Finocchio’s – post WWII

 Original version, January 2010.

 Part I: the early years

Part II: post WWII 

In 1946, Joe, and other club owners, were having problems with the Board of Fire Prevention and Investigation after a fire at the Herbert Hotel and Backstage Cocktail Lounge in which four firemen had lost their lives.  Temporarily the number of patrons was limited to 250, until required structural changes were made.  

During this time Majorie was absent.  On 16 July it was reported that she had married another clubman, Percy Harman of San Mateo, in Calexico on the Mexican border, but only four days later, back in San Francisco, she obtained a separation and the restoration of her Finocchio name.  She explained that immediately after the marriage, Harman had pestered her for large sums of money.

In September 1947 a burglar entered the home of Joe and Marjorie and took $40,000 in furs and a safe containing $15,000.  While the break-in occurred at about 10.30 pm, it was not discovered until the 350lb house safe was discovered by a motorist at 1:45am southwest of the city.  The safe had been punched open.  The Finocchios, still at the club were informed by the police, and hurried home.

Howard Hughes grew bored with Pussy Katt. However, he did finance a drag club for her in Acapulco which they called Finocchio’s South.  In later years she performed at Madame Arthur’s in Paris.

William Stoffler, a San Francisco stockbroker, married and noted for his good looks, became a dancer at Finocchio’s, and an occasional date of Howard Hughes.  His suspicious wife discovered his second life, and divorced him. 

In 1948, the Finocchios sued four former employees, Ray Bourbon, Jackie May, Johnnie Magnum, and Francis Russell, for putting out records and advertising with the words “The new Bourbon Records presents the world’s foremost female impersonators from Finocchio’s of San Francisco”.  Later that year Joe and Marjorie travelled together to England. 

The 5^th edition of Where to Sin in San Francisco, 1948, asked “Is it true what they say about Finocchio’s?”, and answered: 

“Yes, it is. Even if the girls were women, the shows would be provocative. But the artists in the costly gowns are not women. Without saying what they are, twinkling Marjorie Finocchio does declare, “They’re the only stable ones in the country.” Tall, beautiful, stable Freddie Renault, the $200-a-week MC, has been here fourteen years. . . . Cute, Oriental Li Kar, double stable after ten years, is both a dancer and the club’s costume designer. . . . Stablest of all is Walter Hart, $275-a-week specialist in murky songs.”

Walter Hart, had been at Finocchios since 1933.  He was billed as the male Sophie Tucker, and the real Sophie Tucker was delighted.  She gave him many of the gowns and furs he wore and never failed to catch his show when in the city.  However in 1948, as Herb Caen wrote: “ After 15 solid years on the job, Entertainer Walter Hart is out of Finocchio’s, on acct. some verbal twanging with Mrs. F. That’s sort of like the last ferry leaving the Ferry Bldg”.  However Hart soon found employment at the Tivoli.

Lucian Phelps took over the “male Sophie Tucker” persona, and, as with Walter Hart, the real Sophie Tucker caught his act and sent him gowns and furs. 

The 1949 San Francisco Real Property Directory listed only Marjorie as the club owner.

By 1950 the City Directory listed Joseph and Eve Finocchio living at the same address.

The local competition was the Black Cat Bar, which was developing from being a bohemian and Beat bar, to being more gay.   Jose Sarria entered a competition to get a gig at Finocchio’s, but did not get it, and then went to the Black Cat where he started as a waiter, and graduated to being the major singer, openly gay, openly in drag, singing a re-working of Bizet’s Carmen.  Unlike Finocchio’s, customers were permitted to dress as they chose.  In 1951 the State Board of Equalization suspended the Black Cat's liquor license in that known homosexuals ate and drank there.

The other competition was Jewel Box Revue, and many of the impersonator stars worked for both the Revue and Finnochio’s at different times.  As a touring revue, the Jewel Box was in San Francisco only intermittently.  However, even when the Revue was in town, Finocchio’s was filled to capacity, four shows a night, six nights a week, attracting locals, tourists and celebrities such as Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Bette Davis and Tallulah Bankhead. 

1954: UCLA psychologist Evelyn Hooker started her groundbreaking work comparing the psychological adjustment of homosexual and heterosexual men that showed that gay men were not significantly different.  Her research included a visit to Finocchio’s.

Marjorie died in 1956 after a lingering illness.  Joe then married Eve, and Eve was finally allowed into the club, and quickly took over Marjorie’s role. She took over with a vengeance.  Her brother George Filippis also came in as club manager, her sister Maria Filippis as the cashier and Eve’s teenage daughter Concetta as the official photographer.   Joe continued to oversee the bar and the door.   The huge photos of the performers which were hanging in the club and outside on the street were all taken down. The club was redecorated – the décor was said to be based on that of Le Carrousel of Paris – and at the same time Le Carrousel star Les Lee was hired. 

Another new hire was Lavern Cummings, who sang as both soprano and baritone, and who stayed until 1982.

A chorus line, Las Vegas style, were introduced known as the Eve-ettes, after the second Mrs Finocchio. Eve quickly cut the number of musicians from five to three, and refused to be addressed as ‘Madame’ as that was how Marjorie had been addressed.

1958: Francis Blair, star of Seatle’s Garden of Allah, also performed a comedy drag routine with Ray Francis, “Two Old Bags from Oakland” which they did at Finocchio’s that year.

In the summer of 1959, the future Aleshia Brevard, moved to Los Angles and found a Catholic priest lover who, after giving her gonorrhea, took her to San Francisco and to see the show at Finocchio’s.  Lucian as Sophie Tucker fabricated a story about having a training school for impersonators, and picked out Aleshia in the audience and said "And this, ladies and gentlemen, is my star pupil.   Isn't she beautiful?   Stand up and take a bow."   Aleshia then knew what she wanted.  “I auditioned at Finocchio's, based solely on a photograph I'd submitted.   Before having that audition photo taken, I'd never been in female attire. Talk about an untrained 'New Nanette'!   I would have never gotten hired at the most prestigious impersonation club in the country if it had it not been for Stormy Lee, Finocchio's star exotic dancer.   People HATED Stormy, I'm well aware of that, but she put me under her protective wing on the night of my audition.”   Aleshia was given the stage name of “Lee Shaw” by the MC Lestra Lamonte. Aleshia had the looks and developed an act as Marilyn Monroe singing "My Heart Belongs To Daddy".  The real Monroe came one night to see the act.

