Long Legs and Tall Tales: A Showgirl's Wacky, Sexy Journey to the Playboy Mansion and the Radio City Rockettes (59 page)

After dating Russian gymnasts from Cirque du Soleil’s bizarre “Mystere” extravaganza at Treasure Island Casino, Bobbi Sue and pal Sunshine showed off the “hand-to-hand” routine their grotesquely flexible, burly boyfriends taught them—a series of ever-so-slowly changing formations where they’d balance on each other in gravity-defying, contortionist poses. Sometimes the showings were as simple as Ivana (a.k.a.“Ivy”) doing her famous, fantastic Russian jump splits in which she’d spring up, straddle-split her legs out to the sides, and touch her toes with her hands, all while suspended in midair. This airborne move was a favorite request for showings, talent shows, or just for a quick pick-me-up.

Talent shows were a much grander affair involving numerous contestants and even judges. Given that this was an exceptionally talented group to compete against, participants dug deep and pulled out their best, most unique skills. Gyne wowed the crowd with her super-soprano imitation of Snow White singing her bird-calling trills. A couple ladies got together behind a chair to make an adorable tap-dancing mini-Rockette in which one person’s hands went in the shoes to be the feet and another person did the arms. They pulled off a hysterical, miniature, high-speed version of our “Big Band” number.

The showings and talent shows were met with great excitement, and all the dressers, as well as some of the male dancers, rushed in to watch. As a rule, men and women were not allowed in each other’s dressing room except with permission from all performers present and almost never during the show. But exceptions were sometime made for talent shows, especially if the guys had whipped up some juicy entertainment for us, like a sexy dance routine performed in black leather lingerie (think Harley-Davidson meets Victoria’s Secret). After the talent show, we had to rush like crazy to make the next number in time. We’d hightail it down to the stage, still guffawing, our spirits lifted and energy renewed.

Although the audience thinks entertainers are only there to entertain the audience, I learned that entertainers expend a considerable amount of energy entertaining themselves. Backstage was where the prime entertainment happened. Ticket price to see
The Great Radio City Spectacular
? $50. Backstage Talent Show? Priceless.

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Backstage was also an excellent place to make a little money on the side, as we were a captive audience. With two shows a night close together, we didn’t always have time to leave the theatre, but we usually had time to shop. Here we were, twenty-five mostly single women with healthy, regular paychecks, trapped at the theatre with time on our hands. Consequently, we did a lot of catalog shopping. Most intriguing, however, were all the little side businesses that sprang up. Squally and one of the dressers sold homemade G-strings made of fun material (M&Ms, shimmery silver disco, plaid flannel, holiday themes) adorned in lace and rhinestones for anywhere from $2.50 to $5. We all went crazy over the new G-strings. Somehow knowing that under your costume you had on a sexy, red sequined Christmas G with dainty, red lace ruffles just helped put you in the holiday spirit.

Skinny Chick offered eyebrow shaping and mani and pedi appointments between shows. Her specialty was painting tiny designs (flowers, hearts, stripes, Christmas trees) on toenails. One night, I had her paint pink and white flowers on my bright purple toenails. She did a beautiful job; my tootsies had never looked so spectacular. But I had little time to let them dry sufficiently before the second show. Stuffing my feet into tights, fishnets, and tap shoes wasn’t the best way to preserve my fresh pedicure. The entire second show I worried about my nails getting messed up and tried to tap dance ever so softly.

“Momma” (whose real name was Marlene, but her nickname stuck) was the most ambitious money maker. She sold Avon, and we all looked forward to getting our new catalogs. She also ended up repping Mary Kaye cosmetics and offered makeovers between shows. Momma even started a resume-typing business and sold gift baskets at Christmas time.

If we had the munchies, we needed look no further than our very own Big Dressing Room, thanks to Thalia’s entrepreneurial spirit. She sat in The Condo and used her extra space to house “The Condo Café,” where she sold baked goods. Thalia, Trisha, and Barbara, our primary bakers, tempted us with delectable cookies, brownies, Cheerio Bars, and other tooth-decaying treats, which were offered for a modest fee, paid on the honor system into a coffee can. We were always excited to see treats for sale and were disappointed when the gals hadn’t had time to bake.

