Texas Guinan: Doris Eaton

Oh those days when TEXAS GUINAN offered world-class whoopee at the El Fey Club and Club Intime.
• • Let us talk about two sisters Texas knew:  Pearl Eaton [1 August 1898 — 10 September 1958] and Doris Eaton Travis [14 March 1904  — 11 May 2010], a former Ziegfeld Follies star (and the last surviving Ziegfeld girl).
• • In the 2003 memoir by Doris Eaton Travis, "The Days We Danced: The Story of my Theatrical Family," the stage star  reminisced about her sister Pearl Eaton. "Pearl worked in several supper clubs in the 1920s. But her longest stay at any one club was with Texas Guinan at the famous El Fey Club at 107 West 45th Street, which opened in 1924. It was owned by a shady and notorious character named Larry Fay.  . . . Larry actually asked me out to dinner on one occasion, but I declined, making it clear Mama did not allow me to go out with 'older men'," wrote Doris who was 20 years old in 1924.
• • According to several sources, showbiz was rough country for the Eaton brothers and sisters, who packed plenty of alcohol and drugs along for the ride.
• • From 1916 — 1928, Pearl Eaton was on The Great White Way, performing in musicals, revues, and shows by Ziegfeld and Earl Carroll.  Doris said:  “Florenz Ziegfeld, to us and our family, was just a delightful person. My sisters, Mary and Pearl, my brother Charlie and I all worked for him, and he treated us just beautifully, almost like a father. When I went with my mother up to his office, he was always gentlemanly and kindly. He was sort of a quiet person.”
• • But Tinseltown, that rocky terrain where screen dreams rise, settle, surge, and slide, was an unsteady employer.  Pearl Eaton tip-toed through from 1929 — 1936, offered merely the shallowest breathing space inside ten films. "Klondike Annie" was the last of these.
• • But the good news is that Doris and Pearl Eaton are making their presence known at their old haunt in midtown Manhattan.

• • This weekend, the charming supper club entrepreneur, Herve Rousseau, who has owned Flute (205 West 54th Street) since 1997 — — the site of Texas Guinan's Club Abbey and Club Intime — — was being interviewed for the upcoming documentary "In the Footsteps of Texas Guinan." He shared this fascinating story with us.
• • Herve Rousseau explained that, a few years ago, he was buying new art for his club. "I must have looked at well over 10,000 prints and I selected ten pieces. I showed these to my wife, my employees, and some friends. The choice was unanimous. Everybody liked the same female portrait the best. So I bought it and we hung it up opposite the entrance. One night, one of my regular clients looked at the artwork more closely and told me the portrait was of Doris Eaton.  This was several years ago, when she was promoting her new memoir."
• • Herve Rousseau continued: "I researched her name and discovered she had been a guest at Texas Guinan's clubs and her sister Pearl Eaton had worked for Texas and Larry Fay. Now she's back here again."
• • This was a "goosebumps" moment for all the listeners. What a great story.
• • Photo: Herve Rousseau and the camera crew at Flute on 2 April 2016
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • 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.
_________________________________________________________
Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • Herve Rousseau at 205 West 54th Street • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Hotel Harding

Oh those days when TEXAS GUINAN offered world-class whoopee at the Hotel Harding (203 West 54th Street) — — a  speakeasy on the lower level — — until the padlocks arrived.
• • New York's Whoopee Center • •
• • From an ad in a NYC magazine on December 29, 1928 — —  Early Bird Catches the New Year's Eve Table at New York's Whoopee Center — —  Phone now: Circle 2500 — —  Texas Guinan (With Sound and how!) — — Texas at her Showplace, Hotel Harding, 203 West 54th Street — — A BIG SHOW.
• • Note: Mae West was living at this hotel when "Diamond Lil" was onstage and when Tex had her speakeasy in the cellar. Pay attention to that iron handrail going down to the lower level.

• • "Harding Changes Hands" • •
• • The Harding Hotel, frequently in print, has changed hands again. The new owner, said to be headed by Morris Sweetwood, will conduct it with a night club as an adjunct.  Because it comes within the law, the latter will be open all night.
• • Last year [i.e., 1929] it had Texas Guinan as the feature.
• • When Ed Arlington took over the Harding Hotel several years ago, he made it highly profitable. He sold his lease for $75,000. The new owners secured that lease, which has 10 years to go, for $45,000.
• • Source: Variety; published on Wednesday, 6 February 1930
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • 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.
_________________________________________________________
Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • 203 West 54th Street today • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan & the Undead

Since October 31st is All Hallows Eve, it is the season to highlight Texas Guinan's fascination with the occult, the unseen, and the undead. When she was 42 years old, Texas Guinan met Rudolph Valentino [6 May 1895 — 23 August 1926] at her brother's nightspot.

• • It was Sunday 25 July 1926 when Texas Guinan met Valentino at Tommy Guinan's speakeasy. Larger than the average ginmill, The Playground was on West 52nd Street (east of Broadway). Its generous square footage made it ideal for events and James R. Quirk, editor-publisher of Photoplay, hosted a Reception in honor of Valentino's new silent movie "Son of the Sheik" there. When Photoplay first began publication, Quirk's staff had included handsome Julian Johnson, Texas's lover.
• • Mae West and Texas Guinan were there to greet the Apulian heartthrob. No doubt Texas fancied Jadaan, a superb Arabian stallion Valentino had ridden in this melodrama. An expert equestrienne herself, the following year Texas would ride an Arabian stallion into the Shubert Theatre at the start of "Padlocks of 1927."

• • Maybe Mae West was charmed more by the Italian stallion himself — — and piqued by the abrupt end to his life that occurred one month later when the actor was only 31. Something about Rudy impressed Mae, encouraging her to think that he could link her to the unquiet dead up and down Times Square.
• • According to Whitney Bolton, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, a week after the Italian-born actor Rudolph Valentino died [1895-1926], Mae West and her friend Texas Guinan arranged for a séance in a Manhattan loft. Suspicious that the 31-year-old heartthrob was secretly poisoned by a rival, Mae summoned an Italian Medium to officiate. At the table sitting opposite Mae were Texas, her brother Tommy Guinan, and the gangster Owney Madden who owned The Cotton Club, a man remembered more for violence than his spiritual side.
• • And the rendezvous with Rudolph in 1926 must have been memorable because two years later Mae was holding séances in the smoking room of the Royale Theatre to communicate again with him. Visiting New York to see “Diamond Lil” on Broadway, the actor Jean Hersholt was invited backstage and yanked into a darkened room where a Medium was channeling Caruso and Valentino. Hersholt recalled that Rudy called upon Mae and said: “Mae, you have a lot of enemies and don’t trust any of them.”
• • During the 1920s, Texas Guinan continued to host séances in her nightspots — — especially in Club Abbey on West 54th Street. It was easy for Mae West to attend these sessions, too, since she lived right upstairs.
• • To stay in touch with the other side, Texas Guinan also regularly attended St. Joseph's, a Roman Catholic Church on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village.
_________________________________________________________
Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Illustration: Valentino and "Son of the Sheik" • • 1926 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.