The Big Times

I had recently returned to Rochester, New York, from my ill-fated trip to Arizona with my ex-boyfriend, Frank. A delightful fellow with a rap sheet longer than my very long legs for a short girl. He introduced me to the world of running from the police and dodging, ducking, and diving from uppercuts and right hooks. We had met at a strip club where we were both working. He was not a stripper. I was. He was the manager.

What was supposed to be a vacation in Florida turned into a cross-country trip to escape his previous crimes. The entire trip ended up being one miserable disaster after another, with me being dragged along behind each and every one of his terrible decisions.

When he left me in Arizona for a middle-aged bar-maid I went back to Rochester, thirty pounds lighter, brokenhearted and penniless. It took me weeks to get back my confidence onstage. When I finally realized no one was going to slap me around after work for some imaginary infraction and that no one was going to take my pay and spend it on other women I was free to put my energy and my pay into creating specialty strip shows with coordinating music and costumes. I had about three new themed shows that put me a little bit over my pay rate in the local clubs.

My agent decided it was time for me to work the strip circuits. The first was the Ohio tour. One week each in Akron, Columbus, Cleveland, and Youngstown. I was not thrilled to be working in the nude, but the xxx theaters didn’t really require much in the way of explicit nudity from me. Which was good because they weren’t going to get it even if they required it.

Akron and Columbus were pretty uneventful bookings. The only absurdity was when one of the other strippers came back to the dressing room sick to her stomach. “You’re not going to believe me, but three guys right in the front row were jerking off during my show. I want to go back to the hotel and take a shower. I think I’m going to puke.”

I suppose we shouldn’t have been surprised. This was a porn theater showing disgustingly nasty movies all day long. It wasn’t like these guys had an exciting social life in the outside world they were saving it up for. Somehow, though, we were totally grossed out and shocked by this activity. I was thankful for the fact that, without my glasses, I was blissfully unaware of the field of short-stemmed roses that sprouted up before me during shows. The loud music camouflaged the persistent, “whump, whump, whump”, of busy hands, and further shielded me from the fact that my work venue was troubling on so many different levels.

Other than that repulsive revelation, there was no offstage drama at this place. I liked my co-workers, and the staff at the theater was very much, “hands-off” the talent and truly helpful. When I boarded the bus that week it was with a bit of sadness, because everyone I had worked with was especially congenial and normal. It was a welcome bit of peace in my usually turbulent life. No dancers dating the stage door Johnnies, no one doing obscenely revolting shows. Just normal women trying to make a living. It energized me and encouraged me to continue being myself with no apologies and do the best job I could in my new career, despite the audience’s sloppy applause.

The next stop was Cleveland, Ohio and the theater was another one of those 1920 art deco monstrosities that had been sitting for decades waiting to be reimagined as pleasure palaces for the socially awkward males in our society. These theaters were absolute architectural wonders- if you ignored the DNA-stained seating and the sticky floors. Gold-painted, plaster ornamental frills and crystal chandeliers dangled over shredded oriental-style carpeting and filigreed railings, while exotic dancers wriggled and writhed on stages decked out with sumptuous velvet curtains. These places must have cost a fortune to build and at one time had to be the finest destinations in their respective downtowns. How sad, truly, that these beautiful wonders had fallen to this state.

The theater in Cleveland was called The Paris, the same as the theater in Akron. It was either a chain of adult theaters or else someone thought calling it something Continental would elevate its social standing. What I loved about that place was the stage. Oh, my. When I saw that beautiful, shiny, hardwood stage with the wide runway flowing from the apron I was ready to hop onto it and start dancing right away.

The manager, Charlie, was an elderly man suffering from lung cancer, who had just returned from a trip to Mexico for cancer treatments he couldn’t afford to get in the US. He was kind, hairless, and harmless. While we were waiting for the other dancers to show up, he showed me around the sound and light booth. To my delight, they had a newfangled cassette tape deck wired into the sound system. This week was going to be a dream come true. I asked him to play one of my new tapes and couldn’t believe the difference in sound from having it played on a portable tape player with a microphone set up in front of it. He promised to have the sound and light guy help me make more show tapes during the week with the fancy equipment.

The other girls showed up later in the afternoon, coming from farther away than I had, and we all went to the apartment we were sharing down the street. I was a bit concerned that the apartment also included Charlie, but because of his condition, it wasn’t too worrying. Charlie spent most of his time in the bathroom vomiting after his treatments in Mexico. Maybe it was good that he wouldn’t be alone. Although, we were a little creeped out by sharing the apartment with a man. Weren’t we an odd lot? Here we were, making our living by enticing men in our undress. Yet, we were squeamish about sharing a bathroom with a male.

Once again, the feature dragged along her huge steamer trunk to the dressing room and when she opened it up it contained exactly one dusty, wrinkled black sequin gown, a feather boa, several threadbare G-strings, a pair of worn spike heels, and piles of promo-photos. Sheesh. I guess the secret was if the management thought you had an endless wardrobe in that trunk, they would believe you were star material. Once the trunk was in the dressing room, they’d never know you had diddly squat. She had promo photos and I guess that was all they wanted from a feature.

