Texas Guinan * Texas Guinan: Texas Guinan: Florence Mills

In the spring of 1925, TEXAS GUINAN and her gang shared a stagebill with the incomparable Harlem jazz darling Florence Mills.
• • Hippodrome • •
• • There was no other New York City auditorium as large as the Hippodrome, built in 1905 and demolished 1939.
• • In 1923 B.F. Keith took over this Sixth Avenue Circus Maximus, built to epic scale and situated at the lip of the 6th Avenue Elevated, occupying an entire city block between West 43rd and West 44th Street.
• • Florence Mills [25 January 1895—1 November 1927] • •
• • Beautiful Florence Mills was an African-American cabaret singer, dancer, and comedienne known for her delicate voice, effervescent stage presence, and wide-eyed loveliness.
• • She welcomed guests to her chic midtown speakeasy, Chez Florence, 117 West 48th Street, New York, NY. When Mills returned to France to headline a European nightspot, Tommy Guinan took over her club in 1928, continuing her custom of hiring black performers.

• • "$1 Top at Hip" • •
• • Variety wrote: The Hippodrome. New York, will remain open for June at $1 top for the night performances and 50 cents for the matinees.
• • Variety wrote: The decision to defer closing the house was arrived at this week, following the generous business the house is doing this week with Florence Mills and Texas Guinan as headliners. The current bill is expected to gross close to $40,000 for the week.
• • Source: Variety; published on Wednesday, 6 May 1925
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• • The legal battles fought by Mae West and Jim Timony are dramatized in the play "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets," set during the Prohibition Era. Texas Guinan is in some scenes, too. Watch a scene on YouTube.
• • Website for all things Mae West — http://MaeWest.blogspot.com

• • Exciting Texas Guinan news is on the horizon. More anon.
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