shows.

20f

The talker has pounded the big bass drum he is leaning on to attract a tip and now he makes his opening on one of F.W. Miller's girl shows in the 1940s. Miller carried the whole elaborate show — palm trees and all — in a two-wheel trailer he pulled behind his car.

reflected on her years as a girl-show dancer. "Dad had a lot of rules for people to follow that worked for him. His dancers couldn't hang out on the midway. They couldn't wear shorts on the midway. He himself was very dapper, stately looking, always wore a tie and a hat.The hat covered his early hair loss and he hated it when someone mistook him for my grandfather! "After the Second World War and up into the late 1950s girl shows were a big thing on carnivals. Owners were glad to see you. You drew men to the lots for the games to work to. Men also brought their wives and kids out so everybody did well, not just the games. There was very little glamour in the small towns and cities we played. Most people hadn't seen a big show like Ringling 202

Bros, or Ice Capades with all the elaborate costumes and production numbers. "We were the most glamorous girls that men had seen. Here we were, standing up on the bally with perfectly coiffed hair in the latest styles, all dressed up in sequined gowns, furs draped around our shoulders, rhinestone jewelry everywhere, and perched on high heels. Guys were just thrilled to look at us. When you made bally, you would see boys of twelve and fourteen years old staring up at you, smiling. Maybe one of them would wink at you. Then you would see them in a couple of years inside the tent and you would be dancing for them. Nobody talked in the dressing room about getting the men excited, or turning them on sexually. A dancer may say, 'Oh

that guy was cute,' but that was it. To us dancers it was all about being in show business, all about the art of looking attractive and being able to dance well, give them a good show. It was not the smutty business most people imagine it to be." Shirley is now separated from Buzz but they remain good friends. Buzz, known throughout the world of outdoor shows as the Ice Man, works outdoor show-business trade shows with his jewelry business, "The secret to our success," Buzz confides, "was that we always had young pretty girls on the show. Young girls could get away with more. Later, it got to be such a problem to get good people — even girls with age on them wanted big money. If we picked up a raw girl, Shirley would put good wardrobe

on her, teach her an act, and then the girl o would take off to work clubs. "You saw operators out there with good-looking girls, good fronts, and the world's worst talkers. When you stand on the bally and look people in the eye you know if they understand you, if you're getting to them. Making a bally is not like a candy pitch where the marks have to listen to you. If you don't hold the tip in front, they can walk away. You have to know when to cut your opening and send them to the ticket boxes, sense when they're ready to go. I learned from Fred Miller how to build a tip with cute jokes. 'Look here, we are going to have some free entertainment on the front porch. If you will move forward, come in close, I'll return the favor by bringing out some of the girls to give you a free show.' "I always played something on the bally with a good beat, and when I called the girls out I would roll up my pant legs and dance with them just like I had seen my seventy-year-old father-in-law do. It was corny, but the tip loved it. When I introduced the girls I would have a funny saying for each one: 'This here is Chesty James. She wears a pair of 38s in the show.' I like to use blowups on the front of the show because guys seemed to react better '

«J

VJ

O

O

Fred William Miller mans the ticket box on his Orchid Revue girl show, circa 1950. His many years as a showman taught him to stick close to the money.

Buzz Barton, "the Ice Man," in the ticket box of the Chez Paree girl show that he and Shirley ran on the midwest carnival routes during the 1960s and '70s. Ray Worful (left) helped Buzz on the candy pitch.

to a photo than a painting. We got our blowups from a place in Indiana that made them for all the girl shows. They were handcolored with oil paint and mounted on masonite. When we got them we put a coat of varnish over them. Guys figured the girls in the blowups were in the show and I hinted at that with my opening. "Once my candy pitchman left suddenly. I had two choices. Throw out the stock or learn the pitch. I learned to pitch candy and became good at it. I wasn't afraid to tell the crowd to buy five or ten dollars'

worth. I told them we don't limit you to a dollar's worth. On big dates we offered a coupon inside the box for a big piece of plush. I used a display board for the prizes with lots of jewelry on it. We sold them six pieces of candy and a joke book for fifty cents. In spots like Dallas we would have six people packing candy. The last days of the candy pitch you had to know how and where to find cheap prize stock. Once I found a drug wholesaler that had 40,000 little bottles of Evening in Paris perfume with water-damaged boxes. I got the lot for 203

twenty cents a bottle, threw away the boxes, and put the perfume in our candy boxes. Guys knew that these sold for at least a dollar in the drugstore so the candy sold quickly at fifty cents a box. "Sometimes we would have eight people in the tent and I wouldn't want to do the pitch but Shirley would say to me, 'I'm doing my act for them, so you go out there and do your act!' Shirley always worked hard, even to two or three people — she always gave them a show like the tent was full."

I asked Buzz about couples or women in the girl show. "On the second part of our inside show, on the ding I would say, 'We used to ask the ladies to leave at this time in the show as the rest is for men only. But this is the 1970s and people are more liberal. We invite the ladies to stay as long as they are broad-minded. The girls are going to come out and show you some household tips, but not the type you would use in the kitchen!'" Shirley told me about her brother. "He was nineteen and already a fine girl-show talker when he met his wife, Jodi, while she was a dancer on my dad's show in 1953. They were married at the end of the season and the next year managed the girl show for Charlie Hodge, a long-time 10in-1 operator who also had numerous shows on carnivals. When that season ended they bought the show from Charlie and 1955 saw their first tour with their own show. They ran girl shows and other back-end shows up until the early 1960s and then bought rides. Jodi continued to dance until their daughter Michelle was

three or four years old. Today Mike works in a park in Texas." The Millers operated what was called a "regular" girl show, something between a cooch show and a revue. "How strong the girl shows worked depended on the territory and the individuals who operated the shows," says Mike. "You certainly couldn't get into a state fair with a cooch show but you could play a lot of little fairs. We never worked very strong — just like the regular girl show. Not like today when you see more on TV than what we showed back then.We would be told by the show owner what the rules were for girl shows or nudity at each spot. "I usually had a regular sit-down girl show and a posing show that was standup. Maybe three or four girls in the girl show and two girls in the posing show. The posing show was nude but no dirty poses and no girls with their legs spread. It was sold as artistic and the girls did artistic poses. We always had a salute to the army. The curtain would open and the girl would be standing at attention, facing the

"Not only is she good-looking, but she's my wife." Buzz makes an opening for the first show of the evening as star Angel Dior reveals some leg. The clock behind him was a mainstay on girl-show fronts well into the 1970s.

guys, and she would salute. Then the curtain would close and we would announce the salute to the Navy. When the curtain opened she would be posed backwards with her bare ass to the guys. Of course, if we were near a Navy or Air Force base then the Army pose was backwards. The posing show started fast and ran about ten minutes with ten poses. "Most girl operators I knew were manand-wife teams. My wife was a feature stripper and she worked clubs in the winter. On our show she trained girls to dance and others to do cooch. We worked coochstyle in some spots. You had to teach girls you picked up on the road because agency girls made too much money in clubs and wouldn't work on carnivals.When your wife danced, you at least always had one girl. Sometimes we had female impersonators work for us. Most were more ladylike than the girls we had and did very good acts. The marks never knew they were guys.

"Many fairs we played still had Black Day. In Dallas we couldn't operate and we had to hire all black girls from an agency downtown for that one day and present a girl show with black exotics, strippers, and a comic. When we played in Texas we couldn't let black airmen into our girl show because the girls were white. These guys weren't allowed to see white strippers but they could go overseas and be killed for their country. That was OK? We didn't like it but the fair board and the local police made the rules. This was up into the late 1950s and possibly the early 1960s. Many fairs in the south in the 1950s had one day for blacks. If you were black you couldn't buy a ticket to get onto the grounds any other

Buzz Barton convinces a crowd that they needn't go to the big city — Broadway is on their doorstep tonight as his wife, Shirley, and the other three girls on the bally will offer up "spicy entertainment" and "nightclub burlesque" right here at the local fair.

day but Black Day! I never had an integrated girl show because I got out of the girl-show business in 1962." Overnight the girl shows faded from carnival midways. A close family that made their living for decades from girl shows now had only a few albums of photographs, lots of memories, and many friends they had met along the way as a reminder of their outdoor-show-business careers.

205

THE LAST OF THE TASSEL-TWIRLERS Bambi lane

I t was the last time I saw a girl show under standing just inside the top. The man was directions to a half-dozen workers | canvas. The August night was chilly, and giving as t the last of the Syracuse, N.Y., fair crowd who were starting to take down the stage headed for the exit gates, the workers on curtains and dismantle the seats. I wandered James E. Strates Shows were shutting down over and introduced myself. The man's name the rides and games. The long day/night/day was Ricki, and the woman was Bambi Lane. I hadn't recognized her as the tassel-twirling, aging stripper who had just closed the girlshow performance. Standing there in her sweater and neat slacks, wearing big oval glasses, she didn't look like the sex icon I had

blur that is called tear-down was beginning. The tractor crew were moving the empty ride wagons next to the rides for loading. The crowd noise had gone, and only the steady purr of the diesel generators and the shouts of the ride foremen hung in the cool air.

seen forty minutes earlier.

The side wall had been removed from the girl show, revealing an older man and woman

Nineteen eighty-six was the last year for the girl show on Strates. Joe Boston was dying 207

CHAPTER

15

Page 206: Bambi Lane and corny priest Father Mac share a laugh in front of the girl show, 1980s.

208

Bambi sports a steel-framed bra, made by Hedy Jo Star, in this booking photo.

of cancer. Tirza was doing most of the work. Perhaps because they knew it would be their last season, they put little effort into the show. There was no opening or closing of the main curtain. The one-man band dressed in street clothes with the mandatory farmer's cap sat onstage at his synthesizer a few yards from the stage apron. Two other girls had come out and did more of a go-go dance than a strip. One girl was so skinny you wished there had been a candy pitch so you could have thrown her the candy kisses to put some flesh on her bones. The working man doubling as the male stripper came out and in two minutes peeled down to a pair of black bikini briefs — the only excitement he caused was when he wrestled with the knot trying to get his tie undone. The half-filled tent of men who had bought tickets hoping to see "red-hot carnival burlesque" were feeling pretty cheated. What happened to "everything goes when the whistle blows," as Joe used to say on the bally? The boos and cheers were at a max when some real strip music started and out glided this older lady. Within seconds you sensed this was the real thing. This was a burlesque stripper.

Bambi Lane's seven- or eight-minute routine, ending with twirling tassels on her breasts and another two on her rear, cooled the crowd and sent them out of the tent satisfied. I interviewed Bambi Lane in 1997, in Newark. I had to wait until the afternoon to see her as she supervised kindergarten kids weekday mornings. One of her hobbies is making dolls, and her apartment was full of them. She and her boyfriend, Eddy, still entertain — he sings and she does a modified version of her act at the Veterans' Hospital. "I'm sixty-two years old now," she says, "and I worked up into my fifties. I am no sexpot like Blaze Starr but I can actually say I was stripping still in my fifties and still getting compliments about my act." Bambi started stripping to help her big family. She had no experience. She had told the booker at the Gaiety in Buffalo that she was a professional stripper. "Then, you didn't have to strip down to the nittygritty," she remembers. "It was more or less veils, bras, little tassels, pasties. It was Sunday school compared to nowadays. I borrowed a costume. The band was playing

'Summertime' and I was so happy to be up there dancing that I forgot to take my clothes off. Guys in the audience were yelling, 'Take it off, take it off,' and finally the guy in the pit playing the music yells up to me to take it off. So, I began to strip and I couldn't get out of the costume too good because I wasn't used to the borrowed costume, and I stumbled through it. After the show, people were asking the management, 'Where did you get her from?'" Under the stage name Esther, she continued dancing, and this led to some straight bits for comics. "I was so scared I wouldn't remember a thing that I wrote my lines on my hands. I was petrified. There were a lot of people in the theater but with the lights shining on the stage you could only see the guys in the first few rows.

