Texas Guinan: Race Artists

Variety found it unusual when white people such as TEXAS GUINAN or Tommy Guinan worked with so-called "race artists" such as Juan Harrison, et al, making whoopee at Chez Florence, 117 West 48th Street.
• • "Guinan's New People" • •
• • Variety wrote: Some new people are in the colored entertaining list of Tommy Guinan's Club Florence on West 48th Street. Florence [Mills], the former name bearer of the club, has returned to France, it is said, where she will reappear in a nite (sic) club.
• • Variety explained: Remaining are Kid Sneeze with Alberta, the successor as the lone singer, without  billing.  Palmer Jones is also there, along with the Prime Quartet, Nelson Kincaid, Brome Desverney, Hugh Walke, and Juan Harrison.

• • Source:  Variety;  published on Wednesday, 25 April 1928
• • Note: Florence Mills and Juan Harrison (a West Indian singer) were in the Broadway cast of "Dixie to Broadway," an all-black hit musical at the Broadhurst Theatre.
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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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Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • "Dixie to Broadway," 1924 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Wild 45th Street

TEXAS GUINAN knew that The Del Fey Club on West 45th was wildly popular. So why not open her own nightspot directly across the way?
• • "Texas Guinan's New Place" • •
• • The Texas Tommy is a new drop-in place on the order of the Hotsy-Totsy Club which Texas Guinan and her brother Tommy, opened in West 45th Street. The Texas Tommy will also have Jerry  Benson interested for one-quarter,  Benson being the marvelous pianist at the Hotsy-Totsy.   The Texas Tommy is adjacent to The Del Fey where Miss Guinan holds forth regularly.
• • Source:  Cabarets column in Variety; published on  Wednesday, 14 October  1925
• • In 1925, The Del Fey Club gave its address (in paid advertisements) as 104 West 45th Street — — as well as on the north side of the street in an old four-story brownstone at 107 West 45th Street, New York, NY (previously the address of The Friars Club and Mecca Temple).

• • A Del Fey Club announcement in The New Yorker advised this: "Pandemonium from midnight until morning.  Not for sheltered debutantes." • • The El Fey Club was the first nightspot Larry Fay leased when he hired Texas Guinan as his emcee.

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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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Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • 107 West 45th (now demolished) • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Speaking to Souls

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.
• • Walk in the footsteps of Texas Guinan and Mae West next month. See below.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Join us for a lively afternoon focused on Mae West & Texas Guinan!
• • On 16 August 2009, come up and enjoy an a-MAE-zing experience — — a walking tour of historical sights in the Times Square area. This year the Annual Mae West Birthday Tour also commemorates speakeasy hostess Texas Guinan, the generous friend who backed all of Mae’s Broadway shows during the 1920s.
• • During April 1929, the Feds padlocked the CIub Intime at the Hotel Harding, where Texas Guinan was the principal attraction. On August 16th, attendees will visit this speakeasy, which is doing brisk business these days.
• • Walking Tour: "Gaudy Girls on The Gay White Way: Mae West & Texas Guinan in the Theatre District"
• • When: 4:00 PM on Sunday — — 16 August 2008 — — rain or shine
• • Meet: Shubert Alley, 44th Street, West of Broadway, New York, NY 10036
• • Price: $10 [this walking tour lasts about 90 minutes]
• • Subway: N or R [BMT] train to West 42nd Street; 1 [IRT] train to Times Square
• • Attire: why not wear a Mae West-inspired hat?
• • Info: T. 212-614-9683 — — or post your RSVP or tour question here
• • Online: MaeWest.blogspot.com — — TexasGuinan.blogspot.com
• • Who: Playwright LindaAnn Loschiavo makes the tour educational and entertaining.
• • LindaAnn Loschiavo's history play "Courting Mae West" was onstage in July 2008 at the Fresh Fruit Festival. She is working on a biographical travel guide "Mae West's New York, 1899—1959" and will show some of her unusual theatre memorabilia and vintage photos during the tour and reveal secret addresses tied to Mae West that have not been disclosed before. These rare pictures show the area as it looked during the 1920s when Mae West and Texas Guinan had their name on several marquees.
• • Surprises: Prizes and other nice things are part of the fun
• • Members of the press may attend on August 16th as our guest. RSVP required.
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Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • images from 1926 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: November 5th

New Yorkers were shocked to learn that their Queen of the Night Clubs, vivacious Texas Guinan had died on 5 November 1933.
• • In 1928 — — while chatting with reporter Sidney Skolsky — — Texas Guinan joked, "I want my funeral to be the speediest ever given. A cop on a motorcycle is to lead it."
• • Tommy Guinan went to Vancouver to sign the papers and accompany his sister home.
• • Twelve thousand turned out for a final viewing. Show business buddies filled Frank Campbell's Funeral Chapel — — then located on Broadway and West 66th Street in New York, NY — — with large floral tributes. Movie cameras recorded it all.
• • The New York Herald Tribune noted: "She was a master showman, and accomplished psychologist. . . . She had ability, too — — and would have been successful in any one of a dozen more conventional fields. To New York and the rest of the country Texas was a flaming leader of a period which was a lot of fun while it lasted. . . ."
• • Texas Guinan often said: "I would rather have a square inch of New York than all the rest of the world." Non omnis moriar.
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Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan's funeral on Broadway • • 1933 • •
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.
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Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

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