'Lee Shaw' and Eve

Aleshia and Stormy had extra kudos in that they each had a boyfriend. Off-stage Aleshia became a patient of Harry Benjamin during his summer sojourns in San Francisco – it was Stormy who shared her Premarin and then took Aleshia to her first appointment with Harry Benjamin.  The aspect that Aleshia hated most was “having to remove my makeup and despised dressing in men's clothes before leaving the club - but that was the law.   What I detested most was how Mrs. Finocchio's sister, Maria, who sold tickets, would call out ‘Good night, Lee Shaw’ - or whomever, as we were exiting the club.   She was pointing out to lingering customers how impersonators looked 'off stage'.   I always felt that was very unkind.”

Libby Reynolds, two years after his tryst with actor Raymond Burr, and then selling the story to Confidential Magazine, was hired in 1962.  

Aleshia/Lee Shaw left the club in 1962, and was one of the last trans woman to have surgery with Dr Elmer Belt in Los Angeles.  This was to the chagrin of the Finocchios who threatened that she would never work again.

There was a shortage of dancers at the club.  Reggie Dahl was in the hospital, a Spanish dancer by the name of Néstor had a mental breakdown, and the only dancer left at the club was Stormy Lee.   Robin Price, previously of the Jewel Box, heard of the vacancy and came from Los Angeles to audition, and was not hired.  However Price was phoned a few days later, asked if she could do the Can-Can, and after a second audition was hired.

Concetta, Eve’s daughter, graduated from UC Berkeley.  In 1963 she married Eric Jorgensen, and they called their first child Eric.

Stormy had surgery the next year with Dr Burou in Casablanca.  Lestra Lamonte, the emcee died, and Price became the new emcee.  Price fell out with Eve Finocchio when she tried to tell him not to visit a certain club on his own time, despite her sister going to the same place.  They stopped talking until the last day of Price’s contract, when Eve finally wanted to talk, but Price simple packed bags and left.

The Black Cat Bar,  following some 15 years of unrelenting pressure from the police and the Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) finally closed in1963.

Carroll Wallace, who had a sideline as a real-estate investor, became the emcee. As such he  had to do the stage lighting and sound, which was not easy and it was very tiring on his feet to be standing for the whole show.

David de Alba joined as a star performer in 1971, and he did hair-styling and wigs for the other performers.  Two years later, he asked permission for four days off for plastic surgery.  However on returning he found that he had been fired, and was told to pick up his costumes, make-up cases, wigs and musical charts.  He still did wigs and hair styling for the other performers, and was often contracted as a guest star.  “What I didn’t realize at the time was that there was a new cost cutting trend going on at the club.   Mrs. Finocchio was getting rid of the main supporting acts and replacing them with members of her beloved chorus line, 'The Eve-ettes'.   They now had two jobs, being in the chorus and then as main supporting acts.   So there you had it, two acts for the price of one!”

Lucian Phelps, 65, who had performed at Finocchio’s since 1949, died after a long illness in 1973. 

An ad 1977 

A wildfire destroyed the area surrounding the Jorgensen house, but not their house.

Jae Stevens, 27, was a performer at Finocchio’s when she was murdered in Golden Gate Park in 1974.  The police actually pulled over her car, presumably driven by her murderer, but, after a chase and a crash into a house, the man escaped.

Mr and Mrs Jorgensen had three more children, and then were divorced, leaving Concetta as a single mother of four.  The very same year she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.  She became a disability activist, did publicity for the club and despite her disability – and she was eventually a paraplegic - she was 30 years on the Alameda County Consumer Affairs Commission.

In 1981, in an interview in the San Francisco Chronicle, Joe was quoted: “We always keep our eyes open. It’s easy to get fellows in women’s clothes. But we don’t allow any filth, and most of them resort to filth.”  Eve did the first interview, and if Joe agreed, Eve made arrangements for costuming and rehearsals.  At that time dancers were paid $80 to $125 a week.  Eve arranged for Holiday Tours and Gray Lines to add Finocchio’s to their tour lists.  Gray Lines included a Finocchio’s photograph in its brochure.  During the 1970s, as topless and then bottomless revue bars had opened, there had been fears that business at Finocchio’s would decline. But with time the topless bars became passé and Finocchio’s was still going.  In the late 1970s it managed as many as 300,000 customers a year. There were four shows a night, each running about an hour. The shows had themes that were not always the same from show to show, and guests could stay for extra shows.

Joe Finocchio died of a stroke in January 1986, aged 88. This left Eve as the sole owner.  She brought in Eric Jorgensen, Concetta’s eldest son, then 23 to be groomed as a future manager – which he was by 1989.  Eve continued to manage the shows and performers, but the zest was declining.  Gray Lines dropped Finocchio’s in 1988, but later restored it.   An article in the Chronicle in 1989 claimed that Finocchio was grossing $2 million a year.  However in 1990 they upped the cover charge from $10 to $15, with a new two-drink minimum, and now opened only four days: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Again in 1991, a wildfire destroyed the surrounding area, but again not the Jorgensen house.  A television movie was made of the event, Firestorm: 72 Hours in Oakland. Actress Jill Clayburgh played a character based on Concetta Jorgensen. 

 A few years later Finocchio’s started presenting lip-synching performers – weakening what had made the club special.  Eve later fired the band and it became all lip-synching.  The press paid less and less attention.  Openings were reduced to only three nights: Friday to Sunday, and only three shows a night.  Sometimes there were no customers, and the show was cancelled.

Eve Finocchio decided to close the club in November 1999 because of a major rent increase and dwindling attendance.

Eve died 2007, age 92.

Concetta Finocchio Jorgensen, daughter of Eve died in 2012, age 71, survived by 4 children and 12 grandchildren.

Lavern Cummings died in 2018 age 91 in Las Vegas after being hit by a car.

Other artists who performed there include: Katherine Marlow, Holly White, Russell Reed, Val DeVere, Ted Hendrix, Harvey Lee, Francis Stillman, Jeri-Lane, Frank Doran, Jackie Philips, Bobby Johnson, John Lonas, Vaughn Auldon, Johnny Mangum, Del LeRoy, Milton La Maire, Ray Francis, Francis David, Paul La Ray, Mike Michelle, Bobby Belle.