One of Bambi Lane's final publicity shots, circa 1981. She was still dancing into her fifties — and getting compliments on her looks and her act.

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and the Philippines. She says she found it

our father while we take a photo?' So I'm

hard to stay long in one spot. When she

standing there and they take my photo

started working for Joe Boston and Tirza,

with their dad and then they say, 'By the

Joe would say on the bally that she had starred in the movie The Night They Raided

way, what part did you play in The Night They

Minsky's. "These two young girls come up

having a cocktail.'They went away so happy

with this old man and ask, 'Oh, Miss Lane,

they had met a movie star, but Joe says,

Miss Lane, would you mind standing with

'You stupid so-and-so.' I say, 'Now what did

Raided Minsky's?' I say, 'Oh, I was sitting there

"I could make four of those tassels go at Bambi, in an elaborate Hedy Jo Star costume, starts into her routine on the Strates girl show.

one time — two on my breasts and two on my backside."

Still it was scary but I continued to go on and worked into it. Then I became a go-go dancer in New Jersey and also did some stripping in the various theaters that were operating around here at that time. "Then I got my chance to get my costumes from Hedy Jo Star. That's where I got my steel bras, feathered headpieces, and rhinestone G-strings. She was working in Boston and was very expensive but she did wonderful beaded costumes. Each of the two outfits she made me was around $600 to $800.1 still have them, I got my money's worth out of them." Bambi performed all over the U.S., from Alaska to Florida, as well as in Canada 210

Bambi gets her tassels twirling, then continues her tease as she undoes one side of her G-string in the finale of her act. This was in the last years of the James E. Strates girl show, when she was working for Tirza and Joe Boston.

I do wrong?' Joe says, 'For chrissakes, Bambi, Minsky's was a burlesque theater!'" Strates was the first girl show Bambi worked on. "I had been go-go dancing and I thought that going with a carnival might be exciting," she says. "I had big bags under my eyes — when I was young I had silicone put there. I looked like Ed Sullivan. So I put on a pair of sunglasses and two wigs and went out to the midway and asked about the girl show. Someone told me the Bostons ran it and that they also had a sausage joint on the midway. I found it, and Tirza was there with her hands covered in barbeque sauce. "She asked me what I wanted and I told her I was looking for Joe Boston and that I wanted to join the girl show. Tirza said that Joe was down at the main offices of the show. They had three wagons that formed an office compound. I asked for Joe Boston and the guy says, 'What do you want to see him for?' I told him I wanted a job on the girl show. He says, 'Do you take your sunglasses off?' I took the glasses off, I had big eyelashes on. The guy turned out to be Joe himself, and he hired me." Bambi also spent some time on Amusements of America. There she worked on the black show, the Coppertone Revue,

for Lucky Orr. "The first thing they did was put me up there on the stage with all these black dancers. The girls all had see-through o raincoats on, everything was so pretty. One black girl says to me, 'When we go out on the bally we are going to do this dance step.' So, I follow them out there and I bump into this one and bump into that one, but I finally got the rhythm down." Bambi was also known for her artful tassel twirling, first in clubs, then in burlesque. "I would take my bra off," she recounts, "and I would have my back turned to the audience and they would think I was topless. I would cover my breasts with my hands and tease them for a short time, then remove my hands and there would be the tassels. I would get the tassels wound up and going and then I would make them go every which way. Then I started putting them on my backside and I got to where I could make four of 0

Bambi decked out as a Southern belle on the Strates girl-revue bally in 1979.

"My next show starts at six o'clock at the Follies Revue show on the James E. Strates Shows at the York, Penn. fair in 1979." The clock showing the next show time was a standard piece of equipment on girl shows. If people just missed the start of one show they would know when the next one was going to take place. They could go get something to eat or go on some of the rides and then come back down to the girl show for the next show.

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those turkeys go at one time! I could really get the audience excited with those tassels." Bambi was there to witness the progression from go-go dancing to topless and finally to nude dancing. "At first being a gogo girl was really something. I remember going to this place in Pennsylvania. They wanted me to go-go dance in this little bar. This place was just a regular house that had been turned into a bar. I said, 'Where am I going to dance?'The owner offered me $20 or $30 a night, which was good money then, but where was I going to dance in such a small place? The owner said, 'Oh, no problem, you can dance on the shuffleboard table.' So there we are. This guy that plays the fiddle is sitting on the end of the shuffleboard table playing away and I'm at the other end dancing. Oh my God, did I make money there, terrific tips. "I went to work at another place near Hershey, Pennsylvania. I was the first go-go dancer in the spot. Boy, did I feel like a big shot! They put these big round red things

Bambi Lane works a club date in 1980. Back in her burlesque days, she would only be expected to do a three- to four-minute routine. In clubs and strip bars, she'd have to stretch her act out to twelve or fifteen minutes. "I wore a lot of garments, worked slower, and gave them a lot of tease," she remembers.

around the area I danced in so no one could get at me. You had to have a G-string on and you had to have a cover. You couldn't go topless. Of course, the guys would try and encourage you to do it, and every so often you might give them a flash. I made my Gstrings with fake hair glued along the top of it. They thought they were seeing something but they weren't seeing anything. "Then it came down to where you could take off your top. You could come out in bras and panties and then you could do whatever you wanted. There were soon no more elaborate costumes or teasing strip acts. "In my strip act I would start dancing and slowly remove my cape and then dance around some more and take my time removing my dress. If I had my costume on with veils I would twirl the veils around

and I would pull them up between my legs, mostly up in the back. Then I would bend over and pull the veil out little by little, teasing, and then come around and twirl it around some more. "Now, today if you got up onstage wearing something like that they would boo you right off!" Bambi remembers a strike by the fire departments and the police in Newark. The media weren't paying much attention to them, so her friend Gerry, who was a firefighter, asked her to streak naked across city hall steps during a picket there. "I only lived a short way from City Hall," she recalls, "and the day the fire and

police guys are out in front demonstrating I go down to this junk store a few blocks away in this short little dress. The guy there asks if he can help me and I tell him that I think those kids in the back of the store are stealing some stuff. So he hurries to the back of the store and I whip off my dress and throw it away. I take my panties off and stuff them in my purse. I have my sunglasses on and my purse under my arm and that's all when I run out into the street. "I start across the main street and a couple of police stop the traffic for me — it's lunchtime, everybody is out on the streets. The cops and firemen are all lined up by city hall and I'm heading for them. It

Photos 7-3: Bambi removes her costume for a nude finish. Photo 4: Dancing in a place where she couldn't go beyond her G-string, she added fake pubic hair to the upper edge of the garment for added tease.

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was like the movie The Ten Commandments. They part just like the river and I go on through up onto the City Hall steps, across them to the end, and back down. I'm now looking for Gerry's car but I can't see it anywhere, but a bunch of policemen catch up to me. One of them has grabbed a horse blanket off one of the horse policemen and he throws it over me. In a few minutes a paddy wagon shows up and they take me off to jail. The worst thing was that itchy horse blanket!" A month later, Bambi appeared in court, wearing all white. "The courtroom was packed — everyone wanted to see the Newark Streaker! The judge asked me if I was ever in the hospital, and I told him that I had been. He asked what for and I told him for having babies. The whole courtroom howled. "The next court appearance they convicted me of indecent exposure and fined me a hundred dollars. The judge said he didn't want to encourage all kinds of little old grandmothers to go running around naked. I was the Grandmother Streaker! I got a trophy from the fire and police guys, and all the clubs wanted to book me." Of her long career onstage, Bambi remembers most fondly her time with Joe Boston. "He was number one in my books 214

Right Bambi Lane is led away by police after streaking through the streets of Newark in 1974. After being taken from one police station to another, she was finally booked for indecent behavior.

Below: "The worst thing about streaking across the city hall steps in Newark to help the police-strike cause," says Bambi, "was the horse blanket they threw over me when they caught up to me. It was so itchy!"

to work for," she says. "When I came back from Germany and went back to the show, Tirza didn't want to hire me back. She said that I was too old. Joe said that, old or not, I was always there. I was dependable and that's what counts. When the curtain goes up I am there ready to work. If someone didn't show up I would put on a wig and different costume and go out and do their dance and then go out and do my strip and

tassel act. So, when they painted my name up on the show front, that really made me proud. They used to have press parties in the girl tent after the show, champagne and all. It was great. The newspapers and the TV stations would do stories on me. It all made me feel good!

Bambi Lane worked as a topless bartender and also as a stripper in night clubs, circa 1970.

"Well, I have done it all," she says. "Gogo dancing, stripping, streaking, and topless barmaid. I worked in small bars, burlesque theaters, and under canvas on carnival girl shows."

"I remember the very last show I did on James E. Strates' girl show. I was the feature and I closed the show, so I was the last one onstage. The tent was dark and someone turned off the lights and everybody was standing up and holding up their lighters, sparklers, flashlights. Everyone was yelling, 'Bambi, Bambi!' It was a nice tribute. I was crying. I went back onstage and thanked them. I was the last dancer on Strates' girl show. As soon as I left the stage they started taking the show down for the last time."

After her notorious streaking episode, Bambi worked nearly every club and bar in the Newark area. A newspaper ad for the MiniDowntown Burlesk theater in Tampa, Florida, in the dying days of burlesque. The show featured three strippers — including Bambi as "Skippy" — and two X-rated films.

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I CAN'T HEAR YOU The End of the Girl Shows on Carnival Midways

I % y the mid-seventies the carnival midway emergence of erotic movies and shows, the ^ ^ was beginning to change. Shows of all impact of the standard girl shows have simply w types were disappearing quickly and the lessened. We felt the space could be better vacant footage filled with high-capacity rides, At the 1974 Ottawa Fair, for the first time,

used for things other than shows where the patron is a spectator rather than a participant,

there were no side shows, only funhouses and dark rides. Midway goers had no opportunity

So we have more capacity rides and the grosses continue to increase."

to see dancing girls. Fair manager Jack Clark commented on the absence of back-end shows on Amusements of America's midway "With the

what caused the demise of girl shows? North America had just come through the "free love" sixties. Pornography came out from back rooms and mail-order businesses

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C H A P T E R 1 6

Jack Norman's Broadway to Hollywood revue on Strates in the late 1960s features Aminta, "the Sultan's Favorite!" Strippers Joni Taylor and Brit London also performed, as did comic Bob Barrett. Signs on the bally advertise "the Battle of the Strips," but the real battle here was keeping these large shows on the midway.

