Authors: Robbins Harold
They traveled to Florida by train, standing much of the time. Glenda
had never been farther from New York City than the Catskills, and she
was fascinated by the country outside the train. Though she had
expected it, she was astonished to step out into eighty-degree
weather in December. They arrived in Miami early in the morning and
checked into a hotel to get some sleep before they went to the club.
Casa Pantera turned out to be a squat concrete-block building on
Biscayne Boulevard. A gaudy sign advertised striptease, promising
BUSTY BLONDES! BOMBASTIC BRUNETTES! GORGEOUS GALS THE WAY YOU WANT TO
SEE 'EM!
Posters hung behind glass in the entrance porch.
Attached to them were photographs of the featured performers, with
names like Eve Eden, Chesty Boone, Rusty Beaver, and Hope Diamond —
all of these young women naked except for tiny bras and beaded
G-strings. Glenda gasped. She had not imagined that the "abbreviated
costume" she had contracted to wear would be
this
abbreviated.
Gib had mailed a photo of Glenda — in a leotard and net
stockings. Her poster said, "Direct from New York and the
Catskills, the sensational dancing, singing comedienne Glenda
Grayson! See Glenda Grayson as you have never seen her!"
Her costumes were leotards, mostly. The corselette she sometimes wore
consisted of a bra and girdle, in one piece. When they arrived at the
club, she realized she had nothing suitable with her. For the first
time in her life she was unprepared for a performance.
They sat down in Mel Schmidt's office, and she confessed she had no
abbreviated costume with her and would have to arrange something
during the afternoon.
"Hey, kid," Schmidt said. "No problem. Long dark
stockings, a black garter belt, black G-string. That's always good.
That always goes over big. It's sexy. Understand, our gals can only
take off as much as the cops allow at this particular time. Right
now, the G-string has got to cover all your hair, and you can't pull
it down and show anything. But they do allow bare tits, so you've got
to be bare-titted at the end of your act. My crowds will boo you if
you aren't."
He called in the stripteaser called Chesty Boone — a woman of
some thirty-five years with a spectacular figure — and told her
to help Glenda get an outfit. Chesty said there was a little shop
downtown called Stage Undies. She'd go with Glenda if she wanted her
to.
"Do that," said Schmidt. "You can show her what she
needs."
In her dressing room that evening Glenda fought back tears as she
pulled up over her legs a pair of net stockings and clipped them to
her black garter belt. A little triangle of black satin covered her
pubic area — and she'd had to use a razor and scissors and trim
back her hair so that none of it would show. She wore two bras: one
an ordinary black brassiere, the other one a contrivance of sheer
black rayon and thin black strings that covered her breasts but did
not conceal them. Over all this she wore a black lace-trimmed teddy.
In a men's shop she had also found a black fedora, which she wore
tilted forward on her head to throw a shadow over her face.
"Now, there's what I call
style
,"
Mel, the owner, exulted when he stopped in a few minutes before she
was to go on stage. "You got style, real style."
When he had left, Glenda leaned against the door and closed her eyes.
"I haven't got any choice, do I?" she whispered to Gib.
"Without the thousand bucks Mel is gonna pay us, we can't even
get back to New York."
"Don't even think of chickening out, baby," he said. "But
you got no idea how beautiful you look. Think of how you're gonna
look on that stage!"
"I'll look naked, is how I'll look."
The show went on at nine o'clock. The owner acted as master of
ceremonies, braving his way through a line of brash chatter that was
not original and not very funny. He introduced four strippers, then
Glenda, then the featured stripper. A pianist, a guitarist, and a
drummer, fully amplified, furnished the music.
Her half hour on the stage was an ordeal. The crowd liked her but
began to yell, "Take it off! Take it off!" before she was
out there five minutes. She took off the teddy, and they cheered and
whistled. They settled down then to listen to her jokes and songs.
But the necessity of stopping to take things off upset her timing,
and her horror at having to appear before all these people with her
breasts naked destroyed the natural exuberance that was essential to
her routine. She was doubly miserable, for having to appear on stage
all but naked and for failing to meet her own standards for a
performance.