 

--------------------------------

• “Police Raiders Arrest Ten in S.F. Night Club: Patrons Rush for Exits as Officers Visit Finocchio’s”.  San Francisco Chronicle. July 20, 1936: 5.
• Ki-Lar Finocchio’s.  Finocchio’s program, 1944. Online.
• “Ex-Finocchio Wife Divorced: ‘Quickie’ Marriage to San Mateo Man Aired in Action”. San Francisco Examiner, Aug 2, 1946,
• “Finocchio Defies Order To Close S.F. Night Club: Fire Marshal Threatens to Jail Owner For Disregard of Safety Rules”.  San Francisco Examiner, Aug 24, 1946: 5.
• “Finocchio Home Looted of Furs”.  San Francisco Examiner, Sep 11, 1947:11.
• Jack Lord and Lloyd Hoff, Where to Sin in San Francisco, 5th ed. (San Francisco: Richard F. Guggenheim, 1948), 145.
• “In Memoriam: Lucian Phelps”.  Drag, 3, 10, 1973:40. Online.
• “In Memoriam: Jae Stevens 1947-1974”.  Drag, 4, 16, 1974:34. Online.
• “San Francisco drag bar owner Joseph Finocchio dies at 88’.  Santa Cruz Sentinel, Jan 15, 1986:10.
• Norman Melnick. “Deaths: Joseph Finocchio”.  San Francisco Examiner, Jan 15, 1986: 19.
• Jacqueline Frost. “Home alone: ‘House of mixed blessings’ in lunar landscape: Fire survivors lament lost neighborhoods”. Oakland Tribune. Jan 27, 1992:1.
• Tracie Reynolds.  “Star Struck: Survivor to give proceeds to son, who suffered burns: Firestorm victim with multiple sclerosis sells story to TV”. Oakland Tribune. Nov 9, 1992:1.
• Michael Tuchner (dir). Firestorm: 72 Hours in Oakland. With Jill Clayburgh playing a character based on Concetta Jorgensen.  US 104 mins 1993. IMDB.
• Les Wright. “San Francisco”. In David Higgs (ed). Queer Sites: Gay Urban Histories Since 1600. Routledge, 1999: 171-2.
• Jesse Hamlin.  “Strutting Into History / Laughter gives way to tears as Finocchio's ends 63-year drag-show run”,  San Francisco Chronicle, 29 November 1999.
• Jesse Hamlin.  “What a Drag: Finocchio’s to Close/Cross-dressers have entertained at club for 63 years”.  SFGate, Nov 4, 1999.  Online.
• Nan Alamilla Boyd. Wide Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965. University of California Press, 2003: 49,52-6,187.
• D.J. Doyle. “Finochio’s”. Queer Musical Heritage.   http://www.queermusicheritage.us/oct2002f.html. 
• “David de Alba on Finocchio's”.   www.david-de-alba.com/david4.htm.  www.david-de-alba.com/david5.htm.
• “David de Alba on Shaw”. www.david-de-alba.com/aleshia.htm.
• “David de Alba on Price”.  www.david-de-alba.com/Price.htm.
• Mel Gordon et al. "UC Berkeley Interview on Finocchio Club Legend: David de Alba". http://david-de-alba.com/Berkeley%20Interview.htm
• Aleshia Brevard. The Woman I Not Was Born to Be: A Transsexual Journey. Temple University Press, 2001:
• Darwin Porter.  Howard Hughes: Hell’s Angel.  Blood Moon Productions, 2010: 575-6, 593-5, 733.
• Aleshia Brevard. The Woman I Was Born to Be. A Blue Feather Book, 2010:
• Kathleen Brosnan & Amy Scott.  City Dreams, Country Schemes: Community and Identity in the American West.  University of Nevada Press, 2011: 248-250.
• Chris Treadway. “Berkeley disabled rights activist dies at 70”. The Mercury News, January 11, 2012. Online.
• David Artavia.  “Trans Trailblazer Aleshia Brevard Dead at 79”.  The Advocate, July 25, 2017.  Online.
• James Smith.  “Finocchio’s club: A San Francisco Legend”.  The Argonaut, 28, 2, Winter 2018. Online.
• James Smith. “Finocchio’s” Except from San Francisco’s Lost Landmarks.  Online.
• Susan Stryker. “Finocchio's, a Short Retrospective”.  FoundSF: the San Francisco digital history archive.  Online.
• Michail Takach & B J Daniels.  A History of Milwaukee Drag: Seven Generations of Glamour.  History Press, 2022: 64-6.
• Margot Canaday.  Queer Career: Sexuality and Work in Modern America. Princeton University Press, 2023: 95-99.
• Lucas Hilderbrand. The Bars are Ours: Histories and Cultures of Gay Bars in America, 1960 and After.  Duke University Press, 2023: 74-5, 77.

 

EN.Wikipedia    GLBT Historical Society   Online Archive of California    Queer Music Heritage     Digital Commonwealth 

 

Discussion in other books:

Canaday: 

“For the trans women who performed at Finocchio’s, this was more than just a job. The actress Aleshia Brevard was first taken to the night club by a man she was involved with and “instantly felt she had to be there. …  It was common, she remembered, for trans women to dance at Finocchio’s just long enough to earn the money for surgery and then leave. As a result, Finocchio’s eventually preferred hiring cross-dressers to trans women because they tended to stay on the job.”  

She also includes a footnote Chp 2 n167 

“Friedman thought (citing letters between the sexologists Harry Benjamin and William Masters) that a date with a performer at Finocchio’s (usually made through a waiter) could be arranged for around $50. The higher price was because these women were, according to some, considered exotic. Certain young gay hustlers “who ordinarily might not have cross-dressed” did so in order to command a higher wage.”  

This is taken from Harvey Friedman. Strapped for Cash: A History of American Hustler Culture, 2010: 124-5.  This in turn is based on Harry Benjamin & R E L Masters. Prostitution and Morality, 1964: 305-9, which does not actually mention Finocchio’s but the comment probably does apply to it. 

“Impersonators  working  in  clubs,  and  making  their  contacts  there,  earn  far  more  money  than  do  other  types  of  male  hustlers,  for  the  reason,  no  doubt,  that  they  are  to  some  extent  “celebrities.”  Fifty dollar  fees  are  not  unusual,  and  at  the  club  most  intensively  studied,  a  $20.00  fee  for  a  single  sexual  act  was  the  absolute  minimum  the  prostitutes  would  consider.”