The tip is packed at the bally for the World International Revue. The talker is drawing the crowd using a "towny" and one of the dancers in his opening. People still wanted to see girl shows, but the flash and talent were quickly disappearing.

to main-street sex theaters and bookshops. Every store that had a magazine rack sold men's magazines. Playboy was hip. No need

mass audiences in the privacy of their own homes. No more sneaking into grindhouse

to brown-bag it. Just lay it there right on top of Life and Newsweek.

cinemas or peep-show cubicles. Add up all this easily accessible sex and

There had always been sexploitation

it was no wonder sex on the fairgrounds

films in grindhouses, but prior to 1968

sex movies of every description available to

had lost much of its drawing power.

there were no X-rated classifications. Soon

Al Kuntz, Century 21 Shows owner,

we had films billing themselves as triple-X-

told Armsement Business in 1974 that despite

rated. Then the VCR came along, making

up-and-down economic conditions, there would always be a carnival industry. "There

Page 2/6: By the early 1970s, the large revue shows were coming to an end. Here, producer Joy Fleenor and talker Peter Garey stand in front of a bevy of chorus girls, musicians, and feature strippers on the bally on the Olson Shows midway at the Michigan State Fair in Detroit, 1971. Feature dancer June Knight (with fur collars) is among the performers.

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will always be rides because you cannot duplicate them in your living room," he said. Until the mid-1960s Century 21 had a wide range of shows, but in 1974 Kuntz was saying, "Shows are a thing of the past.

Outside decor on the Pussycat on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami, Florida. In the early 1990s, the Pussycat was the last bastion of burlesque, featuring veterans like dancer Tempest Storm and employing old-time candy butchers Moe Swartz and Spike Speagle. Burlesque theater owner Leroy Griffith ran the place, and Mitzi was the cashier.

Dave Hanson points out the ticket box when he senses the crowd is ready to go inside. The chorus girls on this revue on Olson Shows in 1966 at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield, Illinois, are, from left: Carol Kaiser, Mary Young, Nancy Mate, Sandy O'Hara (Hanson's wife, later to become a feature stripper), Valerie Long, Elda Aldritch, Liza Carroll, and Karen McCall.

The demise of the big production shows is

operators Among the last independent opera

a result of X-rated movies and much more. You can walk down the midway on a summer day and see what you'd see in a girl show. We wound up trying to sell comedy

were showman Dave Hanson and his wife, Sandy O'Hara, a feature dancer billed as the "Improper Bostonian." Their last season was on Rod Link's

and chorus lines. . . . We weren't allowed to go into a community and give X-rated shows. I lost $11,000 on our girl show last year and $50,000 in the last five years, so I

carnival, where, they say, they grossed $200,000 and lost $26,000. "By the 1970s," Hanson explains, "there were no carnivals left with a

said the hell with it and threw in the towel. Why, you could see more on the Dean Martin television show than we could offer."

big powerhouse route that could sustain a girl revue at their spots, except the Strates shows."

Sandy O'Hara, "the Improper Bostonian," spent nearly a decade working carnival revue shows, first in the chorus line, then as a feature. During winters, she played dinner theaters and Las Vegas venues (see poster below). She later owned her own revue shows with hubby Dave Hanson.

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Sandy O'Hara's big break came in 1969 when she was working the El Dorado Casino in Henderson, Nevada. Harold Minsky's wife, Pat, was in the audience, and she recommended her to her husband. Soon Sandy replaced Tempest Storm in Minsky's revue at the Aladdin Hotel in Vegas.

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However, there were lots of girl-show operators who blamed the carnival owners for the end of not only girl shows but all the big bally shows. The owners cared only about the bottom line, they felt. Bannerlines and big girl-show fronts took up space that could accommodate two high-capacity rides, and the rides would gross three times as much as the shows. Until the mid-1970s each ride or show on the midway had its own ticket box, but it was getting more difficult to find casual workers. Even ten years earlier, when a carnival or circus pulled onto a field, there would be dozens of people waiting to find casual or permanent work. Now you had to raid skid rows and practically kidnap them! One solution was to abolish this method of ticket sales, eliminating dozens of ticket boxes and the need for so many ticket sellers. In this new universal ticket system, show tickets were dispensed at centralized booths on the lot, with rides and shows priced on a coupon basis. The system was ideal for the rides but killed the bally shows. Before a talker convinced people to step up and buy a ticket and go inside right away.

During the final days of burlesque, strippers had to share the bill with soft porn movies and later hardcore flicks. There was no way the girls could compete with the sex acts depicted in these films.

Now he had to send them fifty yards up the midway and hope they returned. Then rides like the Himalaya and Music Express arrived, where half the attraction for the teenagers was the booming rock music and the ride operator's cries of "Do you want to go faster? Well, I can't hear you!" If your bally show was located next to one of these rides you were dead in the water. Once the only music on the lot came from the band organ on the

Many of the last revues combined black and white dancers. Carnys called them "salt and pepper shows. Here, Joey Vance, a '50s teen drumming sensation fronts the Monte Carlo show on A. of A, 1970s.

merry-go-round; now every ride had its own state-of-the-art sound system. Many other factors contributed to the passing of the girl show, including braceletday promotions (patrons buy a wristband that gets them admission into all shows and attractions), higher wages for performers, and carnival operators demanding higher percentages. The rise of go-go dancers in the 1960s led to the strip clubs of the 1980s. Now folks didn't have to wait for the carnival or drive into a big city — almost every town had a go-go bar where strippers used all kinds of audience-participation routines to ensure their popularity and future bookings. Then "lap dancing" came along, and the carnival cooch show looked tame by

comparison. No carnival showman could compete with permanent strip clubs. Some showmen contend that the girlshow operators themselves were to blame for the business going downhill. East-coast carny Karl Greenlaw says, "The last girl show I saw on King Reid Shows consisted of three girls and three throw rugs. No shaking it up, no playing with the marks, simply doing a quick strip and spreading the rugs down where they spread their legs to the right and left, while they played with themselves, and that was

A feature stripper unhooks another piece of wardrobe on one of Tony Mason's final girl shows on Amusements of America in the early 1970s. By this time, girls in many states could go without pasties under their net tops and finish their acts topless, wearing only a small G-string.

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Above: Bob Tanenbaum's Club Vegas girl show setting up in August, Georgia, in 1982. The tent seated two hundred, with standing room for another hundred. Right: Bob "Rubberlegs" Tanenbaum began dancing at the Century Lanes in Yonkers, New York. By 1966 he was playing go-go bars. Later he went on to tour with Lionel Hampton and opened for black rock'n'roll shows. From the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, he operated a girl show.

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it. In the old days you might or might not have been given a flash just before the blackout and we kept them guessing and coming back for more. Some marks practically bought season tickets!" Gene Vaughan, producer of the Broadway Play girls on Strates, said in 1973 that the public hadn't grown tired of the revue show — there were lots of younger dating couples in his audiences. The main killer, he believed, was the economics of high salaries needed to put on the show and the high percentage that had to be turned over to the midway owner.

The early 1970s also saw the growth of a politically correct America. A November 1971 Amusement Business carried a story concerning Michigan's ban on freak shows and girl shows at the State Fair by the state legislature. William Moorehead, the representative in the senate who proposed the ban, later said, "I did not find girl shows exceedingly offensive, but nevertheless didn't think they belonged in a family fair. But what really got me was the men making the remarks on the girls over the microphones!" One of the last people on girl shows was former go-go dancer Bob "Rubberlegs "Tanenbaum, who operated girl shows in their twilight years, from 1978 to 1984. I caught him on a rare visit home from being on the road with his fortune-telling machines. "The way I squared the girl show," Tanenbaum says, "was that I went to the fair board in each spot and asked them to contact the police department that had jurisdiction over what went on there. I would sit down with the police and the fair board and whatever they said to do, I did. Some places you could work totally nude and other places not even topless. But whatever they said, that's what I did. I never paid patch money to the carnival.

Gina, Bob Tanenbaum's comedy striptease dancer. In her mid-forties, she was five-foot-two and weighed nearly 300 pounds. "She was a big hit with the guys," remembers Bob. "Next night you would see the guys from the night before sitting with their friends in the front rows."

version of'Baby Face.' I wouldn't bring her out on the bally. I would describe her and tell them once she starts to whirl and swirl those tassels, they better duck their heads, as I wasn't responsible for what could happen to them in there. "I would usually start the season by hiring professional dancers, burlesque dancers out of New Jersey, New York City area, and then try and pick up girls as we went along. I tried to hire go-go girls o o o o where I could. But 80% of the girls that worked for me hadn't danced before. I would watch them walk and I would figure o

"On spots where we couldn't take much off I put more comedy into the shows. My stage was sheets of plywood on wooden sawhorses and it would give pretty good, had some bounce to it. So, I would do one hell of a good acrobatic dance number. "I also had Gina. She was forty-seven years old and weighed between 275 and 300 pounds and she was five foot two. She hadn't worked because of her weight and was on welfare when I met her, so I taught her a nice comedy strip routine, to a disco

One of the last big features working the carnival girl revues was stripper June Knight. Here she does her act on Joy Fleenor's girl revue on Gooding Amusements, early 1970s.

out a costume for them and teach them a dance routine. If I wasn't a dancer myself, I couldn't have done it. "In Des Moines," he recalls, "three girls joined the show — they were dancers and all lesbians. They never fought or argued. They did a fine job. Another girl joined who was following them like a groupie. I put her to work selling novelties in the tent before the show. I would make a pitch and tell the crowd inside that what she really wanted to do was get up onstage and dance but I would only let her dance if she sold all the novelties in her carrier case. Man, those

guys couldn't buy those items fast enough from her. She was nineteen, so I would let her get up onstage and dance to one song." In the end, the hardest thing for the girl-show operators to get was girls. There was too much bar and club work available. "I could get some from clubs because many of the club owners and managers knew me from my dancing act. During this time, strippers were making $500 to $700 a week in clubs, while I paid my girls about $300 to $350 per week. I also had girls work for me for $20 a night; they slept on the floor of the truck and told me how much better this was than living at home! One girl who joined out we nicknamed 'Buzzard Beak' because of her big 1nose. She could smoke a cigar in the ? rain and not get it wet. Anyway, I fixed her hair, teased it up, and hid her nose and she did very well. i

"You can walk down the midway on a summer day and see what you'd see in a girl show." AL KUNTZ

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"I used records and tapes for music. Musicians were too expensive by then. I did the best I could to present a small revue. When we started the show I would do an opening number with two of the girls. Then I would take the microphone and welcome them to the show and do a little comedy. Then girl number one would dance, then girl number two. I would come back out and do my comedy dance routine, or my drunk act, or my GI number. Then I'd bring out the feature stripper to close the show. "While the feature was working I would take the two girls out front and try and build a tip for the next show. We tried to do a finale but we were too thin. So, as soon as we could empty the tent out we would turn the outside tip and start it all over again. The show would last fifteen to twenty minutes, a half hour on slow days. "One of the best girls that worked for me was an old-time burlesque stripper called Lilly Pagan out of Philly. She was six foot tall and had a fifty-six-inch bust. She was a good person, very quiet.

Between shows she sat backstage and smoked cigars. She had her own motor home and she raised Persian cats. She did four tassels in her act. Two on top and two on the bottom. I think the last show she worked on was mine. "I would introduce her on the bally as the 'Girl from the Fabulous Fifties,' and I didn't mean her birth year. She would step forward and open her robe, take a deep breath and display her fifty-six-inch bust and you could see the whole tip slide toward the ticket box. I swear that from where I was standing on the bally and looking down into the tip that the guys looking up at her must have seen nothing but those big tits. "Over the years I grossed a lot of money with the girl show but didn't bring home much. I was onstage for twenty-five years. I never became famous but I had fun."

