“It wasn’t work, it was play—and we were paid for it, paid well and traveled.”
From the strippers, they learned lavender light “made the skin glow. We carried our own special lavender gels.”
Unfortunately, as the duo grew older, they went in different directions. When burlesque ended for the pair, Rudy had a hard time coping with the end of the partnership. He drifted.
“Rudy lives a solitary life in California in a trailer park,” Renny said. “Unfortunately, he never got interested in anything else to get into, to make a living when he got out of show business. He did think he would like to become a hairdresser. He tried it, didn’t care for it. Then decided he would become a dog groomer, took over a store on Hollywood Boulevard. And he was very, very busy—doing well—but he says, ‘I kept looking out and seeing the sunshine and I’m in here working,’ and he walked away from it. ‘Gee, Rudy you don’t do that.’ A lot of show people can’t bring themselves down to earth enough to take a job that’s 9 to 5. I’m afraid Rudy’s one of those. Eventually he had to take something. He became a school bus driver. He enjoyed it. He didn’t have to apply himself too hard.”
Renny and Rudy saw each other occasionally over the years. “We never liked to write letters. Years go by without writing, but when we get out to California, we meet and it’s just like old times. Rudy’s like a brother to me. He’s more than a best friend. We know each other so well. One thing that held us together, we did this thing together so well, it was as if we were born to do it. We’d discover a new trick, a new movement, bingo. In minutes we’d have it going and play off each other.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Florida
“My whole thing was I wanted to bring burlesque back and give it the respect it had.”
—Al Baker Jr.
“I faked it in the beginning. I wasn’t much of a dancer.”
—Sequin
Florida seemed to be a large repository for the retired burlesque community. Sheri and I had a trip planned that was to be loaded with interviews. There was Sequin, the husky-voiced singer and former stripper I had met at the Vegas Reunion; Leroy Griffiths, a club owner, who still ran at least one club in the heart of Miami; and Lily Ann Rose, born Lillian Kiernan Brow. Author David Kruh had introduced me to a book Lily had written. A dancer at thirteen, Lily had been a protégé of the tassel twirler Sally Keith (whose relatives I had interviewed outside of Chicago). Banned in Boston recalled the adventures of Lily’s mother, who was in burlesque in the ’20s. Lily took a job in the industry in the ’40s. Lily and I had been corresponding via email. She assured me she had a “trunk load of photographs waiting to be documented.” Her scrapbooks and house were a treasure trove. She wanted them all documented. She offered us a room in her house to spend the night. We declined. One thing about all “my ladies”: they were generous to a fault. Many asked if they could “adopt” me.
While in Florida, I was also planning on meeting Al Baker Jr., whom April March and Val Valentine had introduced me to. Al would be coming down from Boca Raton. His father had been a comic and his mother a dancer and talking woman. Al Jr. had grown up on the circuit, touring with his parents. Later he opened his own clubs and was friends with Leroy Griffith, Val and April’s former employer.
**
South Beach Miami. Neon lights, a balmy night breeze and tanned bodies walking along the boulevard. Art deco hotels lined the streets next to our hotel. It must have been something elegant and new sixty years prior....
Collins Avenue, just a salt splash from the beach, used to be crammed with burlesque clubs. From the Gaiety, where Zorita and her python often performed, to the Five O’Clock Club, to the Paper Doll Club, where “The Ding Dong Girl” peeled with bells attached to various body parts. There had been the Red Barn, an old farm building; Rainbow Inn; and Place Pigalle, where Siska and her birds sometimes pecked the peeler. At the Jungle Club, one ate food with fingers, not utensils. In 1956, Miami boasted at least thirty burlesque clubs on Biscayne Bay.
One of the top spots was Lou Walter’s swanky Latin Quarter. Located at 159 Palm Island Drive, the Latin Quarter was smack in the center of Palm Island, accessible only via the narrow causeway. The grand marble entrance was impressive and bespoke of the club’s elegant clientele, such as Joseph Kennedy, who had a regular table.
