Dallas Striptease 1946-1960 A

FROM MIDWAY TO MAINSTAGE: DALLAS STRIPTEASE 1946-1960 A Thesis by KELLY CLAYTON Submitted to the Graduate School of Texas A&M University-Commerce in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2019 FROM MIDWAY TO MAINSTAGE: DALLAS STRIPTEASE 1946-1960 A Thesis by KELLY CLAYTON Approved by: Advisor: Jessica Brannon-Wranosky Committee: Sharon Kowalsky Andrew Baker Head of Department: Sharon Kowalsky Dean of the College: William Kuracina Dean of the Graduate School: Matthew A. Wood iii Copyright © 2019 Kelly Clayton iv ABSTRACT FROM MIDWAY TO MAINSTAGE: DALLAS STRIPTEASE 1946-1960 Kelly Clayton, MA Texas A&M University-Commerce, 2019 Advisor: Jessica Brannon-Wranosky PhD The entertainment landscape of post-World War II Dallas, Texas included striptease in different types of venues. Travelling and local striptease acts performed at the city’s annual fair and in several nightclubs in the city. In the late 1940s, the fair featured striptease as the headlining act, and one of the city’s newspapers, the Dallas Morning News, described the dancers as the most popular attraction of the largest fair in the United States. Further, the newspaper reporting congratulated the men who ran the fair for providing Texans with these popular entertainment options. The dancers who performed at the fair also showcased their talents at area nightclubs to mixed gender audiences. Dallas welcomed striptease as an acceptable form of entertainment. However, in the early 1950s, the tone and tenor of the striptease coverage changed. The State Fair of Texas executives decried striptease as “soiled” and low-class. Dancers performed in nightclubs, but the newspaper began to report on one particular entertainer, Candy Barr, and her many tangles with law enforcement. Barr, a popular striptease dancer, became the face of vice in v Dallas, as the newspaper reported on her criminal activity. In ten years, descriptions of dancers in the newspaper reporting changed from celebrated to sleazy. This thesis reviews these changes in concert with those power brokers in the city who directed them. Striptease’s reputation in Dallas became a casualty of a growing religious and political fervor, McCarthyism, which defined patriotism through a specific lens. As space constricted, and striptease left high visibility venues, it became synonymous with wickedness. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor Dr. Jessica Brannon-Wranosky for her guidance and encouragement. I am continually amazed at what I can learn in a meeting with her, and I am so thankful that she shared her knowledge with me. I am also grateful to Dr. Sharon Kowalsky for the high expectations she set for my work and her feedback that assisted in the clarification of many key points. Dr. Andrew Baker provided foundational support for the time period, and I appreciate his direction. I would like to extend my appreciation to my writing class professors and fellow students, especially Mykah Jones, who challenged me when needed and encouraged me to keep going when I thought it was hopeless. Thank you for helping me discover the story in that tangled mess of words I submitted on the first day. Writing a thesis is a challenge. Doing so while also working full time, and trying to maintain some semblance of order in a household, requires a strong support network. Mine is amazing. Thank you to Kam and Teri De Leon for your encouragement and friendship. Many friends provided inspiration and held me accountable to complete the work. Heather, the Coven, the EDDC parents, and my East Dallas friends all listened patiently and cheered me on. I am so fortunate to have such wonderful people in my life. The most love and gratitude goes to my family—Mark, Henry, and Katie. You are my favorite cheerleaders and I could not have completed the program without you. I know listening to recitations of proposals and papers was not how you imagined spending vacations, but I love that you did it without complaint. Thank you for listening to me when I tell you to cite your sources, even in an elementary school paper. And thank you for being the most amazing team. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 2. THE BIG REVEAL: STRIPTEASE AT THE FAIR AND IN NIGHTCLUBS, 1946- 1951................................................................................................................................... 28 3. “SOILED MERCHANDISE:” THE CHANGING STORY OF STRIPTEASE, 1952- 1960................................................................................................................................... 56 4. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 81 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................... 91 VITA ........................................................................................................................................... 99 1 Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION Striptease (noun): a performance in which someone, usually a woman, takes off clothes to entertain people watching, or this activity- Cambridge Online Dictionary Sexually provocative dancing, or striptease, became popular in the United States as a part of burlesque shows during the early twentieth century. Many of the original performance venues were theaters, most notably in New York City, as growing working-class, urban audiences sought out entertainment options. As the profession evolved, dancers also travelled across the country to perform in nightclubs and at state fairs. These travelling burlesque shows were the precursors to twenty-first century “striptease industry,” a plethora of clubs in a particular part of town in which the sole entertainment was “exotic” dancing. From act to industry, striptease grew by permeating the entertainment landscape of various towns as dancers performed in a variety of spaces. But striptease has a tumultuous history, with periods of acceptance followed by those of vilification.1 Professional striptease dancers have been studied as objects of exploitation and empowerment for decades. This analysis identifies and reviews the origins of one of the twenty- first century striptease narratives in which clubs are a blight and the dancers are broken women. By studying Dallas in the 1950s, and the space made available to the dancers compared to other eras, a pattern emerges in which striptease unwillingly became caught in the crosshairs of an 1Robert C. Allen, Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 45-46. This thesis uses “acceptance” to mean generally accepted by the public as professional entertainment. This analysis does not contend that burlesque or striptease is a form of entertainment heralded by the wealthy as profession one in their class may aspire to join or watch. 2 American struggle between McCarthyism, desegregation, and politics associated with the growing influence of religious popular culture.2 The idea of respectability hinges on the professional nature of the dancers. As this study unfolds, certain terms become important to the understanding of the supposed change in striptease in the following decades. Professionalism, the idea that the woman is a professional dancer and part of an accepted business relationship, changes over the course of the 1950s. This idea works in concert with the space allocated to the performance. Visibility in a public domain like the state fair, an area in which throngs of people can view a performance, is different than a nightclub in which a limited number of people can enter. Professional respectability and acceptability, then, is linked with visibility. As with other forms of commercial sexuality, especially those that disturb prescribed societal norms, the movement of striptease performance from one geographic area to another demonstrated the acceptance or disapproval of the profession. In the late 1940s, provocative dancing was a staple of fair entertainment in Dallas, Texas. However, by the early 1950s, the men who ran the fair, and the city, removed the acts from the mainstages and the audiences’ view. The striptease performance space triggered a cultural change in its perception as an acceptable form of entertainment. The power brokers who facilitated the changes, including elected officials and a newspaper editor, simultaneously created a narrative of dancers’ criminality. This study argues that the striptease dancers’ professional reputations that existed in the 1940s and early 1950s were torpedoed by a partisan narrative in the name of political 2 Stephanie Wahab et al., “Exotic Dance Research: A Review of the Literature from 1970 to 2008," Sexuality & Culture 15, no. 1 (February 12, 2017): 56-79; Stacy Braukman, Communists and Perverts under the Palms: The Johns Commission in Florida, 1956-1965 (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2012), 4, 9- 11. McCarthyism, named after Senator Joseph McCarthy, was the political ideology that began as a campaign against communism, but became a crusade to narrowly define American patriotism as white, straight, and Christian. 3 expediency. The changing space, as a tool of acceptability, and the ensuing newspaper coverage, altered the public perception of the profession. Twenty-first century history traces the historical roots of striptease to the theater,

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