Over eight decades, though, little had changed politically on the fairgrounds. You were always at the mercy of some police department or politician who used you as a scapegoat despite local laws. If the law closed down ten topless bars in downtown Nashville, the city lost property taxes, sales taxes, liquor and beer taxes. However, closing down or keeping a lid on the girl show at the fair showed the do-gooder crowd that the authorities were controlling rampant sex acts in the city. Nobody was too concerned about the business rights of a showperson. The presence of strip joints in towns made it harder for girl shows to legally work on carnival midways. The more anti-pornography groups and concerned citizens turned the heat up on city councils over strip clubs, the easier it was for city officials to close down carnival girl shows as sacrificial lambs.

The last known girl show working carnivals in North America was Gary Wayne Housel's Las Vegas, shown here at the Shenandoah Country Fair in Woodstock, Virginia, in September 1995. Housel draws a tip at his front, while his five dancers, including his wife, "Carmalita," spice up the bally.

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Far left: The interior of the chorus girls' dressing-room wagon on Royal American's Club Lido revue, as it was delivered to the USA museum at Gibsonton, Florida, in 1997. To the left are the performers' makeup lockers and a shelf for headpieces and hats. The chorus girls hung their costumes on the ceiling rods to the right. Stacked against the right wall are the tent's A-frame and quarter-pole supports. Immediate left: Chorus girls crowd into their dressingroom wagon on Royal American in 1959. At left is Leon Miller's sister Vista, who not only worked on the chorus line but kept everything running smoothly backstage during the show.

Starting in the fall of 1993 and spilling over the next two years, a sex war raged in Woodstock, Virginia. The combatants on one side were a girl-show manager, his four female performers, including his wife, the State of Virginia nudity laws, the Virginia Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, and the privately run Shenandoah County Fair. The other side was represented by the newly formed seven-member Shenandoah Coalition Against Pornography, a local Woodstock religious TV station, and the public sensibilities of the 1990s. All the makings of a made-for-TV movie! In Virginia, nudity was defined as "a state of undress so as to expose the human male or female genitals, pubic areas, or 226

buttocks with less than opaque covering, or the showing of the female breast with less than a fully opaque covering of any portion thereof below the top of the nipple." A 1991 court case, Barnes v. Glen Theatre, had ruled total nudity can be banned but dancers wearing pasties and Gstrings cannot. The privately run fair claimed a seventy-seven-year-old tradition of having girl shows on the lot. The vice-president of the fair said he "would be happy if the girlie show wasn't an attraction at the fair, but. . . as long as girlie shows are legal, people ought to have a right to make a choice." The first day of the 1994 Woodstock fair the girls danced naked, although show operator Gary Wayne Housel, an ex-

policeman and motel operator, stated that was by accident. The following days saw Housel and the ladies arrested and charged with breaking obscenity laws. No one went to jail. The show continued to operate nightly with the girls wearing Band-Aids over their nipples and bikini bottoms — Housel told papers he was complying with local laws, but added, in

true showman fashion, "Though the material tends to shrink when washed!" He was certainly feeling chippy after hearing that the local Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union was on his side. The ACLU viewed the local anti-pornography group as an example of the grass-roots movements that had begun to censor books in libraries and public schools. Housel said on the bally, "Yea, though I walk through the Valley of Shenandoah, I shall fear no coalition." The local Shenandoah Coalition Against Pornography kept up their pressure on the fair board, the sheriff's department, and the media, aided by the local religious TV station. The following year the station

refused to give the fair any publicity other than their paid commercials; the owner told a local paper, "Girlie shows are against the word of God! That's why burlesque went out thirty years ago." The antipornography group was very upset that one of the dancers was Housel's wife — they viewed him as a pimp, suggesting that the dancers were doubling as prostitutes at the motel where they were staying. Over the winter, the obscenity charges were thrown out of court. Housel brought the girl show back to the fair in the fall of

Below left: On April 26, 1 999, equipment and props from the Royal American Shows were auctioned off. These band-music stands had been used by Mike Sargent and his Royal Sargents on the girl show during the 1957-58 season. Below: By the 1970s, high-capacity rides such as this one, on Conklin Shows, combined speed, motion, and sound for maximum thrills.

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Top left: This horse prop at the Royal American auction in April 1999 was used in Club Lido's 1967 presentation "The Western Expoganza," featuring Sylvia Cassidy as Little Jesse "Chesty" James. Right Delilah poses on the horse prop in the finale of Leon Miller's 1967 Club Lido revue.

1995 for its last appearance. Again the show opened with nude performances, and the fair board had an emergency meeting where they banned nude dancing from the fairgrounds. The show, as in the past year, worked the rest of the week with the girls in pasties and G-strings. For carnival historians, Gary Wayne Housel was the last

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American girl-show operator. By the 1980s, the American public's mood had changed. If a midway patron had a complaint, he or she would tell management or — worse — the media. Because carnivals had bought into the corporate cleansing of America, with its high-tech logos and public-relations

departments, show management took public feedback seriously. They put up PR booths, gave their workers I.D. tags and uniforms, provided benches for footsore patrons, and made ride safety a priority. A few decades earlier, if patrons went to management with their beefs, they might be offered an indifferent shrug, but now they had somewhere to take their concerns and actually get a response. At the same time, only a handful of side shows, motor dromes, grind shows, and girl shows remained on the carnival midways. Income from back-end shows — especially girl shows — was no longer a big part of the carnival's gross. In this atmosphere of corporatization, girl shows were publicity time bombs that no owner was willing to risk. The void that was left by the disappearance of the back-end shows had to be filled. Fairs now had to offer puppets, magic, dance, animal, and circus acts, plus bands and strolling entertainers. Most fairs couldn't afford this, so the costs of these shows were passed on to corporate sponsors. In the end, no fair was going to risk losing this corporate money by patrons who might find girl shows either sexist or morally offensive. Booking a girl show on most fairgrounds

became nearly impossible. The touring midway started in 1894 with no rides and twenty shows. In 1999, carnival midways had thirty rides, one hundred concessions, and no shows. The old-time showman's era of the back-end shows and girl shows on the midway was over. There were no more controlled ogames and no more girl shows because there was nobody left who could patch the heat. The colorful dancers, fixers, producers, owners, talkers, candy pitchmen, and entertainers — the very people who had put the "show" into the outdoor show business — had left the lots for good.

In the end, the hardest thing for the girl-show operators to get was girls. There was too much bar and club work available.

Girl shows disappeared from carnival midways during one of the most sexually liberated eras of modern times. Certainly the abundance and easy availability of sexually explicit material and shows elsewhere helped kill the carnival girl show as an attraction on the fairgrounds. The naughtio o ness of it all had disappeared. It was no longer a rite of passage for teenage boys and young men. Take away the taboos placed on the girl shows by society and you removed the thrills and lures associated with attending such a show under canvas. Royal American Shows' Club Lido girl show wagon that carried seats parked in a field at their Tampa; Florida, winter quarters in 1994. It was last used during the 1971 season. In 1972 there was no girl show and a decade later Royal American Shows gave up the train at the end of their 1981 season. Truly an end of an era in carnival history.

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THE LAST OF THE GIRL REVUES Showman John Friday wrote in Amusement Business in 1974 that the previous year saw only seven girl revues on tour: Broadway Playgirls, produced by Gene Vaughan on Strates; Casino Roy ale, by Lucky Wiles on Gooding; Club Diamond, by Louis Scott on Strates; Gay New Orleans, by Dave Wiles on Gooding; Best of Burlesque, by Dave and Sandy Hanson, independent; LaMontre Revue, by Tony Mason on Amusements of America; and Star and Garter Revue, by Joy Fleenor on Rod Link Shows. Defining the classic revue as one with elements of comedy, live music, dance line, variety act, and featured exotic, Friday said that only Casino Royale filled the bill.

Rain has turned the midway into a muddy mess as John Moss works hard to attract a tip at the bally of the Broadway Playgirls show on Strates, 1971.

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The Hansons had given up on burlesque and revue shows on carnivals, but by the late 1970s their theater show, The Best of Burlesque, featuring Sandy O'Hara (in white) and a half-dozen chorus girls, along with specialty acts and comics, was doing well. Sandy's husband, Dave (baseball outfit), was a producer and comic. The show is still touring the United States.

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GLOSSARY AGENCY GIRLS: Dancers hired from a booking agent specializing in

BILLBOARD: Bible of the outdoor show world from 1894 until 1960,

strippers, go-go dancers, and so on.

when it became the trade paper of the music industry.

AMUSEMENT BUSINESS: January 9,1961, heralded the start of this pub-

BIOSCOPE SHOWS: The first movie theaters were portable cinemas

lication, which covered touring groups, arena venues, food service, outdoor shows, carnivals and circuses. Currently available weekly.

with elaborately carved fronts presented on the fairgrounds and sometimes as stand-alone attractions.

BACK END: The area at the back of the carnival midway containing the shows. Now it means the back of the lot.

BITS: Short staged jokes and routines that are parts of longer burlesque comic scenes. The last burlesque shows to feature just strippers and a lone comic who told a few jokes between each strip

BALE-RING TENT: A tent in which the canvas is attached to a metal

act was called Tits and Bits burlesque.

ring around the center pole and drawn up to its full erect height. BLOW-OFF: The last act in a 10-in-1 or side show, for which an extra BALLY: The free show in front of a carnival attraction to hold the

fee is charged. Also means to "get rid of" or can refer to the circus o o

crowd while the talker explains the attraction and then urges the

audience itself as it leaves the big top after the performance.

crowd to buy tickets. BOOSTER HANDLER: The person working with the grift who conBALLYHOO: To aggressively advertise a show or product.

trols the sticks and keeps track of the money on the outside.

BANNERLINE: Portable steel or wood frame on which to hang show

BOSS CANVAS MAN: Person in charge of putting up a show tent,

banners that form an attractive front for a tented show. 232

BUTTERFLY DANCE: A dance in which the performer wore billowy

carrier trays on the candy pitch,

white skirts that she waved around as slides of butterflies were projected onto her.

DANCE DU VENTRE: Oriental or muscle-control dancing.

CANDY BUTCHERS: Concessionaires who sell foods, drinks, and

DANCE OF THE LOVERS: Routine in burlesque or revue show in

souvenirs in the seats at circuses. Also refers to concession salespeo-

which the dancer performs with a realistic male mannequin.

pie in burlesque and inside carnival tent shows who sold prize candy and other items. Usually shortened to "butchers." May derive from

DING: Any extra charge or additional request for money inside a show.

the fact that most candy on early shows came in hard blocks that had to be butchered into small pieces for resale.

DOUBLE JAM, EMPTY BOX, GUARANTEE, JAM: Different stages of the candy pitch.

CANDY PITCH: A spiel to sell boxed candy in burlesque and undercanvas shows.

FIX: The arrangement by which police and authorities are paid off or go along with the action.

CARNY: How carnival people refer to themselves. FLASH: A quick view of bare breasts or pubic area during a dancer's CARRIERS: Trays with straps that went around the butcher's neck, allowing him to carry the candy boxes into the audience to sell them,

act. On carnivals it also means the attractiveness of a ride, show, prize, artwork, or concession, and the act of making these attractive.

CENTER POLE: Main support pole in the middle of any tent.

FLAT STORE: A carnival game where winning and losing is "controlled" by the operator.