Takach &  Daniels: 

“Despite offering drag shows for seven decades, Finocchio’s was never really a gay-friendly destination. The club capitalized on its gay performers for amusement, but its owners never really wanted to deal with gay customers.  While Joe Finocchio provided gainful employment to generations of gay men who might otherwise struggle to survive in San Francisco, he was always more interested in running a profitable tourist attraction than a LGBTQ safe space, social outlet or historical landmark. … Joe’s first wife, Marjorie, was the front face of the operation. … Robyn Raye, an impersonator … said of Marge Finocchio, ‘I don’t think she liked gay people, but she certainly knew how to use them.’ … ‘Marge Finocchio made millions off drag queens. We made that woman rich.’ “

My comments:

’finocchio’ is Italian for fennel and by extension a negative word for gay. Some say that this is because its bulb looks like male genitals, but the corresponding word in Portuguese, ‘fanchono’ would seem to be cognate.

Rachel Harlow in Philadelphia was also born with the Finocchio name.  However there does not seem to be any connection between the San Francisco Finocchios and those of Philadelphia.  Likewise there does not seem to be any connection between the San Francisco Jorgensens (the family of Concetta’s husband), and the family of Christine Jorgensen in New York City.  The fact that Concetta bore both names, Finocchio and then Jorgensen, is a fascinating trivium – but without significance.

Many – less informed - articles maintain that it was Joe Finocchio who built up and ran the 201 Club.  However it was Marjorie who used her money to buy the first club, and then chose the acts and ran it, and afterwards Eve – who despite despising her – stepped into her shoes.  Marjorie ran the club 1929-1956, 27 years.  Eve ran it less well, but for longer, 1956-1999, 43 years – and carried on after Joe’s demise.

The requirement for the performers to arrive and leave in male drag also applied at the 181 Club/Club 82 in New York.   But not at Le Carrousel in Paris.  The Finocchios were strict, sometimes shouted at their employees and threatened blacklisting if a performer left without permission.  However the 181 Club/Club 82 was mafia owned – by the Genovese family - and if you crossed them, worse things could happen.   

I could not have written this without James Smith's  “Finocchio’s club: A San Francisco Legend” in  The Argonaut.

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.

The Black Cap, Camden

A pub in Camden Town, London, at 171 Camden High Street.   It was first licensed in 1751 and was originally called the Mother Black Cap, after a local supposed witch, one Jinny Bingham (c.1600- c.1680), known as Mother Damnable, whose parents had been hanged for witchcraft and procuring a death.   Another pub, the Mother Red Cap, was also named after her.  

From the mid-1960s The Black Cap was a well-known gay pub, and later became known for its drag-queen cabaret. Its most famous performer was Mrs Shufflewick (who was often taken as a cis woman) who did a Sunday Lunch performance during the 1970s.  After she died in 1983, the upstairs bar was renamed The Shufflewick Bar - the management also paid for her funeral.  

Other performers included Lilly Savage, Danny La Rue and Regina Fong.  

Three murderers frequented the pub:

The gay Dennis Nilsen killed at least 12 young men and boys from 1978-1983.  One of his victims was Carl Stotter who performed at the Black Cap as Khara Le Fox. Nilsen started to kill him, but then let him go.  Stotter testified at Nilsen’s trial in 1983 (which resulted in a Life Sentence) - however he never got over the experience and became alcoholic and died age 52.  Nilsen died in prison age 72.

The heterosexual divorcee Anthony Hardy (The Camden Ripper) also frequented the Black Cap.  He murdered the woman he was living with and two female sex workers in 2002.  He has been given a whole life tariff and thus will never be released.

Also in 2002 Thomas McDowell, a homophobic male prostitute met a German trainee rabbi in the Black Cap, took him home and murdered him.   It is recommended that he never be released.

The pub continued as a venue for queer culture until 2015, when it was proposed to convert the building into flats.  However there has been a campaign to raise £3 million to purchase the pub and partner with an LGBTQ+ operator to operate it.

• Richard Benner (dir). Black Cap Drag, with Shane and Laurie Lee.  UK/US 42 mins 1969.  
• Mrs Shufflewick.  Live from the New Black Cap.  LP 1972.  Online.
• Polly Perkins.  “Camping it up in Camden Town”.  The Stage, 5 July 1973.  
• Patrick Newley.  “A drag pub to cap it all”. The Stage, 25 January 1996.  
• Lawrence Senelick.  The Changing Room: Sex, drag and theatre.  Routledge, 2000: 231, 370.
• Patrick Newley. The Amazing Mrs Shufflewick: The Life of Rex Jameson. Third Age Press. 2007.
• "Historic Drag Pub Camden's Black Cap Closed Down By Owners". This Is Cabaret. 2015-04-13.  Online.
• Martin Plaut &Andrew Whitehead. “The story of burlesque at the Black Cap”.  Kentishtowner, September 30, 2015.  Online.
• Michael J Buchanan-Dunne.  “The Deadliest Pubs in London”.  Murder Mile Tours, 20/5/2016.  Online.  
• Dan Carrier.  “Rival bids to buy Black Cap pub as famous venue is put up for sale”.  Camden New Journal, 21 November 2019.  Online.  

 EN.Wikipedia       WeAreTheBlackCap     

Chez Nous - Berlin Travestietheater

A nightclub in Berlin that was open 1958-2008, at Marburger Straße 14 in Charlottenburg, that was the oldest surviving Travestietheater in West Germany. It was a smallish bar with a capacity of only 150. Local artists included Marcel Andre and Gloria Fox. From France, and specifically from Le Carrousel came Coccinelle, Everest, Capucine; from the US came Sonne Teale, Angie Stardust, Ricky Renée.

The original choreographer and costume designer was Yvana who established the clubs original image. He was succeeded by Le Boy, from London. And in turn he was succeeded by Manel Dalgó.

Like Le Carrousel, Chez Nous became a brand name, under which performers from Chez Nous performed to packed houses across Europe.

Peki de Oslo (the future Amanda Lear) did a striptease show in 1962.

The Michael Caine/Harry Palmer espionage film Funeral in Berlin, 1966, featured a scene shot in Chez Nous – although they avoided including any trans women who could pass or who were attractive – such as Ricky Renée:

Harry Palmer arrives at the ChezNous

Harry Palmer within the club.

