"I have no interest in winning him," said Glenda.
Her mother lowered her chin to her chest. "We try to save you, Golda. Even your father, who will not see you, prays constantly for you."
"For me to become what?" Glenda asked coldly.
"Do something then for your mother. Answer me this question — Are you happy?"
Glenda drew a deep breath. "I cannot say I am happy. I am not unhappy, but — "
"Then. If you will not try to earn the respect of this fine young man, then do something else for me. You remember Mrs. Gruenwald — the Gruenwald family? They had the delicatessen on — "
"I remember them, Mother."
"Mrs. Gruenwald's son, Saul, is a doctor. He helps people who are unhappy. Go see him, Golda. He is what they call a psychiatrist."
3
"It was done to you before you could prevent it," Glenda said to Dr. Saul Grünwald. (He used the form Grünwald, rather than Gruenwald.) She held his limp penis in her hand. "I prefer the ones that aren't cut, though. Gib's isn't."
"What's better about it?" the psychiatrist asked, unable to conceal a touch of indignation.
"Why tell you, since there's nothing you can do about it?" Glenda asked with a grin. "You can't have it put back. If you'd had a choice, though, I'd suggest you should have said no."
"Are you in love with the shegetz?"
"I'll tell you this. I will never fall in love with anyone who uses the word shegetz. Or nigger. Or kike."
Dr. Saul Grünwald was thirty-five years old and almost wholly bald. His brown eyes were beady. His solemnity had not forsaken him even when he was astride her. "Forgive," he said. "Old habits die hard."
"No, they don't," she said disdainfully.
Dr. Grünwald, who had been putting his clothes back on during this dialogue, frowned and glanced around the room. "The question we are addressing," he said, "is whether or not you are happy."
"I am for the moment," she said. "Since you just screwed me good. How will I feel at midnight tonight?"
"You must not depend on that."
"Only for occasional therapy? For which I pay?"
"Golda, you are a prisoner of your resentments. Beginning with resentment of your father — "
"Have I no right to resent? I think I do."
"If I were you, I would put aside the goy and try to make peace with my father."
"Who speaks through you?" she asked. "Freud or Moses? Is it also your advice that I marry a rabbinical student and settle down to a quiet life of housekeeping and childbearing?"
"You would not have come to me," he said, "if you were happy. If you were satisfied with yourself and with your life, you would not have sought out a psychiatrist. I know, your mother sent you to me. But you would not have come if you hadn't felt you needed help."
"Make peace with my father ... It could only be on his terms."
"What do you want, Golda? What do you want more than anything else?"
"I want a contract to do five weeks in a first-class out-of-town club."
4
In December 1942, when Glenda was just twenty years old, she worked in a strip club for the first time, in Miami. Gib Dugan, in spite of his having spoken scornfully about working with strippers, had made the deal for her and talked her into taking it. The contract was for two weeks at five hundred dollars a week, far more than she had ever made before.
Gib had promoted her to Mel Schmidt, the club owner, by promising him her borscht-belt humor would delight the Jews who still came to Miami in December in spite of the difficulties of wartime travel. It would delight GIs on leave, too, he had promised.
The owner bought Gib's idea, but he was adamant that she must appear in a costume appropriate to the club — meaning very little costume at all. She had signed a contract that specifically said she would work in "abbreviated costume, such as is worn by other performers at Casa Pantera." Gib had argued to Schmidt and to Glenda that a borscht-belt singer-dancer-comedienne working in strip-club deshabille would be a "dynamite attraction." Schmidt was so much convinced that he was advertising Glenda Grayson in the newspapers.
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."
5
"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."
"Is this a value?" asked Rabbi Graustein. "Being widely heard of?"
"I wish she were my daughter," said Sam.
Glenda smiled shyly. "You're not old enough, Sam," she said.
Rabbi Mordecai Graustein glared at his daughter. By her little smile, her little joke, she had trivialized the conversation, trivialized him. "So," he said curtly. He stood.
"Uriel Acosta," said Glenda to her father, "was made to lie down across the doorway of the Amsterdam synagogue, and all the men of the congregation stepped over him as they walked out. If you think you can do that to me, you are the klutz Sam says you are."
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