CONNECTION: Canvas alleyway connecting two tents — on circuses usually from the menagerie to the big top or from the marquee to

FLATTIE: Game agent who works in a flat store.

the menagerie. GEEK SHOW: Usually a single-o show presented as a snake show or COOLING THE MARK OUT: Getting a patron off the lot after he has

wild man or woman. Traditional geeks or "glomming geeks" bit the

lost at a game concession, or taking care of him so that he doesn't go

heads off snakes and small animals.

to the police with a complaint. GILLY SHOW: A carnival show whose equipment is transported from COPS: The first few boxes with valuable prizes passed out from the

town to town in railroad baggage or box cars. "To gilly" means to 233

handle the equipment through the doors of the train cars onto trucks or drayage wagons, which carry it to the lot. At the lot the equipment is offloaded onto the ground and then set up. Flat-car shows using show wagons eliminated that extra handling of equipment. Most carnivals that "gillied" were small to medium size shows; only the odd big show traveled this way. The last big gilly show, the Bill Lynch Shows in Canada's Maritimes, switched to trucks in the mid-1970s. GIVEAWAY: A free item to induce customers to buy the item pitched. In burlesque and girl shows a small joke book was often used as a "giveaway" with the prize candy or candy bars. GRIFT: Con games on shows.

JACKPOTTING: Telling stories, the oral history of the circuses and carnivals, or show people just shooting the breeze. JAMMING: The reduction of the price of a show ticket by the talker. JIG SHOW: Common carnival term for minstrel or all-black revue show, now considered derogatory. Derived from the jigs and reels used in early minstrel shows. JOINT: Any booth on a carnival midway. LECTURER: In a 10-in-l or side show, the person who moves the audience from stage to stage or introduces the inside acts.

GRIND: To continuously deliver a short pitch or saying in front of a carnival show or attraction to draw customers. A girl-show talker would make a formal opening and then grind until he or she started another opening. Today what shows are left on midways use recorded "grind tapes."

LOT LICE: Members of the public who show up on a circus lot to watch the setup. Often an early indicator of how good business will be that day.

G-STRING: Small patch that covers a stripper's pubic area.

MOTORDROME: A show featuring a circular wooden wall onto which motorcycle drivers ride their bikes and do various stunts.

HOOCHIE-COOCHIE: Sexually suggestive dancing associated with carnival and burlesque shows, first made popular in America by Oriental and Eastern dancers working at the 1893 Columbia World's Fair in Chicago. INSIDE MONEY: Money made in a show from dings and sales of various items; usually kept by the show operator.

MARK: Carnival patron.

NEW YORK CLIPPER: A theatrical and outdoor show-biz trade journal published from 1853 to 1924. ONE-SHEET: A standard-size circus poster, approximately 28" high and 42" long. "Three-sheeting" means bragging. PASTIES: Small decorative discs that cover a stripper's nipples.

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Mandatory in most states for years, and still required in some.

SHADE: Person working for the grift mob who covers the play from outside eyes by blocking from view what is happening.

PATCH: Fixer or legal adjuster on a circus or carnival. SINGLE-O: A show on a carnival midway with one attraction inside. PIE CAR: Restaurant on show train. SIGHT ACT: A non-talking or singing act in vaudeville, such as an PITCHMAN: Someone who tries to sell an item by delivering a sales

acrobatic dance or tumbling act with lots of action,

talk or pitch. SLUM: A cheap prize. PLUSH: Stuffed toy used as a carnival prize. STICK: A member of the mob or grift posing as a towner, or an actual P-O-P: Pay-one-price — a promotion used on many carnivals on still

towner who is hired to work as a shill in a controlled gambling

dates and fairs in which patrons pay a flat fee to enjoy all the midway

game,

rides and shows as often as they want. Now called "bracelet days." STILL BALLY: A bally being made by the talker on a girl show withPUSH-POLE TENT: A tent where the center poles are pushed up in

out the whole cast and all the bally girls on the front,

stages from underneath the canvas, raising the canvas to its full height. STILL DATE: A non-fair date that a carnival plays as part of its route, RAG FRONT: Show front consisting of canvas banners.

usually in early spring or summer before the fair season starts.

SALT-AND-PEPPER SHOW: A carnival girl revue show featuring both

STREET FAIRS: Celebrations and fairs where the carnivals set up on

black and white performers.

closed downtown streets. First sponsored by fraternal organizations like the Elks or Old Home Week committees.

SERPENTINE DANCE: A dance in which performers wore tight-fitting costumes designed to make them resemble a snake. In some

TAB SHOW: Short for tabloid show, a cut-down or condensed musi-

cases, a snake image was projected onto a dancer's white costume.

cal similar to a small revue with burlesque show features, popular from the turn of the century to the 1950s.

SERVING LUNCH: The practice of allowing male customers to come in oral contact with a cooch dancer's genital area.

TEAR-DOWN: The dismantling of the circus or carnival.

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1 0-in-l : A side-show presentation made on carnivals with ten acts in one tent.

TRAILERS: Sections of music used in a striptease act.

TIP: The crowd the talker addresses in front of a show.

TRIPES: From tripods; small collapsible tables or stands from which a pitchman sells his product or a grifter works his game.

TITTY BARS: Bars and clubs featuring topless dancers.

UNIVERSAL TICKET SYSTEM: A system in which a carnival patron must buy coupons for various rides and attractions at a central ticket

TOP: A tent.

box instead of purchasing a ticket outside the attraction. Came into wide use in the mid-1970s.

TOWNERS: The public, the patrons. WEEPING BOARD: A small piece of wood on the front counter of a TRACTOR CREW: The men responsible for driving tractors on rail flat store that shields the play or action of the game. carnivals for unloading and loading the wagons on the flat cars and for moving wagons around the lot.

INDEX A-frame, 32. Aaimee (dancer), 9. Abdelnoux, Abdau (oriental show presenter), 9. Aldrich, Jay, 145. Algerian Village (Chicago World's Fair 1893), 5. Alvin theater, Minneapolis, Minn., 173. American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA), 71. Ames, Crystal, 132, 173. Amusement Business (trade paper), 133, 218, 222, 230. Amusement Corp. of America (Hennies Bros.), 184. Amusements of America, 97, 127, 211, 230. Anschell, Sidney, 112-113. arcades, 7. Artists and Models (posing show C.N.E.), 59-61. Ash, William Verne (Duke) (show painter), 28. Asiatic Caravan Museum and Menagerie, 2. Atlantic City Boardwalk, 7. Atwell, Charlie (circus and carnival photographer), 129. Austin, Bertie, 55. Austin, Connie, 55. Awful Seeley Dinner, 7. B. R Keith (vaudeville empire), 65. Bacon, Faith (fan dancer), 70, 71.

Baker, Bonnie (Oh Johnny) (singer), 137. Baker-LockwoodTent Co., 32. Balaban and Katz (theater owners), 136. bale ring, 33. bally, 19, 21, 26, 27, 49, 53,55, 72, 73,85, 86, 91, 97-100, 103, 104, 105, 136, 139, 153, 185, 194, 200, 220, 225, 227. ballyhoo, 4, 66. bannerline, 24, 31, 220. banners, 19, 24, 27, 28, 31,47. Barnes vs. Glen Theater, 226. Barnum, PT., 2. Barton, Buzz, 200, 202-204. Beatty, Clyde (Clyde Beatty Circus) (wild animal presenter) , 1 7 . Beckmann and Gerety Shows, 26, 69, 129. Bell, Johnny (show painter), 29. Bergen, Frank (show owner), 25, 184-185. Bernard and Barry Shows, 146. Big Bill's (Philadelphia night club), 183. Billboard magazine, 14, 24, 27, 67, 68, 73, 74, 79, 111, 112, 113, 181, 197, 199. Binder and Rosen (burlesque comics), 168. bioscope shows, 21. Black Day (fairs), 205. black bottom dancers, 13. black light (use of), 143.

BlackstoneTheater (Chicago), 75. Blake, Etta Loise (girl show producer), 126. Blaze Fury (stripper), 160-163. Blaze Galore (stripper), 162. Blaze Starr (stripper), 162. blow ups, 27, 203. booster handler, 42. Boots,Tubby (comedian), 143, 146, 148. Boss canvasman, 123. Bostock, E. H., 20. Bostock, Frank C, 8, 20, 22, 23. Bostock-Wombwells Menagerie, 7. Boston, Joe, 99-100, 106-109, 146, 183-185, 210, 211, 214. Bowery, The (Raynell show on Royal American Shows) ,129. Boyer, Bonnie (a.k.a. Bonnie Boyia) (stripper), 132, 166-170. Brass Rail Club (Detroit), 162. Broadway Playgirls (Strates girl show), 230. Broadway to Hollywood (carnival revue), 25. Browning, Bill (show painter), 29. Brydon, Ray Marsh, 58. bump, 144,195. Burke, W O. (show painter), 28. burlesque, 7, 12, 35, 52, 54, 57, 65, 66, 67, 75, 77, 111, 124, 126, 133, 134, 145, 149, 150, 157, 161, 165, 167, 173, 181, 191, 208, 211, 223, 224.

butterfly dance, 12. Callor, Ernie (comedian), 135. Calvert, Elsie (producer and talker), 66, 126. can-can dance, 3. Canadian National Exhibition (C.N.E.) Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 29, 59, 69. candy pitch, 111, 118-121. candy butchers, 65, 111, 113, 118. Carroll, Earl (producer), 66, 177. Carter, Chloe (stripper), 132. carved fronts, 20, 24. Casey Candy Co., 114, 141. Casino theatre (Toronto), 170. Cassidy, Sylvia (Delilah) (dancer), 167-168, 228. Castle, Taffy (stripper) , 1 3 2 , 1 7 2 . Cavalcade of Amusements, 27, 29, 76, 169, 199. Century 21 Shows, 82, 218. Cetlin and Wilson Shows, 53, 79, 129, 125, 194. Cetlin, Izzy (show owner), 54. Chagnon, Rosa Mack (aka Baby Dumplin') (comedy tassle-twirler), 100, 174. Charleston, the (dance), 13. Charm Hour (Strates girl revue), 25. Chicago Century of Progress, 1934, 70. Chicago Historical Society, 79. chorus lines, 13, 128, 142, 171, 173, 194.

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Circo's (Philadelphia nightclub), 183. circus side shows, 2, 35, 37—38, 40-42. circuses, 1-3, 10, 14, 35, 37-38. Clark, Jack (Ottawa, Ont., Canada fair manager), 217. Claxton, Leon (producer of black revues), 26, 99. Club Paradise (Strates Show's black carnival revue — 1960's ), 26. Club Samoa (NYC), 76 . Cole, Kobe (grifter), 42. Collier's Lovely Daughter, the (type of show), 47. Collins, Wm.T. (Wm.T. Collins Shows), 200-201. comics, 65, 129, 142, 144, 145, 154, 168, 205. Coney Island, 3,4, 8, 181, 183. Conger, Helen (Helen Conger's Bronze Statues) (carnival show), 8. Conklin Shows, 29, 59. Conklin, Patty (show owner), 29. connection, 37. cooch dancers, 35, 157, 205. cooch shows, 63, 81-83, 86-87, 89, 91, 103. Copa Cabana Club, 160. Coppertone Revue (carnival show), 211. cops, 118. Corio, Ann (stripper and show producer), 181. Cortez, Rita (dancer and producer), 175. Covette, Ricki (exotic), 138, 157-160. Crazy Horse Saloon (Miami), 107. crime shows, 84. Dailey Bros. Circus, 40-41. dance of the hands, 193. dance du ventre, 6, 7.