Bellevue was also a good source for treats and sweets, thanks to their regular Popcorn and Kool-Aid nights and bake sales. Mac was the one person into health food; we could count on her to make her famous, healthy, mini carrot cakes.  In addition to founding The Condo Café, Thalia (a Bohemian, holistic, New-Agey girl) took health a step further by offering ear wax removal. The somewhat dangerous process involved sticking “ear candles” from the health food store into your ears and lighting them with a match. Supposedly, the hot vacuum melted and sucked out the nasty wax buildup. I was shocked the first time I walked into the dressing room between shows and saw ladies lying on the floor with smoking cones protruding from the sides of their heads. Those were some smokin’ hot Rockettes. Thank goodness nothing unintended caught fire. 

Eventually even I jumped on the entrepreneurial bandwagon and set out a basket of my original watercolor greeting cards. The Rockettes shopped till we dropped, or at least until the show ended, whichever came first.

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The dressing rooms weren’t just a source of silly amusement and random small business pursuits. They were a hotbed of information gathering and exchange. If I needed a one-dish dinner I could stir up fast to feed my visiting in-laws, Joann was ready with her five-minute “Miracle Lasagna.” If someone needed to find a reliable babysitter, Trisha was on the case. If I needed a good headshot photographer, a Pilates instructor, or a dentist so darling he would make Superman drool, I could find someone through the gals in the dressing room. (There was this drop-dead gorgeous, melt-in-your-mouth dentist who a few of the Rockettes started using. When word got out about how handsome he was, we all suddenly realized our mouths needed check-ups.)

Attempts were also made to engage in productive activities. For a while, thanks to Ivy, we had a Vocabulary Club. Ivy came from an academic family out East (Dare I say “Ivy League?”) and was the intellectual of the cast. To prevent her brain, and ours, from absolutely rotting away, she started a Vocabulary Club in the Big Dressing Room. Daily, she posted a new Word of the Day, like “onomatopoeia” or “fiduciary,” along with its definition. At the end of the week, Ivy gave us a test on all our words. A Bible Club met, too, if we were so inspired.

If you were a fly on the wall of the dressing room, your ears (if flies even have ears) would have burned upon hearing the hot topics that were discussed. A good Catholic fly would have turned red with embarrassment at the talk provocative enough to rival that of a men’s locker room. No topic was too private, too intimate, or too personal to be off limits. Husbands and boyfriends knew less about their own sex lives than the Rockettes did. We talked about anything and everything. We consulted each other about anything and everything. We kicked up a fuss about anything and everything. Just ask a dresser.

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The Big Dressing Room had three dressers assigned to it: wardrobe women hired to zip and unzip, hook and unhook, and hang up our costumes for us. Weren’t we spoiled? Maria, the dresser for Kiddie Corner, was in her fifties and had a strong Spanish accent. She was well liked and acted as a pseudo mother figure to Rockettes. Yvette and Julia served the other sections of the room. Yvette, also in her fifties, was sweet, kind, and well respected. Julia was an ex-exotic dancer and a thirty-something single mom. She was also a seamstress, which came in handy for any tailoring we wanted done.

It was important to have a good dresser; people actually considered which dresser they’d be getting or leaving in deciding whether or not they wanted to change spots in the dressing room. It was even more important to befriend your dresser, not only because it was nice to do, not only because she could help your show run as smoothly as a baby’s bottom or as bumpy as a road full of potholes, but because she knew your most intimate secrets. Like the president of the United States and his secret service men, dressers should all have to sign a contract stating that they are sworn to secrecy. For the stories they could tell could certainly cause grave embarrassment. We tipped our dressers and always gave them either bonus money or presents at Christmas time, because we loved and appreciated them, and we knew full well that it was best to have them in our court. These ladies truly became a beloved part of the family and were always included in special events at the Rockettes’ homes.

