Texas Guinan: Licensing Fees

"In the Footsteps of Texas Guinan" is a documentary film, now in production, about (who else?) TEXAS GUINAN.
• • As documentary filmmakers try to bring a topic to the screen, some of the challenges involve all those licensing fees. What brings a story alive is the rare archival footage as well as those "rights managed" photos (from Getty Images, Bettman Archive, etc.) — — and, yes, predictably that means paying a full licensing fee. Warner Brothers, for instance, is not about to let us use vintage Texas Guinan film footage for free.

• • Other expenses include traveling to interview people, paying the camera crew (boom operators, lighting staff, etc.), music rights, editing the footage, and more.

• • Thank you to all the wonderful individuals who have already contributed.
• • We're hoping to reach more people before June 16th. Please share this message.
• • During the 1920s, night club was always two words as in "Queen of the Night Clubs."
• • There's more to the story so come back to see us and please support our campaign. Thank you.
• • Visit "In the Footsteps of Texas Guinan"

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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 • • a friend of hers • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Night Club — 2 words

Here's the untold story behind the noun "night club," a term coined by TEXAS GUINAN.  She was not the first individual, however, to open a nightspot where men and women could dance, drink, socialize, and be entertained.
• • For instance, in 1917 (during pre-wartime Prohibition) in Greenwich Village, Paula "Polly" Holliday and Bernard "Barney" Gallant were running the Greenwich Village Inn on Sheridan Square. This was considered to be the first place in New York City where drinks were served at a customer's table by a waiter or waitress and there was live entertainment onstage.
• • This kind of avant-garde nightspot was known as "a concert saloon" or "a cabaret" in 1917.
• • Let's move ahead seven years to 1924, when Texas Guinan and Larry Fay opened their El Fey Club in midtown Manhattan. To extract more cash from the attendees and also to have a ready alibi for the cops, Texas instructed her doorman to sell a club membership card to anyone trying to gain admission. Later on, when the police would show up, Texas explained that this was a private party — — and all the adults inside were "club members."  Clever, huh?

• • During the 1920s, night club was always two words as in "Queen of the Night Clubs."
• • There's more to the story so come back to see us and please support our campaign.
• • Visit "In the Footsteps of Texas Guinan"
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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.
_________________________________________________________
Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • page in Variety, 1926 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

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

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

Texas Guinan: George Chesebro

TEXAS GUINAN starred in approximately 33 silent films made by a handful of production companies, including Mack Sennett’s Triangle Film Corporation (four films in 1917–1918), Frohman Amusement Corporation (thirteen two-reelers in 1919), Bull’s Eye / Reelcraft Film Company (twelve two-reelers in 1920), and Victor Kremer Productions (two features in 1921).
• • Texas made four silent films with George Chesebro as her co-star such as "The She Wolf." In case you are wondering, George played "the stranger" and Texas played the fearless gun-toting "she wolf" in the title. This was the first entry in a series of 26 two-reel thrillers starring Texas Guinan, released every two weeks beginning Saturday, 10 May 1919.
• • Together she and George made these silent films:  "The She Wolf" (1919), "South of Santa Fe" (1919), "Some Gal" (1919), "The Girl of Hell's Agony" (1919).
• • George Chesebro • •
• • Born in Minnesota, George Chesebro [29 July 1888 — 28 May 1959] was an American film actor. After returned from the war, he appeared in more than 400 films between 1915 and 1954, beginning in two-reelers starring Texas Guinan. According to her biographer, there was a hot little romance going on for awhile.

• • Then came this announcement in the trade papers: George Cheseboro is married.  He is now in the serial, "The Hope Diamond Mystery," with Grace Darmond. [Tuesday, May 31, 1921 news item]
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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.
_________________________________________________________
Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • "Some Gal" (1919) • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Wilson Mizner

TEXAS GUINAN was friends with Wilson Mizner. In 1928, she floated the story that she was considering marrying him. There was one kink. If only he would propose.
• • "Texas Guinan to try again" • •
• • Texas Guinan, queen of the night clubs, who is ready to commit matrimony — — and with her Wilson Mizner, author, playwright, traveler, bon vivant, wit and millionaire. There is one obstacle in Texas's path. She does not know whether she can get the only man she would have — — this man being Wilson Mizner.  Texas said she is badly smitten but not desperate. She is waiting for Wilson to make up his mind.
• • Note: Wilson Mizner [1876 — 1933] is noted for many bons mots such as, "Be nice to people on the way up because you'll meet the same people on the way down," and, "If you copy from one author, it's plagiarism. If you copy from two, it's research."