But the audience didn't seem to know. When she
gave them the line "Golda, for the sake of your family,
change
your name! Please!
" some people stood up to applaud. She had
not guessed that her shameful nudity would make the line even more
poignant.
Even so, they yelled for her to take off the bra, then to take off
the little sheer bra. She did that at the very last moment, but they
applauded so much she had to go out and take a bow bare-breasted.
For the midnight show, she saved the change-your-name line for last
and left the stage to a standing ovation.
Mel loved her. He offered her another four weeks, and so she stayed
through January.
"Let me give you a word of advice," he
said over dinner her last night at Casa Pantera. "You're a great
attraction. You're very classy. But you oughta work up an act that's
not quite so ... so
New Yorkish
, if you know what I mean. You
got smarts. You work up a new act, an' we can make a contract for six
weeks next winter."
By the time she brought her new act back to Florida, Casa Pantera
could no longer afford her. In 1943 she worked a roadhouse club
outside Camden, New Jersey, then a downtown club in Newark, then a
club in Philadelphia and a club in Boston. From Boston she went to
Raleigh, North Carolina, and from there to Covington, Kentucky, where
in the summer of 1944, for six weeks and for the only time in her
career, she lowered her G-string at the end of her act and exposed
herself completely. From there she went to a club in Chicago, and her
career began to find a new direction.
In the Chicago club she worked in front of a jazz band and wore a
halter or bra of sheer dark material that didn't conceal her breasts
entirely but stayed in place throughout the show. For the G-strings
she substituted sheer black panties with opaque crotches. The
stockings and garter belt displayed her shapely legs to good
advantage, and the chiaroscuro contrast of dark sheer hose and white
skin was dramatic. So was the contrast of her long blond hair falling
from under the brim of the black hat. Those contrasts became her
trademark.
Gradually she made her act less "New Yorkish." She knew
what Mel had meant. He hadn't been subtle. Except in New York, the
people who would turn out for a performance by Glenda Grayson would
not want Jewish humor. They accepted it gladly from male comedians,
less gladly from women, not well at all from a scantily dressed,
effervescent singer-dancer.
She began to experiment too with taking a drink or three before she
went on stage. She found it didn't hurt anything — at least,
she thought it didn't.
Gib had photographs taken of her. She refused to pose bare-breasted,
and the black-and-white eight-by-tens he distributed showed her in
one of the more modest of her costumes: with an opaque bra and
panties. Occasionally she got a mention in a newspaper. He reproduced
her clippings and sent them out with the photos.
In Chicago in 1945 she omitted the teddy and added a pinstriped black
jacket to her costume. Only when she unbuttoned it were her breasts
bared, if they were bared at all. A Chicago columnist wrote, "A
saucy, interesting young performer, who really doesn't need to expose
herself to win enthusiasm and affection from club audiences. Come
back again, Glenda Grayson."
She never showed her breasts again. What was more, she had decided
the garter belt, stockings, and hat costume was brazen and inelegant.
It imposed a limit.
"The tits got you the good jobs, baby," Gib argued. "Don't
be so damned determined to put 'em away. Without the tits, you could
still be working the Catskills summers, waiting tables at noon and
getting paid five percent of what you've been making. The guy at Casa
Pantera was right about the garter-belt outfit, too. With your skin,
it's sensational."
The night of September 20, 1946, a man knocked on the door of her
dressing room. She let him in, and he introduced himself.
"My name is Sam Stein," he said. "Here is my card."
Samuel L. Stein
Talent Agency
Los Angeles New York London
She met with him for lunch the next day. Gib Dugan came with her.
The little man with the bald head and tiny face was blunt and
specific. "I can book you into a club in Dallas," he said.
"For sure. Three weeks. A thousand a week. After that I've got a
place in Houston in mind. And after that New Orleans. By the time you
do those three you should be ready for Los Angeles. Get your act
really straightened out and tuned up, I can book you into just about
any club in the country."
"Just what needs to be 'straightened out'?" Gib asked,
almost indignant.
