American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee by Karen Abbott
Authors: Karen Abbott
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auditorium. Men huddled in large packs, heaving toward the stage, shirts polka-dotted with sweat stains. The place smelled of greasepaint and talc and cheap cigars. Spirals of smoke unraveled upward, fogging the air, blurring the Shakespeare quotes on the walls. Mae Dix sauntered across the stage and down Abe’s runway, wearing a short black dress with white collar and cuffs, French maid style. The collar and cuffs were detachable, so they could be washed daily, although Mae tried to make them last for at least two shows.
At the end of her number, after a final twirl and shake, she pulled at her collar, holding it away from the thick makeup on her neck, but she was not yet behind the curtain. A man in the audience hinged his fingers on his lips and whistled, begging her to stay onstage and do it again—take off something else, the cuffs this time. Mae obliged, fell into a bow, and thought the show was over.
But there was a stampede of clapping now, furious and unrelenting, and Mae slowly, tentatively, undid her bodice, one button at a time. She stepped back behind the curtain, where Nick Elliott, the house manager, stood glaring at her.
Ten-dollar fine, he said. She knew perfectly well that showing more than what the script called for was a punishable offense.
He threw on the house lights, pushed the curtain aside, and took center stage.
“The Minsky brothers,” he yelled above the frenzy, “run a decent theater. There won’t be any more of that, and if you don’t like it, you’re free to leave.”
Billy Minsky panicked at the words. He rushed to Nick, clamped a hand around his shoulder, and yanked him back behind the curtain.
“If people want it,” Billy said, “we’ll give it to them. When a court finds that I’ve broken some law, I’ll stop. Until then, we’ll sell tickets.” The way Billy saw it, men had seen Mae’s routine countless times at private stag shows.He hadn’t invented the strip, but he’d bring it out from the back room.
Give Mae back her ten dollars, Billy ordered. Moreover, she’d score a ten-dollar raise as long as she repeated her “accident” every single night.
A few weeks later, a man named John Sumner, the secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, requested that police pay a visit to the National Winter Garden. Sumner never expected to become the city’s premier vice quester,having lost his virginity to a prostitute at the oldHaymarket “resort” in Chelsea, but he strove to match the efforts of his predecessor, Anthony Comstock (who reportedly “died of joy” after procuring the conviction of birth control advocate Margaret Sanger).
A horse-drawn paddy wagon pulled up to Second Avenue and Houston Street, and the officers handcuffed the first Minsky brother they spotted, who happened to be Herbert. They took him for a ride downtown to chat with Inspector McCaullaugh at the precinct station.
The Minskys knew the law wasn’t on their side.Two years prior, in 1915, the courts had decreed that movies and theater were popular entertainment, not art, and therefore unprotected by the First Amendment. Burlesque, not surprisingly, fell into this category. For two hours the inspector railed at Herbert and for two hours Herbert took it, eyes downcast, threading and unthreading his fingers as if they might produce a singing cat or length of rope, some vaudeville trick on the fly.
“I have never before or since,” he confessed to his brothers, “felt quite so mean and worthless.”
When the inspector ran out of condemnations, Herbert stood and grimly shook his hand. “Have your men drop in anytime,” he said. “They’ll never see anything off color at Minsky’s.”
The following afternoon, Herbert installed red, white, and blue lights in the center of the footlight trough and wired them to the ticket booth, where he was stationed every night. If he saw a cop in uniform or suspected one had infiltrated the audience in disguise, he threw on the
At the end of her number, after a final twirl and shake, she pulled at her collar, holding it away from the thick makeup on her neck, but she was not yet behind the curtain. A man in the audience hinged his fingers on his lips and whistled, begging her to stay onstage and do it again—take off something else, the cuffs this time. Mae obliged, fell into a bow, and thought the show was over.
But there was a stampede of clapping now, furious and unrelenting, and Mae slowly, tentatively, undid her bodice, one button at a time. She stepped back behind the curtain, where Nick Elliott, the house manager, stood glaring at her.
Ten-dollar fine, he said. She knew perfectly well that showing more than what the script called for was a punishable offense.
He threw on the house lights, pushed the curtain aside, and took center stage.
“The Minsky brothers,” he yelled above the frenzy, “run a decent theater. There won’t be any more of that, and if you don’t like it, you’re free to leave.”
Billy Minsky panicked at the words. He rushed to Nick, clamped a hand around his shoulder, and yanked him back behind the curtain.
“If people want it,” Billy said, “we’ll give it to them. When a court finds that I’ve broken some law, I’ll stop. Until then, we’ll sell tickets.” The way Billy saw it, men had seen Mae’s routine countless times at private stag shows.He hadn’t invented the strip, but he’d bring it out from the back room.
Give Mae back her ten dollars, Billy ordered. Moreover, she’d score a ten-dollar raise as long as she repeated her “accident” every single night.
A few weeks later, a man named John Sumner, the secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, requested that police pay a visit to the National Winter Garden. Sumner never expected to become the city’s premier vice quester,having lost his virginity to a prostitute at the oldHaymarket “resort” in Chelsea, but he strove to match the efforts of his predecessor, Anthony Comstock (who reportedly “died of joy” after procuring the conviction of birth control advocate Margaret Sanger).
A horse-drawn paddy wagon pulled up to Second Avenue and Houston Street, and the officers handcuffed the first Minsky brother they spotted, who happened to be Herbert. They took him for a ride downtown to chat with Inspector McCaullaugh at the precinct station.
The Minskys knew the law wasn’t on their side.Two years prior, in 1915, the courts had decreed that movies and theater were popular entertainment, not art, and therefore unprotected by the First Amendment. Burlesque, not surprisingly, fell into this category. For two hours the inspector railed at Herbert and for two hours Herbert took it, eyes downcast, threading and unthreading his fingers as if they might produce a singing cat or length of rope, some vaudeville trick on the fly.
“I have never before or since,” he confessed to his brothers, “felt quite so mean and worthless.”
When the inspector ran out of condemnations, Herbert stood and grimly shook his hand. “Have your men drop in anytime,” he said. “They’ll never see anything off color at Minsky’s.”
The following afternoon, Herbert installed red, white, and blue lights in the center of the footlight trough and wired them to the ticket booth, where he was stationed every night. If he saw a cop in uniform or suspected one had infiltrated the audience in disguise, he threw on the
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