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dance of the lovers, 192. Danner, Kent (carny), 104. Dare.Yvette (stripper), 137. Darnell, Denise, 158. Davenport, Todd, 38. Davis, Sam (originator of '49 Camp shows), 48. De Fee, Lois (stripper), 157. dealer (grift), 41. Den ton, Johnny (Johnny Denton's Gold Medal Shows), 42, 83-85. dice pitch, 115. ding, 57, 83-84, 87, 89. Divena (carnival show), 53-54. Donaldson, William H. (Billboard founder), 14. double deck ballys, 26. double jam, 120. Down in the Well shows, 47. Drake, Darlene (stripper), 132. dramatic end tents, 32. Duggan, Jackie (dancer), 137. Duval, Emelita (Daisy), 177. Eiler, W A. (dramatic end tent originator), 32. Eldridge, William (Imperial Hawaiians), 127. electric fountain shows, 13. Empress Theater (Milwaukee), 116. empty box pitch, 120. English, William (Bill) (showman), 42-44, 83-85. Evans, Mary Lou (entertainer), 170. Expose (carnival show), 55-56. Extras Nightclub (Columbus, Ohio), 161. Fallon, Mom, 63. Fallon, One Eye Tommy, 63. fan dance, 67, 71, 77, 187. Fandango dance hall, 49.

Fatima (dancer), 5. Fatima (dancing bear), 8. Fatima's dance (film), 7. Federal Trade Comission, 114. Ferari, Francis (wild animal presenter and carnival showman), 22. Ferari, Joseph (menagerie and carnival owner), 8, 22. ferris wheel, 4. Finkelstein, Harry, 76. Finnell, Carrie (comedy stripper), 76—77. Flair (Magazine), 72. flash, 42, 191. Fleenor, Joy Cube (also Joy Purvis) (girl show dancer and producer), 126, 127-129. Flint, Dick, 133. Foley and Burke Shows, 48. Foley, E.M. (show owner), 48. Folly Theater (Kansas City), 134. '49 Camp, 47-49. Fox Theater (Indianapolis), 134. Francis, Shirley (fan dancer and producer), 126. freeze (part of dance routine), 195. French peep shows, 4. front gate, 10. frozen-in-ice act, 183. Fury, Flame (stripper), 162. Fury, White (stripper), 162. G-string, 65, 89, 93, 173, 187, 210. Gaiety theater (Buffalo, N.Y.), 209. Galore, Miss Pussy (stripper), 98. Garey, Peter, 68, 99, 128, 153. Gaskill Canton Carnival Co. (1899), 8, 9. Gaskill, Frank W (carnival owner and pioneer), 8, 21, 22. Gaskill-Mundy (J. P. Mundy) Shows, 21-22.

gauze curtains (posing show) , 5 7 . Gayety theater (Cinncinnati), 167. geek shows, 84. Ghawazi, 5. Gilbert, Allen (producer), 126. gilly, 16. Girls, Girls, Girls (song), 135. giveaways, 115. Godding Million Dollar Midway, 127, 230. Golden Gate Exposition, 1939, 78. Golden, Raynell (Lorow), 51, 62, 79, 129, 130, 171, 194. gondola ride, 8. Goodman Wonder Shows, 114 Goodman, Joe and Max, 114. Gordon, Art (producer), 126. Gordon, Dixie, 126. go—go dancing, 221—222. Graham, Gene, 146. Grand (St. Louis theater), 134. grandstand shows, 112. greasy pig (shell game), 40. Greek, the (Lou Stratton) (talker), 100. Green, Jim and Judy (magic performers), 105. Greenlaw, Karl (carny), 221. Griffith, Leroy (burlesque and adult theater owner) , 1 6 5 . grift, 35-38, 40, 41^3. grind shows, 84, 228. grind, 98, 106 guarantee (part of the candy pitch), 120. Gut, the (Coney Island), 3. Hale, Walter (showman and candy pitchman), 55. Hall, Ward, 58. Hammerstein, Oscar, 7. Hanson, Dave (girl show owner and producer), 219, 230-231.

Hanson, Sandy (Sandy O'Hara) (feature exotic and producer), 219, 230-231. Harlem in Havana (black carnival revue), 99. Hatch, J. Frank (show owner and early carnival pioneer), 49. Hawaiian shows, 61,127. Hayden, E. J. Co. (Brooklyn, N.Y. banner company), 24. Hennies Bros. Shows, 26, 55, 68, 78, 131. Hennies, Harry, 78. high-diving, 49-50. Hirst circuit, 76. hixs (shell game), 40. Hodge, Charlie (back end showman), 204. Holiday Manor (club, Philadelphia, Pa.), 183. Hoochie coochie dance, 4—7, 9. Hoover, J. Edgar, 74. Hoppy (candy pitchman) , 1 5 1 . Housel, Gary Wayne (girl show owner), 226-228. Howard, Betty (Blue Eyes) (stripper), 132. Howard theater (Old Howard, Boston, Mass.), 168. Howdy Doody, 37. Ice Capades, 202. Ice Classics of 1950 (carnival show), 63. illusion shows, 84. Jackson, Gypsy Red (candy butcher and musician), 40. Jahala (Mrs. FredW. Miller, dancer, and girl show operator), 198. jam (candy pitch), 120. James, Little Jesse Chesty (Sylvia

Cassidy and dancer), 167, 224. jig shows (reference to Black revue shows in showmen's vernacular of the time), 26, 61, 83, 98, 115. Johnny J. Jones, 24. joints, 10. Jones, Elmer (circus owner), 38. Jones, Pagan (exotic dancer), 128, 132, 133, 157, 163-165. jukebox industry, 27. Karlton, Bill (entertainer), 151-153. Kaye, Courtney (dancer), 138. Kaye, Danny (entertainer), 136. Kaye, Gloria (comic and dancer), 145. Kidder, Charles (front builder), 25. Kidder, Maybelle (girl show producer), 25, 126. King, Nellie (side show performer), 38-39. King, Professor Geo (Oram) (side show manager), 3 8—40. Knight, June (stripper) , 1 5 3 . Kuntz, Al (carnival owner), 82, 218-219. La Guardia (mayor, NYC), 182. La Rose, Rose (stripper), 134, 191. Landaker, H. C. (front designer and builder), 26. Lane, Bambi (stripper), 90, 206-215. lap dancing, 221. Latin Quarter (night club), 158. lecturer, 35. Lee, Gypsy Rose (Louise Hovick) (stripper and entertainer ), 67, 71-74, 162. Leonhard Wagon Manufacturing Co., 22. Lewis, Captain Fred (menagerie showman and front designer-builder), 23-24.

Little Egypt, 5-7. Living Magazine Covers (N.Y. World's Fair girl show), 58. living picture shows, 12. Lohmar, R. L. (carnival booking agent and owner), 24—25. Lorow Bros, (showmen), 100. Lorow, Ginger Ray (dancer and Raynell's sister), 129. Louie, Good Kid (flattie), 35. Love, Rufe ('49 dance hall operator), 49. Luna Park (Coney Island) , 1 8 1 . Lyons, G.A. (Lolly) (show producer), 126. Lyons, Russ, 163. Madden, Gayle (talker), 53-54, 99, 103-104. Maid'n'America (carnival revue), 27. Manos, Peter (carny), 51, 62, 129. Marcus, A. B. (tab and revue producer), 136. Mario, Diane (dancer), 138. Mason, Tony (girl show producer), 126, 230. McGary, Elsie and Mickey (entertainers), 189-190. McVan's Supper Club (Buffalo), 73. megaphone, 98. menageries, 1—2. Mencken, H. L., 75. Mercy, Dottie (girl show talker and dancer), 126. Mercy, Nate (girl show producer and comic), 126. merry-go-round, 3, 10, 221. Meyer, Lottie (water show producer), 51-53. Michigan State Fair (Detroit), 222. Mid-winter Exposition, San Francisco, 1893,48.

Midnight, Tony (strip wardrobe maker), 93, 171. Midway Plaisance, 4. milk bath, 181. Miller, Buzzy (girl show owner), 86. Miller, Callie (girl show talker and operator), 86. Miller, Dave (girl show producer), 126. Miller, Fred, W (girl show operator and carnival owner), 197, 200, Miller, Jodi (dancer and girl show operator), 200, 204. Miller, Leon (dancer, choreographer, and girl show producer) , 1 2 7 , 135-139. Miller, Mike (girl show owner), 200, 204-205. Miller, Nancy (fan dancer and girl show producer) , 1 2 6 . Miller, Shirley Mayo (dancer and girl show operator), 197, 199-202, 204. Miller, Vista (girl show performer), 136-137. Minsky, Howard (burlesque impresario), 1 75. molasses kisses, 117. monkey show, 115. Montegomery, Jack (girl show and burlesque producer), 126. Morokoff, Paul (girl show and burlesque producer), 126, 192. Moss, John (talker, girl show producer, owner), 82-83, 85-91. Mundy, J.P (carnival owner), 22. Murphy Bros. Exposition Shows, 201. muscle-control dancing, 6. Music Express (carnival ride), 220. musical comedies, 13. New York Clipper, 3. New York Hippodrome, 49.

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New York's World Fair (1939), 58, 69, 179. Newark, N.J. city hall streaker, 213-214. Nickelodeon theaters, 21. Norman, Bonnie (girl show producer and costumer), 127, 131. Norman, Jack (comic, singer, and girl show producer), 127, 131-133, 143. novelties (pitch item) , 2 2 3 . Old Iron Pier Walk (Brooklyn, N.Y.), 8. Olson Shows, 123. Orr, Lucky (black and white girl show producer) , 2 1 1 . Orton and Spooner (English fairground builders) , 2 1 . Ottawa (Ontario, Canada) Fair, 217. outside man, 41, 43-45. Pagan, Lilly (dancer), 224-225. Palisades Park, N.J., 29. panel fronts, 19, 24. Paradise,Tony "Suits" (talker), 99. Paramount Club (Chicago) , 7 7 . Parks, Frances and Opal, 160. pasties, 81, 187. Persian Palace, 5. pie car, 17. pit show, 27. pitchmen, 112, 114,116. Pitt, Nick (musician) , 1 5 1 . plain stock, 118. plastic columns (fronts) , 2 7 . Playboy magazine, 218. plush, 203. Pontchartrain Beach Park (New Orleans), 29. "porch" fronts, 23. Porter, Roland (talker, pitchman, and girl show operator) 102-103, 114-116, 194. posing shows, 56-61, 204-205.

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Potter's and Rice Circus, 22. Prell's Broadway Shows, 183. Princess Pat (dancer), 63. procenium, 33. Pronath, George (burlesque, girl show producer, and costumer), 126. Punch and Judy, 3 7. Purvis, Bob, 128. push pole (tent set-up) , 3 3 . Pussycat Club (Miami), 189. rag front, 27. rail shows, 16-17. "Rain" (production routine), 143. Rand, Harold, 79. Rand, Sally, 67-68, 70, 71, 77-79, 129, 162. Ray, John C. (Jack) (front designer), 29. Rayburn, Charles (Divena originator), 53. Reed, Billy (Zoot) (comic), 129, 146. Reiss, Nat (show owner), 48. revolving stage, 57, 129. revue shows, 13, 81-82, 103, 105, 123, 155, 204, 230. Rialto, theater (Chicago), 192. Rice and Doris Shows, 48. Rice, Win. ("Stretch"), 48. Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus, 17. Riverside Park, Chicago, 167. Roach, Hal, 77. Robinson and Eldred Circus, 2. Rosen, David, 181. round-end (tent design), 32. Royal American Shows (RAS), 25-28, 51, 52, 62, 71, 78, 99, 127, 129, 135, 138,161,175, 194. Royce Rosita (exotic), 178.