• • Source:  The Milwaukee Sentinel; published on Thursday, 15 November 1928
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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.
_________________________________________________________
Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • in 1928 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: 0. 0. McIntyre

The media people kissed TEXAS GUINAN and she kissed and cooed right back. One of the faithful scribes who often serenaded her in print was 0. 0. McIntyre, who was born in the same year as the Waco cowgirl: 1884. 
• • For a quarter of a century, his daily column, “New York Day by Day,” was published in more than 500 newspapers. Texas Guinan does not rebuke an annoying customer with "Hello, Sucker!" She now cries. "You are just a cover charge to me," he noted in his column dated  Sunday, 17 August 1930.   "Texas Guinan made $700,000 in the most prosperous year of her night club reign," he revealed to his readers on Sunday, 10 December 1933.
• • Oscar Odd McIntyre [18 February 1884 — 14 February 1938] • • 
• • Hedda Hopper wrote: Any newspaper man knows names make news. No one recognized this better than the gentleman who was probably the daddy of the personality news column way back in the roaring '20s. That would be 0. 0. McIntyre.
• • Texas Guinan's name was often sandwiched into his delicious buffet of a column. Lionized by the columnist often during her speakeasy hostess era, Texas seemed to be no less alive to him and worthy of praise after 1933. Here is one example.

• • New York, NY — —  April 16th — — The most popular night club hostess New York has ever known was, of course, Texas Guinan, with Helen Morgan a runner-up.  . . .
• • Source:  "New York Day by Day" by 0. 0. Mclntyre, syndicated column rpt in Herald-Journal; published on Friday, 17 April 1936
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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.
_________________________________________________________
Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • in the 1930s • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Sister Aimee

In 1932, when a Broadway producer read Nancy Barr Mativy's biography, "Sister Aimee," he heard cash register bells ringing — — and realized that no one was better qualified to play the title role than TEXAS GUINAN. 
• • The night club queen, known for her famous comebacks, once said to a huckster: "Listen, sucker, you take them by the sun. I take them by the moon. Now don't let's interfere with each other's business." Though she didn't say this to Aimee, it would have been apt, yes?  
• • The New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell, speaking to Guinan about this stage play, asked if she was worried Aimee might sue producer Charles Hopkins. "Well, it's no skin off my ass," was her candid reply.
• • "Texas Guinan to Act" • •
• • Charles Hopkins has a plan which should attract a lot of attention. He is arranging to produce a stage version of Nancy Barr Mativy's book, "Sister Aimee," and our old night club friend, Texas Guinan, will be seen as Aimee, the adult.
• • Texas should be ideal, for such a role, although it may cause many a smile to see the radiant Tex playing the part of an evangelist. Naturally, as I have forgotten to state, the play will deal with the life of Aimee Semple McPherson. Helen Rowland will be Aimee, the child; Edith Barrett Aimee, the girl; and then along will come Texas Guinan as the Sister Aimee of the present.
• • Source:  Syndicated show biz column rpt in The Indianapolis Star (Indiana); published on Sunday, 6 March 1932.

