The reality of making money—real money—during the Depression was slim. Especially for young, not especially well-educated women. There were teaching jobs and secretarial jobs. Both mundane and not suited for girls who wanted adventure.
Burlesque, an outgrowth of (or stepchild) of vaudeville, could and did afford single young women the chance to travel, earn decent—if not really good—money. And if they weren’t quite “stars,” they did make fans and generate publicity and were for a while “someone” in that circle. They, like Lili, felt “necessary.”114
And though strictly speaking the Florentine Gardens was not a burlesque house, the acts were similar and would have played both vaudeville and burlesque.
In the beginning Lili didn’t move anywhere near as gracefully as she would in the coming years, but she had a sparkle and a beautiful body, not to mention stunning features with a cleft chin, wide jutted cheekbones, and green eyes that were both mischievous and wholesome. She was fresh and nervous, occasionally tripping over her own feet, not exactly sure what to do with her hands. But she was endearing and delightful, eager to please, anxious to be liked. Barbara was equally stunning with an easy smile and enthusiasm for everything.
Barbara
LILI WOULD FOREVER REMEMBER HER FIRST NIGHT AT THE FLORENTINE, the smell of tomatoes and garlic and sweet cocktails. The sounds of the band and laughter. It seemed to be the happiest place on earth. Barbara and Lili were deliriously nervous, stomachs in knots, but also electrified too.
Backstage was chaos; girls running around in various stages of undress, stagehands lugging props, lifting furniture. Music soared through the club along with the tinkling of glass and silverware. There were many dressing rooms for a show that included an enormous cast of twenty chorus girls, jugglers, dance teams, and more.
For her first bit Granny had Lili walk around in net panties and bra. Years later she recalled the terror. She couldn’t feel her feet and hands. Her lips stuck to her teeth. The audience scared her. All those eyes on her.
To assure the girls didn’t get into trouble, Ian drove them to and from the club each evening, a thirty-minute car ride that any number of new admirers would have been willing to do. And soon were offering. Dardy was left at home to cry at the injustice of it. After all, NTG had spotted Barbara and her, not Lili.115
The shows at the Gardens were “built around NTG,” who meandered from table to table between the shows, bantering with the audience, sometimes telling crude double entendres and ribbing his celebrity friends like actor John Barrymore, a notorious drunk who often fell over.116 Movie stars such as Judy Garland, Robert Taylor, and Barbara Stanwyck packed the place.117 The show had comedians and chorines, dozens of scantily clad girls who slithered and slinked across the wide stage or gathered on the dance floor for spectacular and elaborate dance numbers. NTG was big on audience participation, sometimes asking soldiers up, inviting patrons to hula-hoop. Between 1940 and 1942 an astounding two million patrons enjoyed Granlund’s show at the Florentine.118 For Lili and her sister it was a huge opportunity.
The Florentine employed dozens of pretty girls who came and went. Lili gathered that if she wanted to stand apart from the ambitious showgirls clogging backstage, it was advantageous to be as naked as the law allowed. She was determined to get noticed and was bare-bosomed often. Ironically, as her career progressed, Lili would learn the value of clothing and cloaking, becoming less nude as she danced up the ladder of success. But for now she needed the attention of an audience jaded by the plethora of beautiful girls shaking across the floor. Competition was fierce.
Just west on Sunset Boulevard loomed the cavernous Earl Carroll Theatre, a supper club that showcased the same type of starlets as the Florentine, billed as having “the most beautiful girls in the world.” Not a unique claim. In Hollywood there was the Trocadero, Mocambo (opened in 1941), and Ciro’s (opened in 1940), all snazzy clubs vying for the attendance of movie stars. There was the Coconut Grove downtown and Sebastian’s Cotton Club. La Conga on Vine was a dance club that featured the recent Rumba craze. Clara Bow’s “It” Café was lush, with an elegant art deco interior. Hollywood nightlife was at its finest.
NTG treated the beauties with respect. Many of the girls lived with Granny in his big house on Fountain Avenue. “And never any hanky panky,” the girls swore, since he had a beautiful showgirl girlfriend, Sylvia McKaye.119
Lili watched and wondered and wanted the audience to single her out. She had bleached her hair about as white-blonde as it would go, and she wore thick Max Factor foundation that made her break out. She had even darkened her arched eyebrows. Along with Barbara, she had nude photographs taken. They were beautiful and artistically shot. Barbara sat modestly on the floor, Lili standing behind her, arching her slender torso, brazenly bare-breasted, her arm in the air.
This rare photo of Lili at the Florentine Gardens clearly shows she hadn’t yet chosen a stage name
BARBARA DANCED UNDER A PSEUDONYM, BILLED AS BARBARA Moffett.3*** Granny took credit for naming her after his two dear friends, heiress Barbara Hutton and Adelaide Moffett Brooks, a “society songstress” who was the daughter of a former vice president of Standard Oil and the widow of David “Winkie” Brooks, who “fell” out of his fourteenth-floor apartment in 1936.120
Undecided as to her perfect name, Lili remained Marie Van Schaack (and occasionally Mary Van Schacht). Possibly she wanted people to know of her success and didn’t yet want to hide behind a pseudonym.
WHETHER FROM SHYNESS OR SNOBBISHNESS, LILI WOULD NEVER become chummy with the other showgirls backstage. In return most would feel threatened by her. Many of the girls were younger than Lili. There was competition for boyfriends and prominent positions in the show.
Barbara and Lili were moderately friendly with “Dingbat,” a tall, raven-haired girl who had renamed herself from the ordinary Margaret Middleton to the more exotic Yvonne de Carlo. Barbara and Yvonne had much in common, such as ruthlessly ambitious mothers. Dingbat’s mother made Idella look modest in her plans for her daughter.
Yvonne, who would go on to become a star in both film and television, was pushed by a stage mother who showed up regularly at the club. They lived together in a small apartment downtown. Yvonne’s mother had always wanted to be a ballerina and forced her daughter into dance, though Yvonne lacked the ballerina’s body, with too long a trunk and too-short legs.
“She had a screwy figure,” Dardy recalled. “But she was sweet and charming.” Yvonne’s father had left home when she was three. For a while she too had lived with her grandparents. Like Lili she had dropped out of high school. It was unfortunate they never became friends. Yvonne too longed to escape her past and become a sophisticate. Her path would cross with Dardy’s one day at Earl Carroll’s. Lili, however, remained—not yet aloof as she would become—separate from the other girls. Women were and would remain a threat.
By March of 1940 Barbara and Lili were enjoying a variety of numbers in the show. “The ‘Bookends’,” Granny teased.121
DARDY MARVELED AT THE TRANSFORMATION OF