Ricky Renée had been one of the early artists who made the club famous. In 1966, in London entrepreneurs Ray Jackson and Eric Lindsay had contracted with Sonne Teale that she would would have a third share in a new club to be called Sonne Teale’s. While renovations were being done to the building, Sonne headlined in a Carrousel tour of Japan. However she and three other performers were killed when their return flight crashed. Ricky Renée had been working at Chez Nous for some years, having made Berlin his home. Lindsay phoned and offered the same deal to Ricky that Sonne would have had. Ricky accepted.

Tobi Marsh, ex-Jewel Box Revuew and the 82 Club, 1968, got a contract to do four shows a night at the Chez Nous for US$200 a week. Even though accommodation was arranged via personal contacts at the club, the first landlord objected to overnight male visitors.

Working the bar and waiting since 1978 was Daisy St Denise, an ‘Urberliner original’. She opened her own bar after Chez Nous closed.

• Guy Hamilton (dir). Funeral in Berlin. Scr: Evan Jones based on the novel by Len Deighton, with Michael Caine as Harry Palmer. UK 102 mins 1966. IMDB.
• R Kurt Johnson. “An American Drag Queen in West Berlin: The Negotiation of Homosexual Identity, Transgressive Behavior and Social Acceptance in late 1960s and early 1970s West Germany”. Sexuality and Culture, 16, 2, 2012: 187-204.
• Eric Lindsay. “ 'A Time For Tears': A further instalment in the Casino de Paris Striptease Theatre Club Story”. https://ericlindsay.wordpress.com, 1 May 2013. Online.

HomoWiki    DE.Wikipedia     Queer Music Heritage    Harry Palmer Movie Site    ReelStreets(Funeral in Berlin)    Danny Stafford    Dragstravaganza    Discogs

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Homosexuality was partially decriminalised in West Germany in 1969, a year after East Germany had done likewise.    Most of the information about Chez Nous refers to pre-1969 when homosexuality was illegal.  Much of it sounds very old fashioned.  In particular the performers were obliged to arrive and leave in mufti - not in 'costume' as was then said.   

This of course changed  later in the 1970s when artists such as Jayne County and Romy Haag became dominant on the Berlin scene.

La Paloma - a nightclub outside Miami

Miami was not very observant of the alcohol prohibition laws when they were in force, and when they ended in 1933, it was ready to expand and to entertain the tourists who were coming in greater numbers.  It was in competition with Havana, and the newly available airplanes allowed tourists to go to Havana without stopping in Miami. While New York City closed down the Pansy Craze after the repeal of alcohol prohibition, would-be tourists were informed that it was not so in Miami.

La Paloma (=the dove) was a nightclub located on NW 79^th Street, then an unincorporated part of Dade County. It featured strippers, female impersonators, off-color jokes. Kofoed commented of the clientele that you could find “homosexuals in evening gowns, trousered lesbians, and prostitutes”, and that performers “solicited customers for normal or abnormal sex practices”. The club was run by Al Youst (1902 -1973), an entrepreneur with an arrest record: for intercourse with a minor, selling liquor without a proper license, assault and battery, and burglary in New Jersey and Baltimore. Judge William Smathers of Atlantic City had released him after several months in jail on condition that he leave New Jersey: “Go away. Go a long ways away. Go to some place like Florida.”

Not all in the county related to what Miami was becoming. In 1935 several dozen neighbors demonstrated, calling for La Paloma to be shut down. One called it a menace to the community’s health because “women and liquor prevail[ed]” without a proper license.

On Monday15 November 1937 there was a gathering of nearly 200 members of the local Ku Klux Klan wearing their standard long white hooded robes, and several dozen new members were inducted. They burned a fiery cross on public property. Then they charged into La Paloma. The band kept playing, figuring that it was all part of an act. However the intruders smashed furniture and musical instruments. They roughed up some of the performers and the staff. They told everyone to leave, and threatened to burn the place down.

However The Miami Herald affirmed:

“Law enforcement has not been turned over to the Ku Klux Klan in Dade County”. 

The raid also made national news. The New York Times commented:

“Every civic club of the Miami area is sure to approve the Klan’s militant stand against too rough divertissement which has characterized the city’s night life from 1934”, 

and also opined that “once-famous hot spots” in Miami would now be unavailable.

Life Magazine, Nov 15, 1937

The Dade County sheriff declared the club to be a menace, and ordered that the club remain closed. However it did re-open. Two weeks after the KKK raid, the sheriff and his men themselves raided the club.  This time the club again re-opened after two days. Youst vowed La Paloma would “reopen with spicier entertainment than ever.” He even incorporated actors dressed as KKK in the skits.

In July 1939 there was another police raid on La Paloma, and they arrested “four men employed . . . to wear feminine clothes and impersonate women in songs and dances”. None of the four appeared in court – they were represented by the club’s attorney, Fred Pine, who entered pleas of guilty. They were to pay a fine of $25 or serve “30 days on charges of vagrancy”. The one exception was an impersonator whose male name was Robert Trent, who appeared personally and was freed on a directed verdict.

The tourist industry was for a while too important. Sporadic raids continued in response to public nuisance charges to placate conservative residents, but in no way did the police attempt to eradicate such clubs. Indeed almost all raids were during the tourist off-season. For the clubs it was a cost of doing business.

In March 1940 Federal agents raided La Paloma. Youst was arrested on two “white slavery” charges for bringing in five young (17-year-old) women from Chattanooga, Tennessee and jailed when he was unable to supply a $20,000 bond. Other employees were released after signing affidavits. One of the transported five, Evelyn Clark, had become Mrs Youst.

Assistant district attorney, George Smathers, nephew of the Judge in Atlantic City, co-prosecuted both Al and Evelyn Youst. Al Youst, supposedly suffering from tuberculosis, attended the trial on a stretcher; Evelyn bottle-fed their child in the courtroom until the judge barred the crying child. Al spoilt his act by rising to enter a not-guilty plea. When the subpoenaed employees, mainly young attractive women, testified about exotic dances and after-hours activities, the judge banned all observers from the courtroom, and newspapers said that “testimony went beyond all printable bounds”.