• • Aimee Semple McPherson [9 October 1890 –– 27 September 1944], also known as "Sister Aimee" or simply "Sister," was an evangelist and media sensation in the 1920s and 1930s; she was also the founder of the Foursquare Church.
• • Aimee McPherson had founded the Foursquare Gospel church. She supervised the construction of a large, domed church building in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles, and it was completed in June 1923. Named Angelus Temple, it had a seating capacity of over 5,000.
• • When Aimee Semple McPherson, the famous West Coast evangelist (with an expensive marcel-waved hair-do) visited New York in 1927, she insisted on visiting Texas Guinan's speakeasy on West Fifty-fourth Street.
• • Naturally, Texas welcomed McPherson and the two formed somewhat of a mutual admiration society. It was a promotional dream — — two gals of Irish descent in different types of show business. Aimee thanked Texas and invited her to her Glad Tidings Tabernacle the next day. Texas and her chorus girls showed up (before going to work), to the astonishment of everyone.
• • At the time, women in the pulpit ministry were rare — — those who wore makeup and jewelry in the pulpit, nonexistent. McPherson's uniqueness in this respect, her flamboyance and her unashamed use of low-key sex appeal to attract converts, endeared her to her crowd of followers in Los Angeles. She would invariably appear before parishioners in a white gown, carrying a bouquet of flowers.
• • On 27 September 1944 she was found dead of an overdose of prescription barbiturates.
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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.
_________________________________________________________
Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • news clip in 1933 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Wilda Bennett

In 1927  Wilda Bennett and Pepy de Albreau were assisting Brooke Johns and his banjo at TEXAS GUINAN'S 300 Club, 151 West 54th Street.
• • They had celebrated their wedding reception in January 1926 at Texas Guinan's as well. Curfew shall not ring tonight.
• • "Wilda Bennett Weds a Cabaret Dancer; Broadway Surprised" • •
• • NEW YORK. Jan. 20 (A. P.) The New York Herald Tribune today says that Wilda Bennett, actress, has been married to Pepy De Albreau, cabaret dancer, and will star with him in professional engagements. 
• • News of the marriage was a surprise to Broadway inasmuch as a verdict of $37,500 has been obtained against Miss Bennett for alienating the affections of Charles C. Frey, turfman, formerly of Louisville, Ky.   Mrs. Katherine Frey, socially prominent, won the verdict recently after charging the actress with pursuing her husband.
• • The Herald Tribune says that Miss Bennett and De Albreau Pere married in Greenwich, Conn., Monday. Confirmation was obtained through Miss Bennett's sister, Kay, who said: "I don't know many of the details of the marriage, but I do know that Wilda and Pepy were married."

• • Source:  Item on page 2 of The Scranton Republican (Scranton, Pennsylvania); published on 21 January 1926
• • 201 West 52nd Street changes hands • •
• • Tommy Guinan's Playground, a partnership between Texas Guinan and her brother, was the site of a celebrity-studded party in July 1926 for Rudolph Valentino. 
• • By July 28, 1928, the Guinans were out and a buddy of theirs, cabaret dancer Pepy De Albreau, had taken it over. 
• • The Jungle Club (201 West 52nd Street) featured a “Spanish patio bar.”  
• • In 1932, John Perona in partnership with his friend Pepy De Albreau (now known as "a former professional dancer"),  transformed the shuttered Jungle Club into Place Pigalle. The new club was decorated to resemble Montmartre and featured a quartet of can-can dancers and a Maitre d’ named Maraschino.    
• • The Great Depression had a negative impact on places of entertainment and supper clubs. By 1937, Mario's Mirador ["Village Glamour on Broadway"] was advertising itself as an event space for weddings and parties.  
• • By 1939, the Jewish Music Alliance had moved into the generously proportioned space with high ceilings. Originally designed as a concert hall, it became a place to print music books.
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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.
_________________________________________________________
Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • at the 300 Club in January 1926 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Louis Sobol

