Finocchio’s – a nightclub: Part I: the early years

Original version, January 2010.

Part I: the early years

Part II: post WWII 

Part I: the early years

Joe Finocchio (1897 - 1986) was born in Italy.  His father Bernardo Finocchio emigrated to San Francisco, and at age 14 Joe, the eldest child, joined him. His first job was in the produce market at $2 a week.  He served in the US army during the Great War (March 1918-February 1919).  Alcohol Prohibition came in January 1920, and in August and September that year Joe working in a restaurant was arrested three times in Prohibition raids.  In the third, officers confiscated two truckloads of wine and whisky, as well as liquor from the tables. A search produced more liquor stashed in various places throughout the restaurant.  Joe was bailed at $1,000.   Also that year Bernardo visited Italy and returned with the rest of his children, two girls and a boy.  He now owned the Hotel Maxwelton at 515 Bush Street (near Grant Avenue), and Joe took over the management there. He also worked in a speakeasy owned by his father.

By early 1925 Joe was married, to Marjorie Faxon (1891-1956), a divorcee with a teenage son and an upscale beauty shop.  In 1929 Majorie Faxon Finocchio bought the 201 Club, a speakeasy at 406 Stockton Street in the Tenderloin.  Joe worked there part-time.  The club attracted a mixed gay-straight crowd including writers, artists and thespians.  Some would perform for their friends, and as such for the other customers.  One night a customer in mufti performed an imitation of the legendary Sophie Tucker. This gave Joe and Marge the idea of a nightclub with men performing with all the glitter, sophistication and glamour of sophisticated women.   Initially the show was a female impersonator paired with a exotic dancer – hula or Chinese.  This arrangement attracted a gay clientele.  Harry Hay, the future gay activist, met men there. 

Elsewhere in California: 1932 had been a peak year for pansy revues (which featured female impersonation) with appearances in Los Angeles by Karyl Norman and Jean Malin, and the next year Hollywood made a record number of films with pansy content. However, from 1932 onwards, and especially after the end of Alcohol Prohibition in 1933, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) started busting the pansy clubs. BBB's Cellar and Jimmie's Back Yard were raided repeatedly. The raid on The Big House in fall 1932 met resistance: the patrons fought back and a female impersonator attempted to escape through a window. The bar, renamed Buddy's Rendezvous, reopened, and the police returned eight months later and arrested five transvestites on vagrancy charges. In November 1933 another raid on Jimmie's Back Yard resulted in 90-day sentences for the owner, the mistress of ceremonies and the piano player. Three other female impersonators were each sentenced to six months – the maximum penalty. Harold Brown, arrested on suspicion of posing as a narcotics officer, was discovered to be female bodied and got a suspended 30-day sentence for masquerading. Three pansy bars were shut down in 1936, and another three the next year. Frank Shaw, the Los Angeles Mayor, ran a notably corrupt administration from 1933 until he was recalled in 1938. He was opposed by Clifford Clinton, a restaurateur, who with others filed a grand jury report that led to the recall. Part of Shaw's fight back was to step up the attack on 'sex pervert' bars.

With the repeal of Prohibition, the 201 Club had been able to promote itself more openly, and they hired more dancers and expanded the floor show. Freddie Renault, with experience in ballet and musical comedy joined the cast.

However performers mixed with the customers, and were paid on a percentage basis. This was not permitted by new police regulations.  San Francisco Police Chief William Quinn announced , “Lewd entertainers must be stopped!”  In the early morning of July 20, 1936, the 201 Club was crowded, and five female impersonators were doing a dance routine followed by a ‘vulgar parody’.  A police officer took the microphone and announced: “This place is under arrest. Patrons will not be molested. Those who have nothing to do with this place may leave without fear of arrest.”  120+ patrons quickly left.  10 persons remained, and were taken to the Hall of Justice.  Joe and Marge Finocchio and Jack Peterson the club manager were charged with keeping a disorderly house, selling liquor after 2:00 a.m., and employing entertainers on a percentage basis. However as the raid took place at 1:45 the Finocchios were able to challenge the charge of selling after 2:00.  The performers, Walter Hart (the male Sophie Tucker), Carroll Davis, Eugene Countryman, Jack Lopez, Dick Vasquez, and Frank Korpi were booked on vagrancy charges, a $1,000 fine.  The following day, the municipal judge  sentenced Hart and Davis to 30 days in the county jail.  The arresting officers said that Eugene Countryman took no part in the singing, so he was given a thirty-day suspended sentence. The Judge dismissed charges against the other performing defendants. The Finocchios asked for a jury trial, charging that the undercover police specifically requested songs in contention.  Apparently a settlement was reached in that there were no further reports in the press.

The publicity brought in even more customers.  That November there was a write up in the Chronicle on Joe Finocchio when he flew to South Bend, Indiana via Chicago to purchase a luxurious Studebaker Dictator Coupe, and drove it back to San Francisco, a trip that took six days.