Fred Pine, the Yousts’ attorney, argued that the charges were hypocritical.  “If they’re going to clean up Miami why is this the only club they pick on? Is it because Al Youst wouldn’t turn rat and save himself by giving false testimony against the sheriff?” – referring to graft charges against the local police. Youst had refused to testify that the police had accepted bribes in exchange for permitting continued operation. The prosecution’s case centered on a $25 check sent to Evelyn’s mother endorsed by Youst and Pine. That and testimony about activities at La Paloma led to guilty verdicts. Evelyn got four years; Al eight.

The club closed down after this arrest. The attorney, Fred Pine, who had worked for Al Capone in 1929, and later been the Dade County solicitor before working for Youst was also convicted on similar charges the next year.

It is said that one of the cops later dated one of the impersonators and escorted her to the annual policeman’s ball – and took her there in a patrol wagon.

• “The Ku Klux Klan Raise a Miami Hot Spot”. Life, 15 Nov 1937. Online.
• “La Paloma ‘Artists’ Handed $25 Fines: Four Plead Guilty to Vagrancy Allegations”. The Miami News, 26 Jul 1939: 2. Online.
• “G-Men Stage Miami White Slave Raid: La Paloma Club Closed and Manager Held in $20,000 Bond”. The Evening Independent, Mar 27, 1940. Online.
• Jack Kofoed. Moon Over Miami. Random House, 1955: 229.
• William Peirce Randel. The Ku Klux Klan: a century of infamy. Chilton Books, 1965: 225.
• Brian Lewis Crispell. Testing the Limits: George Armistead Smathers and Cold War America. University of Georgia Press, 1999: 6-8.
• John A Stuart & John F Stack. The New Deal in South Florida: Design, Policy, and Community Building, 1933-1940. University Press of Florida, 2008: 56.
• Melanie Shell-Weiss. Coming to Miami: A Social History. University Press of Florida, 2009: 120.
• Paul Chartrand. Seeing Red: Paranoia, Politics, and McCarthyism in the 1950 Florida Democratic Primary for the US Senate. Florida Gulf Coast University, 2013: 34-5
• Julio Capó Jr. Welcome to Fairy Land: Queer Miami before 1940. The University of North Carolina Press, 2017: 232-3, 252, 263, 267-271, 277-8.
• Julio Capó Jr. “Why a Forgotten KKK Raid on a Gay Club in Miami Still Matters 80 Years Later”. Time, November 28, 2017. Online.
• Brittany Shammas. “Five Moments in Miami’s LGBTQ History, From 1937 to 2015”. Miami New Times, March 12, 2019. Online.

EN.Wikipedia

---------------------------

Youst and Pine sent $25 to Evelyn's mother.   Five young women, so $5 each.  According to this inflation calculator, $5 in 1939 is worth $92.85 now.  Chatanooga-Miami is a bit less than 800 miles/1300 km.   So the money was probably for bus fare, with very little left over.

The racist term 'white slave traffic act' was used as a nickname for the The Mann Act, 1910, which was "An Act to further regulate interstate and foreign commerce by prohibiting the transportation therein for immoral purposes of women and girls, and for other purposes".   While that wording says nothing about race, the act was use to interfere with with interracial relationships and also premarital and extramarital relationships.   Jack Johnson, the black boxer, was charged in 1912 with violating the Mann Act due to traveling with his white girlfriend, Lucille Cameron, who refused to cooperate with the prosecution and whom he married soon thereafter.  In 1941 Charlie Chaplin ended his affair with Joan Barry and bought her a train ticket to New York.  For this he was charged under the Mann Act. As Wikipedia puts it: "The penalties would be applied to men whether or not the woman involved consented and, if she had consented, the woman could be considered an accessory to the offense". 

So the Yousts were convicted in that Youst and Pine had sent bus fare combined with "after-hours activities".   Evelyn would seem to have consented in that she ended up as the boss's wife - although nothing is said about the other four. 

---------------

So we have the irony that a mixed queer-straight night club was raided for being queer and kept going.   But was finally closed when the boss was convicted of a technical infraction of a law about heterosexuality.

We might also mention the novel The Saint in Miami, 1940 by Leslie Charteris.   On p136, the protagonist goes to a nightclub with the fictional name of Palmleaf Fan which may well be inspired by La Paloma.

"And he realised that there were some things about the clientele of the Palmleaf Fan which were more than somewhat queer.

He wasn’t thinking of the more obvious queernesses, either; although it dawned on him in passing that some of the groups of highly made-up girls who sat at inferior tables with an air of hoping to be invited to better ones were a trifle sinewy in the arms and neck, while on the other hand some of the delicate-featured young men who sat apart from them were too well-developed in the chest for the breadth of their shoulders. Those eccentricities were standard of the honky-tonks of Miami."

The GG Knickerbocker P T Barnum Room

Part I: The Gilded Grape
Part II: The GG Knickerbocker Barnum Room

The Knickerbocker Hotel

The Knickerbocker Hotel  1466 Broadway at 42^nd Street, opened in 1906 – two years after the first NY subway line, the IRT, reached Times Square. It was "a Fifth Avenue Hotel at Broadway prices" - $3.25 a day (<1% of today’s rates). 

It was owned by John Jacob Astor IV until he went down with the Titanic in 1912. Legend has it that the martini drink was invented at the Knickerbocker and named after the house bartender. World-famous tenor Enrico Caruso and his family lived in the hotel (until his death in 1921). 

After that the hotel was closed and converted to commercial use. The same building was reopened as the Hotel Knickerbocker in 2015.  However in-between, the brand name Knickerbocker was free for others to use, and in the 1960s the name was taken by a down-market hotel located at 128 West 45^th Street.

The Peppermint Lounge

The ground floor premises at128 West 45^th Street had been licensed on numerous occasions since 1934. Over the years there had been numerous arrests of gay men, and citations for disorderly premises and Administrative Code violations. The NY State Liquor Authority had stated that no renewal was to be issued for 1959 until a bona fide buyer took over. It was then rented to 128 Restaurant Inc, and the owners of record were Ralph Saggesse and Orlando Grippo. In reality they were employed by Sam Konwiser who ran businesses for Johnny Biello, a capo in the Genovese crime family.

The Peppermint Lounge opened in 1958. It had a lengthy mahogany bar running along one side, lots of mirrors and a dance floor at the back, a capacity of just 178 people. There was a back door into the Knickerbocker Hotel Lobby. Johnson et al describe the hotel at that time: it “rented as many rooms by the hour as they did to the luckless out-of-towners, the unemployed and those only a week away from living on the streets”.