"In the first place, we put clothes on her," said Sam
Stein. "A girl with her talent doesn't need to run around half
naked. That's in the first place."
"What else?" Glenda asked.
"Your funny-girl stuff is too bland. No bite in it. It sparks
once in a while, but I have a sense you're holding something back.
It's too Hollywoodish. Your bio says you worked the comedy clubs in
New York. You didn't work them with this kind of stuff."
"I used to have a tough little monologue," said Glenda.
"I'd like to hear it," said Sam. "Could we go up to my
suite?"
"She was difficult to book with that act," said Gib.
"Are you her agent?"
"Well, not formally. I've been helping her with bookings."
"Then suppose you let
me
worry about
where I can book her with what kind of act."
In the Dallas club, two months later, Glenda came
on stage in a tight white dress glittering with spangles. She
delivered a few sharp lines of monologue, then carried her microphone
around the stage as she sang. "I Got Rhythm" from
Girl
Crazy.
"I Got Plenty o' Nuttin'" from
Porgy and
Bess.
"The Lady Is a Tramp" from
Babes in Arms.
"Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" from
Show Boat.
And from
Anything Goes,
"Blow, Gabriel, Blow" and the title
song.
Tossing the microphone to the piano player, who
usually deftly caught it, she snatched off her dress and draped it
over the piano, revealing a spangled red leotard in which she danced
to "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" from
On Your Toes.
Winded, she climbed on a stool and did her monologue, using the line
"Golda, for the sake of your family
change your name!
Please!
" She finished with a spirited, energetic reprise of
"Anything Goes."
Sam Stein had secured all the permissions she needed to use this
music. He brought her records and let her hear how the stars of the
shows had done the songs. The first-night audience loved her. The
club owners loved her. But the next morning Sam called her to his
suite, and they went to work. He pulled a song and substituted
another. He pulled lines from her monologue and suggested
replacements.
He changed the costume. When she unzipped and stepped out of the
dress the second night, she was wearing a simple black dance leotard
and dark sheer stockings held up by blood-red garters. Her upper legs
were bare, once again taking advantage of the dramatic contrast
between her white skin and the dark fabrics of her costume. Also, Sam
had recalled the black hat. She picked it up off the piano and set it
on her blond head.
The owners would have extended her contract for an additional three
weeks, but she was already under contract to the club in Houston. She
did three weeks there and went on to New Orleans, as Sam had
promised.
"I only got one more problem, Glenda," he said to her over
lunch in New Orleans. He gestured with his hand, indicating the
tipping back of a bottle, with a clucking of his tongue to suggest
the liquor chugging out.
"I got nerves, Sam," she said.
"You're
supposed
to have nerves. You
can't do what you do without nerves. When do you suppose you stop
having nerves? When you get to be a number-one star? No. I can tell
you. You'll always have nerves. It goes with the territory."
"You weren't at your best last Wednesday night in Houston,"
said Gib. "In fact, you were a hell of a lot off your best."
"Oh, fuck off!" she snapped at Gib. "What'm I supposed
to do?" she asked Sam. "Go on the wagon?"
Sam shook his head. "Airplane pilots have a rule," he said.
"I think it's 'Eight hours bottle to throttle.' Let's say four.
Or five. Then have enough to help you come down after the night's
shows. Have a drink or two at lunch. But —"
"All
right
," she interrupted. "Do
it right, Glenda. So you guys can make money off me."
"Sam ... ?"
"Glenda."
"Come help me, Sam. You're the only friend I've got. Gib bugged
out. Not only that ... He stole my lucky hat!"
Sam took her home.
"So, Rabbi Graustein," he said to her father. "You are
a holy man. Wiser than God. Hmm?"
"You are a
shegetz
," said Rabbi
Mordecai Graustein.
Sam shrugged. "And you are a klutz. None of us are perfect."
"I obey the Law," said the rabbi stiffly.
"Where does the Law tell you to throw away a daughter?" Sam
asked. "Why should a daughter honor a father when the father
does not honor her? Golda is a fine young woman. For every man,
woman, and child who has heard of you, a thousand have heard of her.
And soon it will be more."