The Finocchios realized that tourist business was the growth portion of their clientele, and, as such, being located in the seedy Tenderloin was a problem. They elsewhere found a suitable nightclub space with a stage and orchestra pit at 506 Broadway above Enrico’s Café.  There was an outside stairway for easy access.  The sign outside was now ‘Finocchio’s’ and the club opened 15 July 1937.  They hired more impersonators, and enlarged the band to five performers. Marjorie planned the entertainment on a grand scale. She booked the finest entertainers, supervised and planned elaborate productions. Joe dealt with the drinks, and negotiated with the police. The club was allowed to exist because it became a tourist attraction, a symbol of the city’s sophistication. Joe had to promise the police that the entertainers would not mingle with the customers. Tourist magazines billed Finocchio’s as ‘America’s most unusual night club’. The club had always included ethnic impersonators, and this continued. Li-Kar did a Geisha dance; Billy Herrero recreated Hedy Lamarr in the film Algiers, 1938;  in 1940 the club developed an Argentine feature; later Juan Jose did a flamenco dance; Reene de Carlo a hula dance; Bobby de Castro did a striptease in a gorilla costume (this was supposed to be Cuban).    Top female impersonators were booked.  They advertised as “Where the entertainment is different, and how”.  That the performers were female impersonators was an open secret, but was not admitted within the show until the end when performers as per tradition removed their wigs.

Herb Caen, who would become a celebrity columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle and was noted for his sarcasm, joined the paper in 1938.  He often referred to Finocchio’s as the Italian-Swish Colony.  His put-downs of the club were taken in good-humor and were after-all publicity for the club.  The February – October 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, a World’s Fair was held on an artificially built island in San Francisco Bay to celebrate the two new bridges, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge. Although not part of the Exposition, Finocchio’s benefited by being the main attraction down town. 

In late 1939, a newly hired waiter, George Dasch, was causing disruption in the kitchen by arguing the Nazi cause.  Marge quickly fired him.  (In 1942, he returned to the US as part of the Third Reich’s Operation Pastorius. Dasch betrayed his colleagues and defected to the FBI.  Most of the team were captured, tried and then executed.  Dasch, despite his defection, was sentenced to 30 years, but released and deported after 6.)

Marjorie

The ‘After Dark’ column in the Chronicle declared in January 1941 that Finocchio’s was one of the places that made San Francisco famous. In September 1941, Herb Caen was repeating gossip that the Finocchios had “rifted to the point where they’re discussing property settlement”, and the next day the Chronicle reported “Mrs. Joe Finocchio, soon-to-be-divorced wife of the No. Beach night club operator, fell off her new boat in the bay the other day – and was rescued by a sailor who got to her just in time”.  Joe had been seeing Eva/Eve Filippis, a recent immigrant from Italy, who had given birth to a daughter 1 February 1941 whom she named Concetta Finocchio.  It was claimed that Marjorie had divorced Joe for ‘extreme cruelty’ in 1941 and that then Joe and Eve were married – however recent researchers have failed to find the records.  Joe and Marge continued to live at the same address.  Marjorie made it very clear that Eve Filippis was never to enter the club.

Other than that, there was a little trouble at the club during the war years.  Many civilians moved to San Francisco to take jobs in the shipyards.  Accommodation was available in the Fillmore district from which the Japanese-Americans had been interned. The still underage Tony Midnight, who was working in munitions during the war, snuck into Finocchio’s using fake ID.

In 1942 military authorities declared Finocchio's "off limits" for selling liquor to WWII military personnel outside of authorized hours. That temporary sanction was lifted New Year's Eve 1943 after Joe Finocchio and other bar owners signed an agreement to limit liquor sales to military personnel to between 5 pm and midnight. Beer could, however, be sold between 10 am and midnight.

Despite the growing rift between Joe and Marjorie, they continued to collaborate and in March 1943 opened a new lounge adjacent to the main auditorium.

Harvey Goodwin moved to San Francisco and became a performer at Finocchio's night club.

Rae Bourbon had been arrested during a police raid while broadcasting live from Tait’s in San Francisoco in 1933.  A decade later she was back in town and headlining at Finocchio’s, as was Karyl Norman, billed as the highest paid female impersonator at the time.

In late 1941 Tex Hendrix from England became the emcee. He wowed the audiences by changing evening gowns for each of his 12 acts.

The ex-tight-rope walker from Barnum and Bailey’s circus, Nicki Gallucci came to sing at Finocchio’s.  Gallucci was a natural soprano, the only male coloratura soprano capable of reaching high D above middle C.

Carol Davis often sang in a tux behind the Theatre Bar.  His act was to look like a woman dressed like a man.

The 1944 program designed by Ki-Lar

In 1945 there was a rumor that Errol Flynn, David Niven and two others had taken Finocchio’s Pussy Katt (then aged 16) and friends back to a hotel suite at the Fairmont for a night of ‘debauchery’. Gossip columnist Louella Parsons heard this, but couldn’t use it. Howard Hughes who had first met Katt when he escorted Ava Gardner to Finocchio’s, returned for another meeting, and became her lover. Later Hughes flew with Katt to Mexico City for an operation that made her America's first surgical transsexual, and she was paid $50,000. Afterwards he installed her in a villa in the new resort of Acapulco, and repeatedly visited her for almost two years.