When Al Baker Jr. arrived, I liked him immediately. He was late, but apologized profusely. He was a short stack of energy. He was still handsome with dark hair, shirt unbuttoned down to his stomach, revealing a hairy abdomen with a nasty scar slicing through him, a result of a recent heart surgery. Around his neck he wore a big gold chain that spelled “A.B. Jr,” a chunky gold watch, and a big diamond pinky ring. He was still the charming ladies’ man. He wore blue-tinted glasses and chewed a wad of gum throughout the interview. He worshipped his parents, his father especially.
His father, Al Baker Sr., had been a well-respected straight man. Like his son, Al Sr. had been a handsome and dark-haired man. He had worked the Hirst circuit and was beloved in the business. Al Jr.’s mother, born in 1912, had been a singer and toured with the “Irish Nightingale” Morton Downey, a popular singer in the 1920s and 1930s. When she was about twelve, she had gotten in a horrible car accident. One foot got mangled under some metal. Her toes were twisted “around where her heel should be.” It was set wrong and never grew. But you would never know it, claimed Al Jr. She hid it well, buying two differently sized shoes. As she got older, the pain gave her a fair amount of trouble. Later she had to wear a brace, which was hard for her. She was “very vain,” Al Jr. said.
While on tour with her sister, she met Al Sr. and they fell in love. He was a week ahead of her on the circuit. Arriving in various towns ahead of her, he would book her a hotel and leave a present in the room for her. After they married, she became his talking woman. When Al Jr. was born in 1934 (“the year of the big flood in West Virginia”), she basically retired. “She didn’t want to raise a kid backstage.” At three or four, he fell “real sick with rheumatic fever.” An only child, he was pampered and doted on, and spoiled. He became a “rough kid,” but was extremely close with his parents.
He appreciated their sacrifices. “My parents went without things to do for me.”
For a time, they all traveled together while Al Sr. toured. Al Jr. loved being on the road. “Everyone had a good time ... everybody was happy,” he said. They ate together, traveled together. For the troupe of performers, it was one big, extended family. When he got older, Al Jr. was sent to military school in the winters while his parents continued on the road.
Al Sr. never earned a huge income. He made a decent living, but would supplement his income dancing in marathons. Sometimes he would dance for two days straight. “He never wanted for work,” Al Jr. said. His agent had been Jess Mack, a former straight man himself, who booked Sr. on the circuit.
Talking about the strippers, Al said, “Girls then wore more clothes than the girls today. It was an innocent time. The performers were professional. A show was rehearsed in a half hour. You were always performing with someone different and everyone was familiar with the old routines.... [The comedians] went out and never missed a line for a two-and-a-half hour show.” Al Jr. admired his father’s pals.
“None of the comics are left.” Al recalled how differently the comedians could go over depending on the audience. “A comic could be funny in New York, or Philadelphia, but come to Canton, Ohio, or another town and they might bomb.”
In 1947, Al Sr. was booked into the Burbank Theatre. The Burbank was the project of dentist Davis Burbank, who had purchased 4,600 acres in the San Fernando Valley in 1867. The theatre was not located in Burbank but in downtown Los Angeles, and would change its name in the 1960s to the New Follies Theatre.
Al Sr. retired around 1956 after winning a sweepstakes. He had invested his money pretty well, but he couldn’t “sit around,” so he started working for a theatre. He was the general manager. He even appeared on TV in a coupl
e episodes of What’s My Line? He would do anything to stay busy after years of constant work.
Al Jr. had performing in his blood. He told his father he wanted to study acting. His father told him, “‘You’re NT.’ ‘What’s NT?’ No talent.’” Sr. told his son he’d better learn to work the front of the house where the money was.
At sixteen and hard to discipline, Al Jr. was thrown out of school. He got a job selling candy in the aisles of shows. There he met Leroy Griffiths, eighteen, who was the assistant concessions man.
Eventually Jr. worked for Mike Todd and “blew through” his money. “I was a big shot,” he shrugged, chewing his gum and smiling. He knew he’d been a punk. He didn’t have regrets.
At thirty-five, with a wife and newborn daughter and seven dollars in his pocket, Al Jr. drove in his pink Buick to Canton, Ohio, and rented a theatre and started putting on shows. “I was collecting thirty-five dollars a week unemployment,” he said. Eventually Jr. owned or managed many theatres, including the Troc in Philadelphia. He ran a theatre in New York that had “porns and strips.” It was $2.50 to get into during the day and $12 at midnight. April March and Val Valentine both stripped for him. He paid Blaze Starr two thousand dollars a week. “She was nice with me. She demanded big money,” he said.