Schlarbaum, Charles " Chuck" (circus bandleader), 117-118, 120, 121, 143, 144. Schmidt, Otto (show owner), 7, 9. Schuster, Milton (burlesque agent), 171, 191. Sciortino, Joe (girl show operator), 126. Sciortino, Pattyann (girl show operator and talker), 126. Seattle World's Fair, 29. Seber, Harry (producer), 59. Sedlmyr, Carl (show owner), 27, 135, 137. Seely, Hubert Barnum, 6. Sennett, Mack, 77. serpentine dances, 9, 12. sex books (pitch), 116. Sexpots of the Seventies (last RAS midway girl show), 138. shade (grifter), 42. Shenandoah Coalition Against Pornography, 226-227. Shenandoah County Fair (Woodstock, Va.), 226. Sheridan, Jack (producer), 58. shimmy (dance), 13. shooting galleries, 3,8. sideshows, 2, 6, 27, 35, 37, 38,40,41. sight act, 145. Silly's Dinner, 7. Sinclair, Mitzi (dancer-stripper), 132, 171, 189-195. single-O, 63. skating shows, 62—63. skirt dancing, 12. slum, 111, 117-118. snake shows, 84. snorting pole, 63. Sollenberger, George, 184. Sothern, Georgia (stripper), 67, 70, 75, 76.

Spanger Bros, (wood carvers), 24. square-end tents, 32. St. Cyr, Lilli (stripper), 161. St. Giles Fair, Oxford, England, 47. Star and Garter Revue (Mike Todd's), 75. Star and Garter Theater, Chicago (Minsky), 170. Star, Heddy Jo (stripper and costumer), 92-93, 210. statue turning to life (illusion show), 22. steel bras, 210. Storm,Tempest (stripper), 161,189. straight men, 135. Strates, James E., 17, 25, 26, 28, 75, 106, 109, 117, 123, 127, 131, 134, 151, 155, 163, 165, 170, 175, 187, 194, 207, 211, 215, 222, 230. Stratton, Lou (The Greek) (talker), 100. street fairs, 8, 10. Streets of Cairo (carnival show), 8. Sun, Gus (show owner and booking agency), 65. Syracuse Fair (N.Y. State Fair), 106, 207. tab shows, 65, 124, 134. Tanenbaum, Bob "Rubberlegs" (dancer and girl show operator), 222-225. Tango girls (midway show) , 1 3 . tassels, 129, 174, 181, 195, 209, 211. telescoping center poles, 32. ten-in-one, 84, 204. The Night They Raided Minsky s (movie), 210. The Wedge (Philadelphia club), 183. The Wizard (show painter), 29. Thomas, Peter (burlesque entertainer), 71, 173.

Thompson, Henry (side show operator and show painter), 37-38. three-card monte, 35, 40, 43. three-shell game, 40. Tirza, 100, 177-187, 208, 210, 211, 214. titty bars, 81. truck mounted girl fronts, 27. Tsu Li (Soo Lee) (stripper), 138. United Shows of America, 24. Universal Theater Concession Co., 112-114. universal ticket system, 220. Valentine,Val (stripper), 130, 132, 135, 170-172. vaudeville, 12, 13, 65, 124.

Vaughan, Gene (producer), 133—135, 222, 230. Veal Bros, (carnival), 48. Virginia Chapter of American Civil Liberties Union, 226, 227. Voe, Flo De (dancer), 138. Wabe, Ashea, 6-7. Wagner, Al (show owner), 29, 169. Wagner, Hattie (show owner), 169. wagon-mounted show fronts, 20, 22. walk-over bally, 21. war shows, 84. Ward, John R (John R. Ward Shows), 70-71. Ware, Bunny (stripper), 138. water shoes, 50. water shows, 49—53.

Watson of Belper (English fairground builder), 20. Watts, Art (burlesque comic), 148-151, 154. Watts, Norma Jean (burlesque entertainer), 148-151, 154. wax figure shows, 2. weeping board, 45. Wells, Vickie (stripper), 132. White, George (producer), 66, 177. Wicks, Bobby (show painter and artist), 28. wild animal shows, 20. wild life shows, 84. Wild West shows (midway), 49. Wilson, Cliff (showman) , 5 1 . Wilson, Duke (talker), 72. Wilson, Jack (show owner), 54

Winchell, Walter (columnist), 53. wine bath act, 178-180. World of Mirth Shows (WOM), 24, 25, 184. Wortham, C.A. (carnival owner), 24. Wyatt, "Snap" (banner and show painter), 28. X-rated, 218, 219. Ye Olde English Faire (carnival), 8. Yotas, James Sr. (show front builder), 25. Ziegfeld Follies, 13, 65. Zorima (Margaret Lehtinen McCloskey) (stripper-carnival owner), 69. Zorita (stripper) , 1 6 1 .

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BIBLIOGRAPHY A Stripper's Daughter (author). Strip! "Misty." Toronto, Ontario, Canada: New Press, 1973. Allen, Ralph. The Best Burlesque Sketches. New York: Applause Books, 1995. Amusement Business, One Hundred Anniversary Collector's Edition. New York: BPI Communications, 1994. Barber, Rowland. The Night They Raided Minsky's. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960. Barry, Richard H. Snap Shots on the Midway of the Pan-Am Expo at Buffalo. Buffalo, N.Y.: Robert Allan Reid, Publisher, 1901. Boulware, Jack. Sex American Style. Venice, California: Feral House, 1997. Bruce, Honey, and Dana Benenson. Honey, The Life and Loves of Lenny's Shady Lady. Chicago: Playboy Press, 1976. Buonaventura, Wendy. Serpent of the Nile: Women and Dance in the Arab World. New York: Interlink Books, 1994. Carlton, Donna. Looking For Little Egypt. Bloomington, Indiana: IDD Books, 1994. Chipman, Bert J. Hey Rube. Hollywood, California: Hollywood Print Shop, 1933. Cressey, Paul G. The Taxi-Dance Hall. New York: Greenwood Press, 1968. Cross, Gary. A Social History of Leisure since 1600. State College, Pa.: Venture Publishing Inc., 1990. Dadswell, Jack. Hey There Sucker!. Boston: Bruce Humphries Inc., 1946. Dennett, Andrea Stulman. Weird Wonderful, The Dime Museum in America. New York: New York City University Press, 1997. Futterman, Marilyn Suriani. Dancing Naked in the Material World. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1992. Goldman, James. Fulton County. New York: Avon Books, 1989. Gresham, William Lindsay. Monster Midway. New York: Rinehart and Co., 1948. Hartt, Rollin Lynde. The People at Play. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1909.

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Harvey, Gene. Confessions of a Carnival Dancer. New York: Star Guidance Inc., 1951. Hatter, Amos. Girl on the Midway. New York: Detective House Inc., 1952. Home, Tony. Dictionary of Contemporary Slang. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd., 1990. Jarrett, Lucinda. Stripping in Time, A History of Exotic Dancing. London: Pandora (Harper Collins Publishers), 1997. Jennings, John J. Theatrical and Circus Life, Secrets of the Stage, Green Room and Sawdust Arena. St. Louis: M.S. Barnett, 1882. Kasson, John F. Amusing the Million, Coney Island at the Turn of the Century. New York: Hill and Wang, 1978. Knox, Holly. Sally Rand, From Film to Fans. Bend, Oregon: Maverick Publications, 1988. Lambert, William. Show Life in America. East Point, Ga.: (self published by author known as Will Delavoye), 1925. Lano, David. AWandering Showman, I. East Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State University Press, 1957. Lewis, Arthur H. Carnival. New York: Trident Press, 1970. Loga, Olive. Before the Foot Lights and Behind the Scenes. Philadelphia, Pa.: Parmelee and Co., 1870. Matlaw, Myron. American Popular Entertainment, Papers and Proceedings of the Conference on the History of American Popular Entertainment. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1979. Meiselas, Susan. Carnival Strippers. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux: 1975. Mickel, Jere C. Footlights on the Prairie. St. Cloud, Minnesota: North Star Press, 1974. Minsky, Morton and Milt Machlin. Minsky's Burlesque. New York: Arbor House, 1986. Muller, Eddie and Daniel Paris. Grindhouse, The Forbidden Wo rid of "Adults Only" Cinema. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996. Munch, Richard and Harry G. Traver. Legends of Terror. Fairview Park, Ohio: Amusement Park

Books, 1982. Musser, Charles. The Emergence of Cinema. Vol. 1 .The American Screen to 1907. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1990. Nass, L. and G.J. Witkowski. The Nude in the French Theatre. Boar's Head Books, 1953. Nye, Russel. The Unembarrassed Muse, The Popular Arts in America. New York: The Dial Press, 1970. Oliver, Paul. Songsters and Saints. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Panati, Charles. Sexy Origins and Intimate Things. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. Paris, Yvette. Queen of Burlesque. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1990. Parker, Derek and Julia Parker. The Natural History of the Chorus Girl. Indianapolis, New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1975. Paterson, Peter. Glimpses of Real Life As Seen in the Theatrical World and in Bohemia. Edinburgh: William P. Nimmo, 1864. Paulson, Don, with Roger Simpson. An Evening at the Garden of Allah. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. Pilat, Oliver, and Jo Ranson. Sodom by the Sea, An Affectionate History of Coney Island. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran and Co. Inc., 1941. Sanders, Jacquin. Strip the Heart. Toronto: Little Brown and Co. Canada Ltd., 1954. Sante, Luc. Low Life. New York: Vintage Books (Random House Inc.), 1991. Smitherman, Geneva. Black Talk. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1994. Snow, Richard. Coney Island, A Postcard Journey to the City of Fire. New York: Brightwaters Press, 1984. Sobel, Bernard. A Pictorial History of Burlesque. New York: G.P Putnam's Sons, 1956. Sothern, Georgia. Georgia: My Life in Burlesque. New York: Signet. New American Library Inc., 1972.

Star, Hedy Jo. "I Changed My Sex." Chicago: Novel Books, 1963. Taylor, William R. Inventing Times Square. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. Thayer, Stuart. Travelling Showman, The American Circus before the Civil War. Detroit: Ashley and Ricketts Ltd., 1997. Tracey, Lindalee. Growing Up Naked. My Years in Bump and Grind. Vancouver, Toronto: Douglas andMcIntyre, 1997. Wagner, Geoffrey. Parade of Pleasure. London: Derek Verschoyle Ltd., 1954. Waldberg, Patrick. Eros in La Belle Epoque. New York: Grove Press Inc., 1969. Walters, John. Shock Value. New York: Thunder Mouth Press, 1995. Waters, H. W History of Fairs and Expositions. London, Ontario, Canada: Reid Bros, and Co., 1935. Watkins, Mel. On The Real Side, Laughing, Lying, and Signifying. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994. Wilmeth, Don B. Variety Entertainment and Outdoor Amusements, A Reference Guide. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1982. Wilson, Earl. The Show Business Nobody Knows. New York: Bantam Books, 1973. Wilson, Robert A. Forbidden Words. Chicago: Playboy Press, 1972. World s Columbian Exposition Midway Types, (no author or publisher listed.) Wortley, Joseph, and June Bundy Csida. American Entertainment, A Unique History of Popular Show Business. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1978. Wortley, Richard. A Pictorial History of Striptease. Secaucus, N. J.: Chartwell Books Inc., 1976. Zeidman, Irving. The American Burlesque Show. New York: Hawthorn Books Inc., 1967.

