Texas Guinan: Drena Beach

In March 1929 audiences were getting used to a new form of entertainment: a "dramatic dialogue picture" also known as a "talkie." Since people were used to seeing a live stage show, theatre owners would book a picture and arrange for an extravaganza on stage.
• • Drena Beach, a protege of Texas Guinan, was getting a lot of work. The live segments ran continuously from noon to midnight, alternating with the featured first-run picture.
• • On 10 March 1929, the acrobatic dancer performed her "Sensational Dance of the Leopard" on the stage of B.S. Moss's Colony Theatre [Broadway and 53rd Street].
• • Always supportive of her "little girls," Texas Guinan would be in the audience, attracting more press coverage to the event to make sure her performer was noticed. And how could you not notice Drena Beach with her thrillingly long tigerish fingernails?
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Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan protege Drena Beach • • 1926 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Snakes & Sam

Enjoy a glimpse of Texas Guinan from someone who knew her.
• • Samuel Marx had a long career in the entertainment industry.

When he was in his 20s, while he was covering the nightlife scene for newspapers, Marx frequented several clubs run by Texas Guinan and her brother Tommy. He used this insider's knowledge to pen a sweet little tell-all: Texas Guinan: The Ace of (Night) Clubs [released 1 January 1929, 30 pages].
• • Here is an excerpt from Little Blue Book No. 1446 [Publisher: Haldeman-Julius Publications].
• • • • • • Headlining at the club, at present, is a girl {Nerida} who does a dance while entwined with a live six-foot cobra. It is weird and ghastly.

This same girl had been dismissed from the Frivolity Club. Waiters complained that people ordered less food when the snake was on. Texas doesn't care. She likes the act.
• • Heywood Broun, noted writer, once devoted his entire "It Seems to Me" column in the Scripps-Howard newspapers to that snake dance. At the bottom, Broun wittily closed with the line that "if there isn't any snake at the Guinan Club, I'm on the water wagon from now on!"
• • Jeanne Williams - - who was later to fool Hollywood with a Russian accent and the name of Sonia Karlov - - was a dancer at the old El Fey Club. Ruby Keeler, who later married Al Jolson [in 1928], was a fixture with Texas as a tap-dancer for many seasons. Dottie Wilson, a beautiful little blonde dancer, left Texas to wed a millionaire Clevelander. Among old standbys of Texas - - who started with her and are still be her side - - are Drina [sic] Beach, who dances an exotic routine clad in a leopard skin, and Kitty O'Riley, a "tough" Irish girl entertainer.
• • The show at Texas Guinan's is not like the ordinary revue in any other Broadway cabaret. . . .
[Note: Drena Beach danced in the Broadway revue Padlocks of 1927 [Shubert Theatre, July - September 1927.]
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Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • photo: Texas Guinan • • 1928 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.