Another of Al Jr.’s strippers was Zsa Zsa Chesty Gabor. She had a seventy-three-inch chest. “A Jewish girl. She was in the Jewish army in Israel. Married a butcher who got shot and killed. I found her in a scratch house on 10th Avenue,” he said.
From the pits, he smelled pot coming up from the musicians. His father told him “‘never do that or I’ll disown you.’ And I never did. I’m seventy-two and I never did drugs in my life,” he said.
Though Al Sr. has been dead since 1997, Al Jr. admitted that he still missed him.
During the interview I received a phone call and excused myself.
It was TeeTee Red. Just days before leaving for Florida, I had sent her a letter with my cell number, letting her know I was going to be in Miami and asking whether I could interview her. She was calling to say she could do the interview that night if I came to her in Miami Shores.
I returned from my call in time to hear Al’s story about producing pornos.
He told his crew, “Make this picture in three days but I’ll pay you for five. We went in and did all the sex in one day. Sessions of Love Therapy. Sammy Davis Jr. was a porn freak. Whenever we made a picture, he had to get a copy of it.” Sammy visited the set, which was apparently so quiet, he told Al, “You can even hear a pube hit the ground.” Sammy invited the cast to a party at the Ambassador. This was in 1968 or ‘69 and Al Baker rented a theatre to show the completed film and ran it at two in the morning for Sammy Davis.
He had “found” the Devil and Mrs. Jones actress, Michelle Graham, living in a commune and made a “corporation for her.” At the time, he owned the Trocadero in Philadelphia. He bought her a couple snakes, she did a Q&A, and she would do a number. “She seemed fine for a while. I was getting her five thousand dollars a week. I’d give her a certain salary and the rest in corporation. She went off the wagon.”
**
Next up was Mr. Leroy Griffiths. Leroy’s current club was a seedy “titty” bar in South Beach that smelled like stale booze and cigarettes. It boasted the attendance of minor celebrities such as Paris Hilton. To get to Leroy’s office, we walked past “showers” that were designed into the walls of the clubs in front of cocktail tables. I was horrified. This certainly wasn’t burlesque.
Leroy turned out to be a big teddy bear of a man. He was gentlemanly and soft-spoken with a huge diamond pinky ring. He was reluctant to appear on camera.
Leroy had started as a candy butcher, selling candy and trinkets before and during intermission of the burlesque shows. He eventually owned theatres in the North. In 1960, he opened the Mayfair with Tee Tee Red. A ticket for the show cost $4.50. That was a “big ticket” at the time. The Mayfair sat four hundred and put on three shows a day.
From a book on his shelf, he pulled out snapshots of Tempest Storm. His face softened. The two had had “a thing,” though Leroy was many times married. They were still friends. Tempest held a special place in his heart. Al Baker said she still called Leroy if she needed money.
Tempest Storm
“In those days, I was paying Tempest $1,800 a week,” Leroy said. She “broke all records at the Gaiety in New York. Standing room only. And that was 1,400 seats and for an afternoon show. For two weeks she packed the house.” Leroy would continue to book her, up to and including five years prior to our arrival in Florida.
**
Dirty, tired, and hungry, we loaded our equipment in the car and drove towards Miami Shores and Tee Tee Red.
Pictures of Tee Tee in her youth showed a pretty, freckly faced, long-haired redhead with a killer body and perky smile. She was more girl next door than femme fatale. I had been told she had been Zorita’s protégé and possible lover. Zorita had been a snake-dancing, bisexual, gold-digging stripper who had died recently. Zorita had lived in Florida and owned a club after retiring from stripping.
Tee Tee Red
Zorita had started in New York. She was originally from Philly. Born in 1915, she had been adopted by a strict Methodist couple. Zorita had been a beautiful woman with short, platinum hair and stocky thighs, who died in 2001. She was no lean and lithe flower, but a sturdy woman. She was nobody’s fool. She boasted of making the men she slept with give her stock in GM. So she ended up better off than most. I wished more of “my ladies” had given more thought to their future financial security. I found many of them living in dire straits with no children or a pension to turn to. For many, it was a matter of what they could sell, or who could give them a few bucks, to pay rent and keep food in front of them.
