Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

They traveled to Florida by train, standing much of the time. Glenda had never been farther from New York City than the Catskills, and she was fascinated by the country outside the train. Though she had expected it, she was astonished to step out into eighty-degree weather in December. They arrived in Miami early in the morning and checked into a hotel to get some sleep before they went to the club.

Casa Pantera turned out to be a squat concrete-block building on Biscayne Boulevard. A gaudy sign advertised striptease, promising BUSTY BLONDES! BOMBASTIC BRUNETTES! GORGEOUS GALS THE WAY YOU WANT TO SEE 'EM!

Posters hung behind glass in the entrance porch. Attached to them were photographs of the featured performers, with names like Eve Eden, Chesty Boone, Rusty Beaver, and Hope Diamond — all of these young women naked except for tiny bras and beaded G-strings. Glenda gasped. She had not imagined that the "abbreviated costume" she had contracted to wear would be this abbreviated.

Gib had mailed a photo of Glenda — in a leotard and net stockings. Her poster said, "Direct from New York and the Catskills, the sensational dancing, singing comedienne Glenda Grayson! See Glenda Grayson as you have never seen her!"

Her costumes were leotards, mostly. The corselette she sometimes wore consisted of a bra and girdle, in one piece. When they arrived at the club, she realized she had nothing suitable with her. For the first time in her life she was unprepared for a performance.

They sat down in Mel Schmidt's office, and she confessed she had no abbreviated costume with her and would have to arrange something during the afternoon.

"Hey, kid," Schmidt said. "No problem. Long dark stockings, a black garter belt, black G-string. That's always good. That always goes over big. It's sexy. Understand, our gals can only take off as much as the cops allow at this particular time. Right now, the G-string has got to cover all your hair, and you can't pull it down and show anything. But they do allow bare tits, so you've got to be bare-titted at the end of your act. My crowds will boo you if you aren't."

He called in the stripteaser called Chesty Boone — a woman of some thirty-five years with a spectacular figure — and told her to help Glenda get an outfit. Chesty said there was a little shop downtown called Stage Undies. She'd go with Glenda if she wanted her to.

"Do that," said Schmidt. "You can show her what she needs."

In her dressing room that evening Glenda fought back tears as she pulled up over her legs a pair of net stockings and clipped them to her black garter belt. A little triangle of black satin covered her pubic area — and she'd had to use a razor and scissors and trim back her hair so that none of it would show. She wore two bras: one an ordinary black brassiere, the other one a contrivance of sheer black rayon and thin black strings that covered her breasts but did not conceal them. Over all this she wore a black lace-trimmed teddy.

In a men's shop she had also found a black fedora, which she wore tilted forward on her head to throw a shadow over her face.

"Now, there's what I call style ," Mel, the owner, exulted when he stopped in a few minutes before she was to go on stage. "You got style, real style."

When he had left, Glenda leaned against the door and closed her eyes. "I haven't got any choice, do I?" she whispered to Gib. "Without the thousand bucks Mel is gonna pay us, we can't even get back to New York."

"Don't even think of chickening out, baby," he said. "But you got no idea how beautiful you look. Think of how you're gonna look on that stage!"

"I'll look naked, is how I'll look."

The show went on at nine o'clock. The owner acted as master of ceremonies, braving his way through a line of brash chatter that was not original and not very funny. He introduced four strippers, then Glenda, then the featured stripper. A pianist, a guitarist, and a drummer, fully amplified, furnished the music.

Her half hour on the stage was an ordeal. The crowd liked her but began to yell, "Take it off! Take it off!" before she was out there five minutes. She took off the teddy, and they cheered and whistled. They settled down then to listen to her jokes and songs. But the necessity of stopping to take things off upset her timing, and her horror at having to appear before all these people with her breasts naked destroyed the natural exuberance that was essential to her routine. She was doubly miserable, for having to appear on stage all but naked and for failing to meet her own standards for a performance.

But the audience didn't seem to know. When she gave them the line "Golda, for the sake of your family, change your name! Please! " some people stood up to applaud. She had not guessed that her shameful nudity would make the line even more poignant.

Even so, they yelled for her to take off the bra, then to take off the little sheer bra. She did that at the very last moment, but they applauded so much she had to go out and take a bow bare-breasted.

For the midnight show, she saved the change-your-name line for last and left the stage to a standing ovation.

Mel loved her. He offered her another four weeks, and so she stayed through January.

"Let me give you a word of advice," he said over dinner her last night at Casa Pantera. "You're a great attraction. You're very classy. But you oughta work up an act that's not quite so ... so New Yorkish , if you know what I mean. You got smarts. You work up a new act, an' we can make a contract for six weeks next winter."

By the time she brought her new act back to Florida, Casa Pantera could no longer afford her. In 1943 she worked a roadhouse club outside Camden, New Jersey, then a downtown club in Newark, then a club in Philadelphia and a club in Boston. From Boston she went to Raleigh, North Carolina, and from there to Covington, Kentucky, where in the summer of 1944, for six weeks and for the only time in her career, she lowered her G-string at the end of her act and exposed herself completely. From there she went to a club in Chicago, and her career began to find a new direction.

In the Chicago club she worked in front of a jazz band and wore a halter or bra of sheer dark material that didn't conceal her breasts entirely but stayed in place throughout the show. For the G-strings she substituted sheer black panties with opaque crotches. The stockings and garter belt displayed her shapely legs to good advantage, and the chiaroscuro contrast of dark sheer hose and white skin was dramatic. So was the contrast of her long blond hair falling from under the brim of the black hat. Those contrasts became her trademark.

Gradually she made her act less "New Yorkish." She knew what Mel had meant. He hadn't been subtle. Except in New York, the people who would turn out for a performance by Glenda Grayson would not want Jewish humor. They accepted it gladly from male comedians, less gladly from women, not well at all from a scantily dressed, effervescent singer-dancer.

She began to experiment too with taking a drink or three before she went on stage. She found it didn't hurt anything — at least, she thought it didn't.

Gib had photographs taken of her. She refused to pose bare-breasted, and the black-and-white eight-by-tens he distributed showed her in one of the more modest of her costumes: with an opaque bra and panties. Occasionally she got a mention in a newspaper. He reproduced her clippings and sent them out with the photos.

In Chicago in 1945 she omitted the teddy and added a pinstriped black jacket to her costume. Only when she unbuttoned it were her breasts bared, if they were bared at all. A Chicago columnist wrote, "A saucy, interesting young performer, who really doesn't need to expose herself to win enthusiasm and affection from club audiences. Come back again, Glenda Grayson."