PHOTO CREDITS Photo credits by page number. (On the page from left to right.) Cover: author's collection. Back Cover: Bill Cooker (poster), Mimi Reed (girl show wagon), Jackie Duggan (front photo with girls). Flaps: Tony Fiorino. Pages iii, v, vi, x author's collection. Page 1 Ernest L. Ricciardi. Page 2 (top right) Fred Pfening II. Page 3 (top right) Indiana Historical Society. Page 4 (top left) Snap Shots on the Midway at the Pan-American Exposition—Buffalo, N.Y. 1901. (top right) author's collection. Page 5 (top center and lower right) Snap Shots on the Midway at the Pan American Exposition—Buffalo, N.Y. 1901. Page 6 (top left) From book on Chicago World's Fair, (lower right) Indiana Historical Society. Page 7 (top left and right) Circus World Museum, Baraboo, Wi. Page 8 author's collection. Page 9 (top right) Indiana Historical Society, (lower right) author's collection. Page 10 (top left) Al Conover. (middle) Jim Conklin, Conklin Shows, (right) author's collection. Page 11 Paul Van Pool. Page 12 Indiana Historical Society. Page 13 author's collection. Page 15 A. W Stencell. Page 16 author's collection. Page 17 (upper left) Bill Cooker, (bottom) A.W Stencell. Page 18 Richard Flint. Page 20 (top) Richard Flint, (lower right) author's collection.

Page 21 (top left) Fred Pfening II. (middle left) Circus World Museum, (lower right) Richard Flint. Page 22 (top left) Ronald Croft, (lower left) author's collection. Page 23 author's collection. Page 24 (top left) Glenbow Archives, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, (middle left) Ronald Croft, (lower left) author's collection. Pages 25, 26 author's collection. Page 27 (lower left, top right) author's collection, (lower right) A.W Stencell. Page 28 author's collection. Page 29 (top left) A. W Stencell. (top right and bottom right) Flora Hasson. Page 30 (top left) Jim Conklin, Conklin Shows, (bottom left and right) author's collection. Pages 31, 32 author's collection. Page 33 Drawing: Mike Hartigan. Page 34 author's collection. Page 36 (lower left) Circus World Museum, Baraboo, Wi. Page 3 7 (top left) author's collection. (lower right) drawing by Mike Hartigan. Pages 38,39 author's collection. Page 40 (top left and middle) Fred Pfening II. (right) author's collection. Page 41 (bottom left) Bob Sams. Page 42 Drawing: Mike Hartigan. (photo) Ed Cripps. Pages 43—47 author's collection. Page 48 (middle left) Billboard magazine. (top right) William H. B. Jones, (lower left and right) author's collection. Pages 49-52 author's collection. Page 53 (top photos) Cornet Magazine. (lower right) Fred Pfening II.

Pages 54, 55 Hennie Bros. Shows 1938 pictorial magazine, author's collection. Page 5 6 (top left) Royal American Shows pictorial magazine, author's collection. (top right) author's collection. Page 5 7 (top left) author's collection. (lower right) Fred Pfening II. Page 58 author's collection. Page 59 (top left) Harry A. Atwell. (right) Jim McRobart's photo, author's collection. Page 60 (lower left) Kent Danner. (top right) author's collection. Page 61 (left) author's collection, (top right) Joy Fleenor. Page 62 (top left) A.W Stencell. (bottom right) author's collection. Page 63 author's collection. Page 64 International Independent Showmen's Assoc. Gibsonton, Fl. Page 65 Val Valentine. Pages 66, 67 author's collection. Page 68 (top and lower left) Peter Garey. Page 69 (right) Jim Conklin, Conklin Shows. Page 70 (top and bottom left) author's collection, (top right) Circus World Museum. Page 71 (top left illustration) Billboard Magazine, (top and bottom right) author's collection. Page 72 (top left) Peter Garey. (middle and top right) Archives: Strates Shows Inc. Page 73 (top right) Fred Pfening II. (middle right) Val Valentine. (bottom right) author's collection. Page 74 (top left) I.I.S.A. Gibsonton, Fl. (middle and top right) Pattyann Sciortino.

Page 75 (left top) Fred Pfening II. (lower right) James Taylor's Shocked and Amazed. Page 76 (top right) Val Valentine. Page 77 (top left) Richard Cox. Illustration from Herb Rice. Page 7 8 (top left) Cavalcade of Burlesque magazine. Page 79 (top left) author's collection. (lower bottom) Cavalcade of Burlesque magazine. Page 80 author's collection. Page 81 Bill Curtain. Page 82 (top and middle left and top right) author's collection, (bottom left) Dale W Bumpus. Page 83 (top left) author's collection, (top middle and right) Dale W Bumpus. Pages 84, 85 (all photos) Bill Karlton. Page 86 (top left) John Moss, (top right) Bill Karlton. Pages 87-90 Bill Karlton. Page 91 (top right) author's collection. (lower right) A. W Stencell. Page 93 author's collection. Page 95 Leona DuVal. Page 96 author's collection. Page 9 7 Pagan Jones. Pages 98, 99 author's collection. Page 100 (top photos) Peter Garey. (lower left) author's collection. Page 101 (top left) Richmond Cox. (top right) author's collection. Page 102 (top and middle left) author's collection, (top right) Bertie Austin. Page 103 author's collection. Page 104 (top left) Bill Karlton. (right) author's collection. Page 105 (top left) Peter Manos. (lower right) Val Valentine.

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Page 106 author's collection. ' Page 107 (top middle) Leona DuVal. (top right) Jackie Duggan. Page 108 author's collection. Page 109 (top left) author's collection. (lower right) Richmond Cox. Page 110 author's collection. Page 113 (top right) author's collection. Page 115 Showmen's League of America, Chicago Chapter. Page 116 (top left) Val Valentine. Page 117 (top left) Roland Porter. Page 118 (top left) Tony Fiorino. Page 120 (top right) Gene Stapleton. Page 121 (right) Mimi Reed. Page 122 C. F. Miles, author's collection. Page 124 (top left) Gale Frost, (lower right) Peter Manos. Page 125 (top right inserted) author's collection, (top right) Richard Cox. Page 126 (top left and right) Kent Danner. Page 127 (top left) Bertie Austin, (top and lower right) Andrews-Newton Collection Ottawa City Archive. Page 128 (top left) Joy Fleenor. (middle and lower right) Pattyann Sciortino. Page 129 (top and middle right) Jerry Church, Amusements of America. Pages 130, 131 author's collection. Page 132 (top left) Bill Hall, (lower left) author's collection, (top right) Bill Karlton. Page 133 (top left) author's collection, (top right) Val Valentine. Page 134 (top left and middle) Circus World Museum, (top right) Bertie Austin. Page 135 (top and bottom right) I.I.S.A. Gibsonton, Fl. Page 136 (all photos) Kinder Von Ras, Skip,

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Patty and Laura. Page 137 (top left and top right) Kinder Von Ras, Skip, Patty, and Laura, (middle) Val Valentine. Page 138 (top left, bottom middle) I.I.S.A. Gibsonton, Fl. (top right) Kinder Von Ras, Skip, Patty, and Laura. Page 139 (top left and middle) I.I.S.A. Gibsonton, Fl. (top right) Kinder Von Ras, Skip, Patty, and Laura. Pages 140-144 author's collection. Page 145 (top left and lower right) author's collection, (top right) Pagan Jones. Page 146 (top left) Fred Pfening II. (middle and right) I.I.S.A. Gibsonton, Fl. Page 147 author's collection. Page 148 (top left) Andrews-Newton Collection, City of Ottawa Archives. (lower left) Circus World Museum, (top right) Bill Karlton. Page 149 (top left and right) author's collection, (top middle) Molly Parkes. Page 150 (top left) Jackie Duggan. (bottom right) author's collection. Page 151 (top left) author's collection, (top right) Val Valentine. Page 152 (top left) author's collection, (top right) Mimi Reed. Page 153 (all photos) Mimi Reed. Page 154 Bill Karlton. Page 155 author's collection. Page 156 Jim Conklin, Conklin Shows. Page 157 author's collection. Page 158 (top left, top right) Ricki Covette. Page 159 author's collection. Page 160 (top left and lower right) Blaze Flury. Page 161 (top left) author's collection, (top and lower right) Blaze Flury. Page 162 (top left and right) author's

collection, (top middle) Peter Garey. Page 163 (top center) author's collection. (top right) Pagan Jones. Page 164 (top, middle, and lower left) Pagan Jones, (top and lower right) author's collection. Pages 165, 166 author's collection. Page 167 (top left, and center) author's collection, (top right) Sylvia Cassidy. Page 168 (top left) Sylvia Cassidy. (right) author's collection. Page 169 (top left, bottom right) Val Valentine. Page 170 (top left, lower right) Val Valentine, (top right) Molly Parkes. Page 171 Val Valentine. Pages 172-175 author's collection. Pages 176-177 Leona DuVal. Page 178 (illustration on left) Billboard. (photo) PIC magazine. Page 179 (upper left) author's collection. (lower middle) Fred Pfening II. (right illustration) Herbert Rice. Page 180 (top left) PIC. (top right) author's collection. Page 181 PIC magazine. Pages 182-85 (all) Leona DuVal. Pages 186-187 A.W Stencell. Page 188 author's collection. Pages 189, 190 Mitzi Sinclair. Page 191 (top left) Circus World Museum. (top right) Herbert Rice Collection. (lower middle) Bonnie Boyer. Page 192 (top left) Mitzi Sinclair, (middle) author's collection, (top right) Pattyann Sciortino. Page 193 (top left) Molly Parkes. (lower right) Kinder Von Ras, Skip, Patty, and Laura. Page 194 (top left) author's collection.

(top right) Val Valentine. Page 195 (top left) Kinder Von Ras, Skip, Patty, and Laura. Pages 196-205 (all photos) Shirley Barton Mayo. Page 206 Bambi Lane. Page 207 A. W Stencell. Pages 208-215 (all photos and illustrations) Bambi Lane. Page 216 Amusement Business Oct. 16, 1971. Page 217 Gene Baxter. Page 218 (top left, right) author's collection. (lower right) A.W Stencell. Page 219 (top left) Amusement Business. (top and bottom right) Dave and Sandy Hanson. Page 220 (bottom left) Dave and Sandy Hanson, (top right and bottom) A.W Stencell. Page 221 (upper left) Porter Hemphill. (middle) A.W Stencell. (right) Jerry Church, Amusements of America. Page 222 (all photos) Bob Tanenbaum. Page 223 (top left) Bob Tanenbaum. (lower right) Bill Karlton. Page 225 (all photos) Alan Lehman. Page 226 (top left) A.W Stencell. (top middle) Mimi Reed. Page 227 (lower left) A.W Stencell. (lower right) Jim Conklin, Conklin Shows. Page 228 (top left) A.W Stencell. (middle) Sylvia Cassidy. Page 229 A.W Stencell. Page 230 (lower left) Bill Karlton. Page 231 Dave and Sandy Hanson. Page 236 author's collection.