 The Peppermint Lounge was mainly a gay bar. The major dance craze 1960-1 was the Twist. Much to the surprise of Johnny Biello, this became associated with the Peppermint Lounge, and celebrities, especially Hollywood stars, flocked there to do the dance, and to be photographed doing it. The house band was Joey Dee and the Starlighters. Jackie Kennedy arranged for a temporary ‘Peppermint Lounge’ in the White House. A sister club was opened in Miami Beach. Gays and lesbians liked the dance because it did not necessarily require a partner, and if dancing with a same-sex partner when the police raided, one could spin around to face a partner of the other gender. It is said that (female) go-go dancing (alone on a raised platform for others to watch) originated at the Peppermint Lounge.

1961

Proprietor Ralph Saggesse appeared as a contestant on the popular television program What's My Line? 

• Greg Garrison (dir) Hey, Lets Twist, with Joey Dee and the Starlighters. US BW mono 79 mins 1961. IMDB. EN.Wikipedia. A fictionalized story of the Peppermint Lounge, partially filmed there.

The Ronnettes made their professional debut at the Peppermint Lounge.

1962

• The Starlighters. “Peppermint Twist”. 45 rpm single. Three weeks at number 1 in January.
• Sam Cooke. “Twistin’ the Night Away”. 45 rpm single. "a place/Somewhere up a New York way/Where the people are so gay".

1964

The Beatles were filmed at the club. Many musicians of the period performed there including the Beach Boys, the Crystals, Chubby Checker, Liza Minelli, the Four Seasons etc.

1965

The State Liquor Authority decided to revoke the Peppermint liquor licence. This was upheld in the state Supreme Court. The club closed in December.  Within two months Matty Ianniello on behalf of the Genovese family had arranged a new front company to purchase the club. Mar-Jear Restaurant paid $20,000 and received a liquor licence at the end of June 1966. A September 1966 FBI memo stated:

“On 08/29/66 the informant advised that Matty Ianiello whom the informant has previously met had recently bought a piece of the Peppermint Lounge Nite club on West 45th St. NYC. He continued that Matty has an interest in a number of ‘Fag Joints’ in NYC and that the Peppermint Lounge is now a ‘Fag Joint.’ ” (Crawford:113).

The designated owner was Abraham Margorgolies (the ‘mar' in Mar-Jear) who also owned a jewelry business on 135^th Street, a factory in Puerto Rico and was co-producer of a Broadway show. The manager was John Mink, who had just retired as a police captain in the 10^th Precinct. He had been an army buddy of Ianniello – they had been in combat together in the South Pacific.

Initially the place opened as a topless bar. Geri Miller who had been in the Warhol/Morrissey films Flesh, Trash and Women in Revolt, IMDB, and had been one of the Peppermint Twisters and had dated Ringo Star, was one of the performers.

Johnny Biello was whacked in 1967 in a Miami Beach parking lot on orders from Anthony ‘Fat Tony’ Salerno.

The topless bar was not too successful, and the place reverted to being a gay bar, The Turntable. Later it was called the Hollywood. Richie Kaczor was the DJ, and Abe Glanstein was the manager. It was popular with Puerto Ricans. By 1977 Disco music was the craze. That was also the year that Studio 54 opened, and Kaczor took his skills there.

 The GG Kickerbocker Barnum Room 

When the Gilded Grape closed, most of the staff went to the Hollywood. Glanstein’s mainly Puerto Rican clientele had pretty well moved on and he needed a new crowd. He changed the name of the club to GG Knickerbocker – the GG was a signal to the Gilded Grape crowd that they were welcome. The new club was a moderate success from its opening in May 1977. Police harassment was way down in that the hookers were off 8^th Avenue. Also being on the south side of 45^th Street, the policing was done by the Midtown South Precinct – who were less uptight than their colleagues to the north.

Most of the Knickerbocker Hotel was being converted into condos – the Knickerbocker hotel was no longer so down-market. Ianniello arranged for the remodeling of the ground floor incorporating the hotel lobby into the new version of the club. Jerry Cohen’s design company got the contract. The new club could hold 400 comfortably, nearly three times as many as the Peppermint Lounge. The big innovation was the circus theme: a trapeze and a net were put up and aerialists performed. Some of them were trans.  All this to a disco beat.  As had the Peppermint Lounge, this had a long bar with seating in the front, and a dance floor in the rear, Caraballo from the Gilded Grape was still the doorman. The GG Knickerbocker P T Barnum Room (named after PT Barnum the 19^th century circus entrepreneur) opened July 20, 1978.  The name was quickly shortened. Jerry Cohen was now the manager.

Generally admission was $5, $10 after 11pm.

Not only trans women from the Gilded Grape started coming: also Truman Capote, Robert Redford and Andy Warhol. Cohen commented:

“A celebrity is no more to us than the average transvestite. Besides they are the cheapest people around. They don’t spend any money.”

Three Italian television journalists making a documentary on the state of US women came and filmed in the Barnum room.

Victoria Cruz did sex work out of the GG Knickerbocker, and the Grapevine.

Timmy Scott had been the show co-ordinator at both the Gilded Grape and at the Barnum Room. He made a point of using regular customers in the show. A regular talent show packed the club every Monday night. He also selected themes for the Sunday shows. He kept things moving and the crowds jumping, and his comebacks on the microphone quieted unruly customers. He died in 1978 age 42.

Tish Gervais:

“GG’s Barnum Room wasn’t exempt from providing us girls with the opportunity to make some extra cash. The clientele from the old Gilded Grape soon discovered this new location and men were continuously on the prowl for some action. Another way you could make some money there was by doing some lip-synching performances. As the reigning Miss 220, I got to perform there and was paid a hundred bucks a night. It was easy money. While I wasn’t comfortable with lip-synching, I rose to the challenge.” (p 106)

Carmen Xtravaganza:

“The club had a circus trapeze on the roof of the club, Salvador Dali and many celebrities would come through the Barnum Room, at the time celebs would mix with people and it wasn’t such a big deal like it is today. Ava Hollywood was a great beauty and a great friend of Dali. I remember seeing them coming out of a large limo with ‘Hollywood’ on the limo’s number plate entering The GG’s Barnum Room. Grace Jones did a show there as well and Taxi, a beautiful girl did the show with her, it was history for Taxi, Grace Jones was her idol and became mine after that!”