The Manhattan press agent Louis Sobol recalled his relationship with TEXAS GUINAN in his memoir.
• • Louis Sobol wrote: Texas Guinan was another of Earl Carroll's friends. She was an outstanding figure during the Prohibition era, a night club queen who addressed her patrons as "suckers" and exploited her entertainers with the words, "Give this little girl a hand."
• • Texas grew to know me so well that when my father and mother came to New York, she entertained them at her club. Characteristically, Texas directed all the attention toward mother. Every time that anything would happen, Texas would cry, "How did you like that, mother? How was that, mother? Did that please you, mother?"
• • The attention, though very flattering, was to have its repercussions.  A week after, when mother and I went to see "Carmen" at the Metropolitan Opera House, we made the customary lobby promenade, during the first intermission.  All of a sudden we saw a woman rush up to a man, grab him by the arm and cry, "Look, Charlie, there's mother from Texas Guinan's."
• • The incident struck me as so funny that I wrote it up and sent it  to the old Life Magazine, which straightway published it and sent me a five-dollar check.
• • The story of Texas Guinan has been told, I believe, in songs and films, but my own delight on her career partakes of the incongruous. Though she spent practically most of her time in the denatured atmosphere of a night club, when her work was over, I have heard that she sank into a bed covered with multiple pillows, amid heavy hangings, perfumed dolls and bric-a-brac. Doubtless, too, the windows were closed for fear that a gust of fresh air would contaminate the odor of greasepaint.

• • Fresh air was what Earl Carroll and I sought when the day's work was over.  . . .
• • Belle Livingston, idol of the noctambulists • •
• • Among the queens of this almost forgotten time was Belle Livingston, once the idol of the noctambulists. She is, now in her eighties, a large woman, self-assured, with red hair and a flushed skin. She indicated that her past was distinguished and went in for literature. Her night club introduced the informal idea of having guests sit on the floor, a floor made comfortable with voluptuous pillows which flanked the walls, walls made equally comfortable with satin upholstery. Outside the police hovered regularly about the place and created that illicit atmosphere which made those days continuously exciting.
• • Belle was the first woman in New York to run a speakeasy. She was dubbed the Belle of Prohibition. She once remarked to Texas Guinan:  "My place won't seem like home if I'm not raided." She was jailed at one time for four weeks in a Harlem prison.  . . .
• • Source:  Book: "Broadway Heartbeat: Memoirs of a Press Agent" by Louis Sobol (NY: Hermitage House, 1953] 
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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.
_________________________________________________________
Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • in the 1920s • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Feets Edson

Hyman Edson worked with TEXAS GUINAN at most of her nightspots.  When she opened a world-class whoopee rousing club in Valley Stream in 1932, it was arranged that Edson would guard the terrain by opening a roadhouse directly across Merrick Road. For entertainment, Edson engaged a talented impressionist who often dressed in an evening gown but who was skilled enough to do both female and male impersonations.
• • Jackie Maye Booked at Showplace • •
• • Hyman "Feets" Edson [1894 —1964] will reopen Long Island's Showplace, and will feature Jackie Maye, just to prove to the waiting hordes that there is still a market for female impersonators (flatterer! Ed.).
• • And just guess who'll open the La Casa, at Valley Stream? Give up? Texas Guinan! Surprise! Texas Guinan, who just tootled overseas long enough to Okay Paris, and who has been announced as opening everything but Grant's Tomb, to date, will settle down at La Casa, and make sleeping tough in Valley Stream.
• • Announced on Saturday, 28 May 1932:  Frank Winegar [1901 — 1988] booked at Texas Guinan's La Casa.
• • Source: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, NY); published on Wednesday, 18 May 1932

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

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • news clip from 1965 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Royal Fibbing

Oh those days when TEXAS GUINAN offered world-class whoopee at Salon Royal (310 West 58th Street) until the dry agent showed up. Things got slower than a Sloe Gin Fizz — — except for the fibs, artfully blended with bitters.
• • "Never Worked with Bar, Declares Texas Guinan" • •
• • NEW YORK, August 2nd — —The following telegram was sent by Texas Guinan to the editor of the New York American:
• • Dear Sir: I regret exceedingly that your paper, usually so well informed, printed the story about a bar at Salon Royal, where I work, having been padlocked. I feel that you will (in justice to myself) gladly correct the erroneous statement as I have never in my life worked in a night club associated with a bar and there is no bar at the Club Royal where I am employed as hostess nor has there been a padlock [sic].
• • Sincerely,  TEXAS GUINAN

