Burly phenom, Divena, doing her signature routine in a Plexiglas aquarium, Follies, 1950.
Photo: Loomis Dean / Time Life Pictures
Unexpectedly, one night Evangeline“ The Oyster Girl” Sylvas began her act by emerging from a massive oyster shell and gyrated over to the side of the stage where she produced a three-foot axe and began smashing the water-filled Plexiglas tank that Divena, a voluptuous Ava Gardner look-a-like, would begin her act in... then spent the night in a downtown jail.
where she produced a three-foot axe and began smashing the water-filled Plexiglas tank that Divena, a voluptuous Ava Gardner look-a-like, would begin her act in, water rushing from the stage into the horrified audience. Of course, Sylvas had not told the stage managers she was going to do this and was promptly arrested and taken downtown for a night in jail. Burlesque was a lot of things, but it was never dull. burlesque was an insular world. The bonds and friendships were strong and many unions occurred within the ranks of the performers. Featured dancers often married straight men. One such couple was Johnny Maloney and Ginger O’ Dare. Their son, hair salon owner John Maloney, recalls that when he was a child,“ A lot of the performers became family friends. I knew Joe Yule when I was a young kid. And Mickey Rooney used to come around backstage a lot. Jimmy Baskette— who had the lead in Song of the South— was a very good friend of my family’ s. He worked at the Lincoln Theatre— which my dad managed— with Pigmeat Markham and Peg Leg Bates. Holidays at my home were really something because so many of the entertainers used to come to our house: Billy‘ Zoot’ Reed, Jack Mann, Lili St. Cyr, Benet Miller— a fabulous looking black woman— Little Jack Little; also a number of cops who worked on Main Street.” by the 1950s, the Los Angeles burlesque world was radically changing. Joe Yule died quietly on March 30, at 55. The Belasco’ s final bill— before the building was turned into a church— was a double feature: French Nudists and Girls for Sale. The Follies jettisoned its stock cast and stripped down to booking just featured performers like buxom Evelyn West’ s“ The $ 50,000 Treasure Chest.” The Follies pit operated on a skeleton crew of saxophone, piano and drums. Betty Rowland made the front pages of LA’ s dailies only when she was robbed and almost killed in October of that year. Sidney Pink got into film production and pioneered the 3D movie craze, with movies like Bwana Devil. And at the end of the 1952, Rowland spent three weeks in jail for“ indecent performances.” Most disturbingly, however, the infamously savage murder of The Black Dahlia still hung like a toxic cloud over LA— when footsteps in a dark alley
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