Rosalyne Blumenstein mentions that Ava Hollywood was also a hit at Studio 54. She also says:

“I worked in the Barnum Room as a coat-check girl. … It was right around the corner from my old school. Down the block there was a restaurant where all the thugs hung out. I was always scared to go there but because I worked in the bars and I was friends with some of the thugetts, the women who hung out in the restaurant, I would never get jumped or ripped off. The Barnum Room was as hip as studio 54, Zenon’s and the Limelight. But the Barnum Room catered to a more eclectic, shall we say common and perverse, clientele. Trans women and non-trans women who were working girls working out of the Barnum Room would sometimes take their tricks past the restaurant on 45^th and Sixth and then their boyfriends would come out and rip the johns off or beat them up. This was the cultural norm in my life.”

In September 1980, New York Magazine, in its True Tales of New York retold an anecdote from August the previous year. Two housewives from Litchfield County, Connecticut, in town for the day, having had an all-day pampering at a 5^th Avenue beauty salon, and a meal in an expensive restaurant, all put on their husbands’ credit cards, decided that they would go slumming, to the notorious GG Barnum’s that they had seen on television. Inside they were even daring enough to strike up conversation with a ‘tasteful’ black trans woman sitting nearby. “This your first time here?” she said. “Then lemme give you some advice. You two ain’t never gonna score. Shit, you guys look like dogs. You’re made up like hookers, and frankly, you’re both much too butch!.” The ladies quickly left, and in their hotel scrubbed off the effect of the expensive pampering. They returned early to Litchfield County the next morning.

In 1980 the Barnum Room hosted a Miss Gay NY contest. Blumenstein:

“I entered the contest not even thinking the word ‘gay’ had anything to do with me or the contest. … And gay just meant that women who were not TS could not participate”. 

It was judged by gay men. The winner was Mara Devau from Cuba, the reigning champion. The first runner up was Sugar Belane.  Blumenstein, under the name ‘Roe’ was third runner up.

Chicky died while working at the Barnum Room. His eldest daughter had become a cashier at the club.

In 1980 Motown singer Diana Ross had her second hit single with “I’m Coming Out”. Writer Nile Rodgers got the idea after seeing three different Diana Ross impersonators at GG Barnum Room. For Ross the lyrics had an additional meaning in that she was about to leave - that is to come out from - Motown Records. The song became a sort-of gay pride anthem.

Finally, later that year, after complaints from surrounding businesses, complaints about pickpockets, of johns getting rolled, and finally a pair of murders, the GG Barnum Room lost its liquor licence. It closed November 1980.

Aftermath

Some went back to the Grapevine, although that was a letdown after the Barnum room. A new club for trans women with new owners was the Casa Dario on 46^th Street between 6^th and 7^th Avenues. The hostess was Edie Lane, back from completion surgery with Dr Biber in Colorado. She was found stabbed to death in her apartment on the upper East Side – apparently she had taken the wrong man home.

Jim Fouratt was a gay activist who had been at Stonewall but was critical of trans women as reinforcing gender stereotypes. In the late 1970s, in partnership with Rudolf Pieper, he was running the rock music nightclub Danceteria, which was closed by the police and fire department 4 October 1980 in that they did not actually have any licences. As the Barnum Room was about to be closed, Fouratt investigated the site. In the basement he found the old signage for the Peppermint Lounge. Fouratt and Pieper reopened the place as the Peppermint Lounge, this time as a cutting edge rock club with acts such as Black Flag and British bands such Gang of Four. However they did not get on with what Fourett referred to as the Italian ‘uncles’ in the back room, who were asking for a bigger cut. After threats of violence, the two of them left. The Peppermint Lounge continued at the same address until May 1982 when the building was condemned. The club moved to 100 Fifth Ave. as the New Peppermint Lounge, where it continued until 1985.

The building at 128 West 45th Street was torn down in the mid-1980s.

__________________________

GG Barnum Room was not the first New York nightclub with live circus performers. That credit goes to Jerry Brandt who opened the Electric Circus at 23 St Marks Place in the East Village back in 1967.

Was the Barnum Room the first to have go-go boys? For a nightclub, perhaps yes. However go-go boys had been noticed at the GLF dances several years before.

Some source documents talk as if there were two moves, with GG Knickerbocker being in the hotel on 42^nd Street for a short while. This threw me off initially, and I had to read the better sources carefully to establish that this was not so.

Apparently Ava Hollywood was somewhat of a legend in the New York party scene from the late 1970s through to the 1990s. She must be at least 60 now. Google gives me an Ava Hollywood who is a porn star. This cannot be the same person who was dating Salvador Dali in 1978? Somebody else must have taken the name.

I could not find any details about the two murders that happened at the Barnum Room.

The building was converted to condos in 1978 and then condemned and pulled down in the mid 1980s.  Bad luck if you bought one.

There is no mention at all of the Gilded Grape or the Barnum Room in Julian Fleisher's The Drag Queens of New York, 1996. There is no mention at all of them in Laurence Senelick's The Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theatre, 2000,

__________________________

• “GG Changes Name / Location”. Drag, 7, 25, 1977: 9. Online.
• “Gilded Grape’s Timmy Scott … Gone”. Drag, 7, 26, 1978: 9. Online.
• Orde Coombs. “Le Freak, C’est Chic on 45^th Street”. New York Magazine, 8 Jan 1979:47-50. Online.
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• Paul Vitello. “Matthew Ianniello, the Mafia Boss Known as ‘Matty the Horse,’ Dies at 92”. New York Times, Aug 22, 2012. Online.
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• Phillip Crawford Jr. The Mafia and the Gays. 2015: 23, 40, 50, 51, 58.
• Martin Aston. Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache: How Music Came Out. Constable, 2016: 104, 134-5.
• Tim Laurence. Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor 1980-1983. Duke University Press, 2016: 58.
• Ric Tennenbaum interviews Melissa Sklarz. New York City Trans Oral History Project, July 5, 2017. Online.
• Duncan Osborne. “Feds Tracked Mob Control of Gay Bars into the 1980s”. Gay City News, August 30, 2018. Online.
• Brian Belovich. Trans Figured: My Journey from Boy to Girl to Woman to Man. Skyhorse, 2018: 106.
• “GG’s Barnum Room”. DiscoMusic.Com. No Longer available.
• Victoria Cruz. Where Love is Illegal: A Witness Change Project. Online.

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