• • Source: Wire Services reportage rpt by Reading Times (Reading, Pennsylvania); published on Friday, 3 August 1928
• • Note: Plymouth Sloe Gin is based on an 1883 recipe, and has since become an important part in various classic cocktails, notably the Sloe Gin Fizz. Salut!
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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.
_________________________________________________________
Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • in 1927 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Uncuffed Curfew

TEXAS GUINAN had a long string of rocking, rowdy nightspots where, as she proclaimed in her ads, "Curfew shall not ring tonight."  One was The 300 Club at 151 West 54th Street (now the site of London NYC Hotel).
• • Burton W. Peretti wrote:  In 1926, on 54th Street in midtown Manhattan, the entertainer Mary "Texas" Guinan's 300 Club glowed with color and resonated with activity.  Stephen Graham, an Englishman, recalled his visit to the club with pleasure. "The walls are covered with pleated cloth and the roof tented with the same cloth softly toned in old rose, green, and sere yellow. There are hanging Chinese lanterns, and on the walls illuminated designs of parrots. There are twenty or thirty tables and a small space in the middle of them for intimate dancing. The lighting is wonderful."  

Texas Guinan on menu of 300 Club

• • cigarette girl: blue satin trousers with a crimson sash • •
• • Burton W. Peretti continued: "A charming girl in blue satin trousers and wearing a crimson sash" sold cigarettes while "a smart girl in black with silver flowers on her hips" dispensed gift dolls. A guitar quartet strolled amid well-heeled patrons such as Harry Thaw (the wealthy playboy famed for his murder of the architect Stanford White twenty years earlier) and the mayor of New York City himself, James J. Walker, "flitting in elegantly to touch the hands of several of a large party and yield his charming smile to the ladies." Texas Guinan, the mistress of ceremonies, appeared to introduce her "near-naked girls" and "a song about cherries." 

300 Club - business card

• • Burton W. Peretti added: "Cherries!" the crowd shouted. One "girl . . . put a cherry into each man's mouth. One took the cherry and kissed the girl's fingertips. Another girl following ruffled up men's hair as she passed." A young man was recruited to dance with the chorines, the audience sang "And She Knows Her Onions!" and Guinan tossed finger-clappers and snowballs made of felt to the customers. The show concluded with a merry projectile fight. The hostess pelted a pair of newlyweds with rice and the clock struck five. "One of the waiters borrowed a horn from the jazz band and blew dreadful reveilles into the ears of the sleepers." By sunrise, even Guinan herself had become sedate.
• • Burton W. Peretti continued:  Shortly after Stephen Graham's visit, the 300 Club became a victim of official suppression. According to the New York Times, four hundred patrons were present that night, including two U.S. senators (whom the Times discreetly did not name) and twenty visitors from Georgia welcoming home the new champion of the British Open golf tournament, Bobby Jones (who was not at the club). 
• • Burton W. Peretti stated:  Two New York City policewomen, "dressed and acting as if they were visiting flappers seeking a thrill," staked out the premises in advance. When vice officers and federal Prohibition agents announced the raid, some male customers tried to "fight it out" and were arrested.  

Texas Guinan enters the paddy wagon

• • Burton W. Peretti noted: Also taken into custody were Guinan's father, Michael, the club manager, and seventeen-year-old Julia Dunn, a chorus member charged with "having taken part in an objectionable dance . . . in flesh-colored tights almost covered with imitation pearl beads." The site of the 300 Club was shuttered for six months. In city court, however, Julia Dunn was freed by the magistrate, who ruled that the narrow distance between tables had forced her to dance amid the customers. Michael and Texas Guinan were acquitted after a trial, and none of their customers were punished as well. After the padlock came off of the front door, the old 300 Club venue housed similar liquor-dealing nightclubs, including the Club Argonaut owned by Larry Fay, the man who gave Texas Guinan her start in the nightclub business in 1922.

• • The short life of the 300 Club is part of the fascinating and important history of Manhattan nightclubs between World Wars I and II. . . .
• • Source:  "Nightclub City: Politics and Amusement in Manhattan" by Burton W. Peretti
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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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Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • in the kitchen • •
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Texas Guinan.