The View From The Stage

I got my first taste of show business when I was selected to be on Chicago Bandstand during my senior year in high school. Each day after school, I’d catch the city bus to twist and turn before the cameras in the Merchandise Mart studio. It was the highlight of my teenage life—and probably the only time my mother was grateful I couldn’t sit still!

It’s amazing how far you’ll go to follow your dreams. For me, dancing was all I ever wanted to do. So when a friend of a friend asked me to join her belly-dancing troupe for a show in Puerto Rico back in 1965, I was surprisingly excited. One of their five dancers had a family emergency just days before they were leaving for a 4-week show. At first, I laughed and said, “I don’t know how to belly dance, and I certainly don’t have a costume to wear.”

They told me not to worry—I could borrow one of their costumes and just “dance around like I knew what I was doing.” They promised to put me on stage as the last act so the customers would be so thoroughly marinated in rum by then that they wouldn’t notice my interpretation of Middle Eastern dance looked suspiciously like the Twist with jazz hands.

So off I went to Puerto Rico, armed with nothing but enthusiasm and a dangerous lack of experience. The only challenge was that the heavy sequined and fringed costume they gave me was a 36C, and I wore a 34B. I ran to the restroom, rolled up two generous balls of toilet paper, and shoved them inside each cup. Problem solved! Or so I thought.

When my turn came to dance, I tried my best to look authentic. I swayed, I undulated, I clicked the brass cymbals on my fingers with what I hoped was exotic flair. Then I started twirling around, really getting into the spirit of things—and that’s when I realized the toilet paper was making its grand escape, rolling across the floor like tumbleweeds in a Western movie.

My first thought was to run off stage and catch the next flight home. But those silly men in the audience started throwing money at me—much more than the other girls had gotten! It turned out they thought I was the comedy act, and they absolutely loved it. Who knew that wardrobe malfunctions could be so lucrative? From then on, every night I’d stuff those cups with toilet paper and let ’em rip! I may not have mastered the art of belly dancing, but I’d accidentally invented slapstick burlesque.

By 1966, I’d graduated to dancing inside a glass cage, performing the most popular moves to the Twist, the Watusi, the Mashed Potatoes, the Jerk, and my personal favorite, Walking the Dog. (At least with this gig, if my costume fell apart, only the mirror would judge me.) The view from that stage was just me, reflected infinitely—like being trapped in a funhouse, but with better pay and go-go boots.

Professional cage dancers were highly trained in various choreographed moves and paid well. I was lucky enough to be the headliner at Club GiGi in Chicago, which meant I could afford the finest costumes and drove a brand-new Cadillac convertible. Nothing says “I’ve made it” quite like explaining to your parents that you bought a car by dancing in a box. My popular showbiz status was short-lived, however, after I met my first husband, who insisted I discontinue my go-go dancing career. Apparently, he preferred his wife’s gyrations to be visible to considerably fewer strangers.

He encouraged me to try out for live theater productions instead, and my high school acting classes finally paid off. I was hired to perform as an extra in several plays at the Drury Lane Theatre in Evergreen Park. It wasn’t long before I felt that familiar adrenaline rush after each live performance. Since the audience was seated in the round, the view from that stage took on a whole new meaning—now I could see confused faces from every angle when I forgot my lines!

I became quite the character actor, transforming into different roles with varying degrees of success. Some of the talented actors I shared that stage with were Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Forrest Tucker, who were remarkably patient with the former go-go dancer who occasionally slipped a hip thrust into her dramatic death scenes.

My acting career followed me to Arizona when my husband and I moved to Scottsdale in 1971. The Scottsdale Community Players had been performing at the Sagebrush Theatre since the 1950s, and I answered an ad to audition for a small part in their production of “Kind Lady.” The director asked me to step up on stage and die three different ways. Apparently, my go-go dancing background had given me excellent falling techniques, because I landed the part! I portrayed a maid who was strangled in the second act—which meant I had to die on stage four nights a week for four weeks straight. It was the most dramatic role of my career, literally.

When I became a mom in 1973, I put my acting career on hold to play the best role of my life: Motherhood. This was the one performance where forgetting my lines, missing my cues, and looking completely disheveled was not only acceptable but pretty much required.

Little did I know it would be 42 years before I would see the view from the stage again.

Just remember: “Laughter is medicine; he who laughs at himself will never run out of prescription refills!”