The Rockettes’ differing personalities were reflected in the manner in which they changed costumes, and our darling dressers adapted to our individual, quirky patterns. There were the anal-retentive, Type A people (me) who were organized and, like good Girl Scouts, always prepared with plenty of time to spare. Immediately after coming off stage from one number, I changed into my costume for the next number, except for the hat, and sat down at my dressing table. I wanted to be ready to go and not feel rushed. And if my costume broke there might be time to fix it.

Then there were the saunterers who would go from friend to friend chatting and s-l-o-o-o-o-o-w-l-y disrobing one costume piece at a time. They’d be standing there topless in their tights, blue trunks, and tap shoes, holding their “Big Band” headpieces, one talking about her new, sexy, boyfriend with the long, wavy black tresses, another about her photography class, or the new puppy she just bought. They'd stretch out the undressing and re-dressing process across the entire break.

Then there was Skinny Chick, who came right from the stage and remained fully dressed in costume bouncing around backstage like a Mexican jumping bean, stirring things up until just seconds before the next number when her autonomic nervous system would kick into panic mode and finally propel her to get changed in a big whirlwind of energy and looming deadline. Didn’t she ever get nervous about missing her cue? She seemed to be one of those people who thrive under pressure, who actually require stress in order to get anything accomplished. I wanted to be more like her. It was fortunate that all the Rockettes didn’t try to get dressed at the same time. Otherwise, there would have been a mad scrambling, and the dressers wouldn’t have known who to zip up next.

The one exception to our individual robing and disrobing regimens was the change into our white soldier pants on those dastardly days when they had just returned from the dry cleaners, freshly starched. That was an occasion in which it behooved everyone to start getting dressed early. In order to make them look wooden, our pants were so heavily starched that we had to lie down on the floor to put them on. It was like stuffing your legs into two hollow planks. A couple dressers had to help because we couldn’t get back up by ourselves. If the floor routine seemed too daunting, sometimes we’d stand on a chair and jump into the pants from above. The trousers were so stiff, they could actually stand up on their own.

We cursed dry cleaner day not only because of the difficulties posed by the starch, but also because the pants seemed to shrink two inches at the waist. “I swear these aren’t my pants!” we’d shout, dead sure there must have been a mix-up. We’d have to suck in our stomachs and hold our breath while it took an entire team of dressers using all their strength to pull the sides of the pants close enough together to zip us up. Oh, it was painful, and we didn’t want to breathe for fear we would burst open the pants. They gave us such wedgies, we called them “baby killers,” worried they were permanently damaging our reproductive organs.

In addition to allowing plenty of time to get into the pants, we needed to remember to try the “doll turns salute” before going on stage. During the “Soldiers” dance, we discovered (the hard way) that when we bent over at the waist to salute before the doll turns, those super-starched slacks would sometimes split at the butt seam. It was, therefore, imperative we do a practice salute with time left to change into a spare pair of pants in case of a blow out. Dry cleaning day was a day to take seriously.

The second component of our “Soldiers” costume that provided the most amusement was the red circle “cheeks” cutout of cloth that we taped to our faces to make us look like dolls. After the number, we pulled off our cheeks and stuck them on the theatre wall or on other performers. If you forgot your cheeks, and someone noticed just before your entrance, you could often find a couple on a wall somewhere. Sometimes we would reuse the same cheeks from the previous show and realize that the tape had lost some of its stick. During the number you’d feel a cheek loosen its grip on your face and flutter to the ground, and then you’d see the audience members pointing. Used cheeks were also a source of backstage amusement—some ingenious Rockette discovered that the cheeks made perfect pasties.

Other costume conundrums presented themselves during performance. For instance, the neck clasp on the sequined bikini we wore for the opening number was occasionally a trouble maker. After too much wear and tear, the hook and eye popped, down fell your top, and out breasts would plop. I learned to periodically double check clasps, snaps, and hooks on my costumes, so I didn’t end up with involuntary indecent exposure. If you were one of the unlucky ladies who had a top pop while tapping, there wasn’t much you could do except cross your arms in front of your chest and sprint off stage. Sure, this was Vegas, but we weren’t getting paid to go topless.