The feature’s performance was as empty as her suitcase. She just sort of slumped along, back and forth, up and down the runway, playing with her feathered boa. Her act’s finale was her lying on her back, flossing with the feathers, which totally grossed me out. That boa was going to be wrapped around her shoulders the next show. I made sure to keep my costumes and makeup far away from that woman. She wasn’t a terrible person- just unhygienic. I have always been a germophobe and a compulsive hand-washer, fearful of stair railings, toilets, water faucets, door knobs… and now, feather boas.

The other dancer, Billie, looked like a pretty housewife from a cleaning product commercial. Seriously. She was taken aback when I commented on it, but she must not have been too upset with me because we hung out most of the week. Cleveland had a Woolworths that was within walking distance from the apartment. We went hunting for treasures and lunched there most of the time. There was also an all-night diner up the street from the theater, where we all went for breakfast after the midnight show, dragging Charlie along, because we didn’t want to leave him out.

True to his word, Charlie arranged to have the sound and light guy help us make show tapes during our breaks. When Phil listened to my tapes he just laughed and shook his shaggy head. I still had the records I’d used for the tapes because the new technology seemed unreliable to me. He told me to just leave him the records in the order they were supposed to be played and he’d record the tapes again with the sound equipment. I asked if there was a Sam Goody’s around so I could buy more tapes because the show tapes had already been used. Again, with the laugh and the shaggy shake.

“Nope. Don’t worry. You can record these tapes again and again and they’ll sound like new. This tapes directly off the record player internally and if I make a mistake in the order of songs or in your announcement, I just do it again. Relax- I’ve got this.”

He made tapes for Billie and “Cherry Sweet”, the feature. Cherry Sweet? Right. She was about forty, a little overweight, and hadn’t been a cherry in a very long time. He let us dig around in the record bins and I found my White Satin music and songs for a new show- Singing in the Rain.

Phil thought I needed a stage name for the announcements, and he came up with “Tina D”. It wasn’t my first choice, but he was doing me a big favor, so I went with it. The new show, “Singing in the Rain”, was something I’d been thinking about for a while. Of course, it would open with the original recording of Singing in the Rain, Rainy Days and Mondays, by the Carpenters, Rain on the Roof, by the Lovin Spoonful, and finally Bus Stop by the Hollies. I would need a clear raincoat, an umbrella, and some clear beads to hang from the bottom of the umbrella. I considered rain boots until I saw the only rain boots in my price range were those old-fashioned, clear plastic boots with the elastic loop closures that my Grandma D’Angelo wore. Yeah, no. That show would have to wait.

In Cleveland, I was able to try out my doll show and work the kinks out of it onstage because it was Thanksgiving week and the theater was a little slower than normal. Charlie explained how the term ‘turkey audience’ was coined. After Thanksgiving Dinner, the crowds would fall asleep in their seats, and entertainers for decades called them turkeys. We also learned that the Paris Theater had a legendary ghost stalking it at night. According to lore, a heartbroken young actress during the 1930s had committed suicide by diving headfirst off a balcony and landing on a back row of seats. The management had that row removed and declared that no actor or actress from that day forward could wear yellow in The Paris. It was the color the actress had worn, during her fatal fall, and the legend claimed that if her ghost saw a yellow costume, the same fate would claim the wearer.

It sounds ridiculous until you’re the last entertainer in that cavernous, old dressing room after the midnight show and you’re sure you heard rustling sounds or saw a flash of yellow near the curtains. This was an empty, creepy auditorium after the midnight show and all we wanted was to get the hell out of there and eat breakfast someplace busy and bright.

Charlie, bless his heart, made sure we celebrated Thanksgiving together at the apartment. We all pitched in to help him put the meal together. He was happy to have the company, I’m sure. We were happy someone cared enough to make certain we had a normal Thanksgiving meal, even though we still had two more shows to do that night. A very good time to try dancing to my new shows, even though the costumes weren’t ready. With only half a dozen guys in the audience…sleeping, it didn’t really matter. Dancing after Thanksgiving turkey and gravy was a challenge though. Oh, my.

Cherry Sweet told Billie and me that we had dodged a bullet by being sent to The Paris. She had just finished two weeks at the Roxy on the other side of Cleveland and it was pretty raw there. She said the dancers barely got onstage before they stripped completely and started doing “spreads”. (Exposing themselves completely to the audience). The strippers at the Roxy made tips from the audience because the seats were within reach of the stage. The girls wore garters high up on their thighs and let the customers touch them, “accidentally”, while inserting bills in their garters. The more touching they allowed the more money they made. Billie and I were shocked and glad we hadn’t been sent there. Billie was from Dayton, Ohio, and hadn’t danced too far from home at that point. That was good information to tuck away in case my agent, Don, ever planned on sending me to the Roxy.

While working in Cleveland I learned more about agents. Apparently, there were agents who could send us all over the country if we wanted to travel. Cherry and Billie, both gave me the names and numbers of their agents for the future. Two more days to go in Cleveland and I was already missing the other dancers, Charlie, Phil, and Sandy, the big, cheerful lady at the concession stand. So far, it had been a week of successes and good times. But, as I would come to realize in this business, the next stop was always calling, making it easier and easier to leave people and places behind for new adventures.

II