The area of Miami Shores where Tee Tee was working for a dermatologist was run down. There was sunburnt grass for lawns, bars on the windows. It was dark by the time we pulled up next to her big, dented yellow Cadillac. It was the only other car in the small parking lot.
A petite, short-haired woman greeted us. Life’s worries were scratched deeply into her face. Tee Tee had a husky voice. Nothing remained of her fiery good looks. Her formerly red hair was bleached, thinning, and dry. Her face was puffy. Times had been hard. She was guarded and she admitted later she didn’t feel as free to talk because she had her six-year-old grandson Joseph with her. Her daughter, Joseph’s mother, had a drug problem and ran with the wrong people. Tee Tee helped watch Joseph. She locked the door behind me. “We keep the door locked, so we don’t have any surprises.”
Tee Tee’s cell phone rang immediately and through the evening. She looked concerned. “That’s my daughter,” she said and ignored it. Joseph sat quietly as Tee Tee answered my questions.
She had been born in Wiggum, Georgia, “around Moletree and Murphy.” Murphy was her maiden name. She was the only child of a single mother. Her mother was her mother and father, and her “best fan.” At some point in her childhood, she and her mother moved to Miami.
Tee Tee started in burlesque when she was seventeen after entering a striptease contest. The prize was one hundred bucks. It was at the Gaiety Theatre in Miami. There, Tee Tee met Zorita, who was a “star at the time.... [She] took a liking to me right away.”
Tee Tee won the contest and “got drunk as a hoot owl on champagne.” She stayed all night and both women were entranced by each other: the older, tougher, been-there-done-that Zorita and Tee Tee, wanting to be someone.
The Gaiety offered her a job. Zorita became her manager and told her how to present herself on stage. “Every first night, I always had butterflies in my stomach.”
Zorita told her, “Every time you want to take something off, back up to me and I’ll undo it.” Tee Tee was good. She could dance to anything.
Zorita taught her about body makeup to cover up little flaws. “I used it in the beginning. I used a lotion, a cream that would hold the powder, then powder down all over to be
the same color all over. It wouldn’t come off and it evened out the skin tone.” At the end of the night “[Zorita’d] give me a shower out in the back after every show. She’d turn the hose on me.”
Zorita soon retired from stripping and did the announcing of the show at her own club in Miami. She always announced Tee Tee as having the “cutest little TT’s in town.” One night she looked at the younger woman and pointed to her pert breasts. “Tee tee,” she said. She then pointed to her crotch. “Red.” The name stuck.
Zorita was known for working with boas and pythons. She used them to terrify both the audience and the performers backstage. Zorita would come on stage with the boa draped across her broad shoulders. She was not a delicate little woman, by any means. She was a big-boned woman with big hips, solidly built. “She twirled around on the stage.... She’d twirl in such a way that the snake would fly out around over everybody’s head and you could see everybody ducking.... They’d all start screaming. She did it on purpose.” Tee Tee laughed. “She had total control of the snake.”
Sequin also worked with Zorita. “I was doing a cocktail act and I came off to go backstage,” she explained. “She opened the door and had her snake in her hand and went up in my face. It had cellophane around its mouth.”
She would “shove it at you,” said Rita Grable. And keep it in the dressing room, which frightened many strippers who weren’t eager to share their space with a reptile.
“I used to help her tape up its mouth and tape up its a-hole so it wouldn’t do anything on the stage,” Tee Tee said. “Scotch tape.” I asked if the snakes bothered her. “They can’t hurt ya ... all they want to do is squeeze you. Zorita never had problems with her serpents. She would change them periodically.” Apparently Zorita didn’t want to be bothered feeding her snakes the little animals, like bunnies and rats, that they required. Instead Zorita would simply give her snake away and get a new one. One snake in New York crawled out the window. They found in on the ground and joked that the snake had committed suicide. The snake was named Elmer and Zorita called the press and told them he had been jealous because she used her other snake, Oscar, more often.
Behind the Burly Q Page 16