| Show gig gg iates on Wi 1 111) lllll'lM- - S i 'i I 4 J 7 Jr i v ! - V 1 h 7 7 ftk 1 'A? 4r 4 K The great hullabaloo over Joan Warner's nude dancing revealed that back of it all was resentment at the growing trend of French playspots to go "star-spangle- d" YZ" ny jrjr m i m S7 J7 i first-cla- Ml m 'c the reporter "Do you really wear nothing— just absolutely nothing at all?" Joan smiled "That'a my secret she aaid Needless to aay apart '?from th curious judgment of the: French Alliance for the Increase of the National Birthrate nobody ia Paris finds anything indecent in Joan' dancing It is on the contrary considered A perfectly chaste decent and artistic performance Nor is she a startling novelty in this city where Colette Andris and tevera! ether artists have been dancing ia the cude for several years Compared with tuch exhibitions at can be teen "Chez let Nudiitet" or at the revue called "Let MHIe ct Una Nuet or at several other places the performance it net only modest but exceptionally artistic There is a nationalistic clement In the tffalr When better nude dancers are laade Purit teems to be saying France ivill make them And more than one rumorit current ia the town that the original incident wat a veiled attack on certain directors of the Bagdad X By Morris Gilbert PAH 13 IjHE Gay world-farao- w "Oo-U-Iil- Ptree— 'battle-cr- of pleasure " of immemorlally identifiecl with Uii$city —is beng rapidly supplanted by the American "Hi-dee-hJudging by strange events here of late this celebrated international capital of whoopee is very anxious to resign in favor of Chicago land New ork Old boulevardiers and flaneurs are aghast at what is happening and diagnose the case as a violent rush of morals td the headv Expert accountants have not tabulated a I" here in months On the consingle "Oo-la-l- a 1" trary they have been clocking "Hi-dee-hand by the thousand the in Montmartre and of jungles Hunting Montparnasse the loVer of the chase finds practically nothing but spoor of Harlem's Cotton y -- ol I Paris rtsenti American dancer Joan Varricrt vas dragged to court ji I - because she offend the patrons of the sl" tea-dan- 4 5 :r"-- ' rJ-c- d v?as appearing A "f -- vf ts ball" Whoopee-makin- g except for one lone 'Can-ca- n has gone Even one of the commoner forms of chiseling or gypping is now called "swindling a Tamericaine 1" It should not be imagined that Paris likes this situation Paris resents it bitterly So bitterly that an American dancer Joan Warner who wears a fan and sometimes a pair of iron bracelets in the display of her art has been dragged to court because she offended the citizens Joan Warner was born in Pennsylvania lived in childhood in Washington and danced 'in Chicago a charming rival of the celebrated Hi-dee-h- o" accurate but it certainly is' an earful The ribald abandon of the performance (this it a quotation froni a recent report on New York "burleycues') the shadinesT of the jokes the ilamboyant naughtiness of the costumes or lack of costumes the "strictly male" audiences- -all these rumors reaching Paris have-ha- d a wonderful effect pace" ce nhere she X Club and Chicago The native fauna and flora have disappeared hot-spo- of '' its pleasures — so utterly t h a t an os "Boop-boop-a-doop- substitution of the American which it ringing ia Paris ears thesa it atdays for: the classic French fOc-la-la- l" tributed to one special circumstance Parit bat learned with goggling eyes about American burlesque I What Paris has learned may not be entirely ' the vmericaniziiiion m rPHE ss star-spangl- ed I i "ZK r tt-xy 1 -- —-y- yoi hear Paris moralists one would think she was the first and only "nude" dancer ever to have appeared before a local audience Her trial was (sensational and Joan's payroll She became the most jumped proportionally famous stage artist in the city topping the bill not only at a local music hall but fater in the evening at one of Paris most popular and successful cabarets t Old Chicagoans living in Paris had a hearty chuckle when they learned about Joan's troubles The thought of Paris being offended by the morals imported from Lake Michigan was especially funny in the light of memory For it was 40 years ago— during an earlier Chicago World Fair— that righteous and 'outrageous American women stampeded through the Midway therej putting fig leaves and sheets on the French exhibit— which consisted of classic statuary 1 Some of the statuary to offended the respectable ladies of Chicago of those days that they resolutely smashed it with f hammers and crowbars Old Chicagoans watching Paris moralists endeavor to drape" the classic lines of Miss Joan Warner with a Mother Hubbard costume or ' a few meters of burlap are laughing yet I " "One of the funniest things about this case Joan Warner told the writer "is that it was brought by the French National Alliance for the Increase of the French Birthrate My sister and I have been chuckling ever since" Not only Joan and her sister Mrs Caroline Holbrook were startled and entertained by this bit of news In the bawdier French press during the days of the arrest and hearings the jokes were magnificent — and not usually repeat-abl- e in American publications u I i a k: i 1 i - £1 IV --s tew X r t Vt I 1 I V t t I sign of the limes in gatj aree— the " But lesques de Net York' at a theater present' ing entertainment after the American manner J front The management thought that it was ts more or less an experiment to give a- nude dancer for entertainment and preferred to have my act appear as a surprise" ' - : ' She chuckled "The act seemed to go so well" she said "that my engagement was continued first for another week then for two weeks more Jt wasn't until the next to the last day of my billing that the excitement started" tea-gues- "I've since been dancing was three years she aaid "t studied 1 old' -- 5 r ti ' ' ii j Sally Rand npO r — in Washington - in New York' and ia Chicago" She told of the beginning of her career and of her engagement two years ago at the Hollywood in Chicago She also played at the Royal Frolics there at Joan W arncr as she appeared in the ' 'slave dancGl&hith led about the same time that to her arrest Sally Rand wat holding em seats at the of Century Progress ' "1 worked at Miami and'Pilra Beach and tali very blond with blue eyes SLtirsiL)fcKin New Orleans too" upstage manner "It was in for her act New Orleans that I got the idea of coming Joan was made up "All but tay she After a abroad An English producer persuaded me" explained eyelashes" meeting with her famous lawyer Maitre Henri 'Torres Once in Paris she a week's 'engagement she was due for a performance at the Alcazar at the Bagdad a very twank place This theater has been doing a theater in the Champs Elysees district patronized by business ever since the arrest first put Paris swells Joan into Parisian headlines "I wasn't advertised or even billed out in (Copyristt 18 S3 EYtryTrstk i£ac&xln) THE arrest and closjng of the Bagdad hap-The restaurant's lipened like lightning cense was restored to it next day so that there was no actual1 closing The management promised to ban the dancer nude or cot and did "It was really wonderful" Joan explained s ia-thei- not-at-al- l' r said-Jfca- n pt land-offi- ng ce tr illllOllllllilllllDlllilltllllllllllllii' "I immediately got another engage- naively ment at the Alcazar and then I was: put t$p of the bill at the Bal Tabarin- sa I'm wprfc ing twice as hard as before I'm doing the same dances by the way that J? did at the - -- tea-danci- - i ! Bagdad" ' ' - - question was puzzling Paris " With the and the skillfulness of the dancer ": one interesting fact about Joan Warner's performance was stilhiasettlcdL "Tell me" asked - - A light-pl- ot ' They have made Paris for the first time ia lose its old assurance fit a 'capital of Paris is wondering what amazing pleasure goings-o- n are - happening across the Atlantic ' And instead ' of any little American touring - show billing itself as "straight from Paris" ( Paris sees billings up all over town announcing its own local entertainment as modeled on "the V Burlesques of New York 1" j the the music hall name of That happens to be production in which Joan' Warner wat recently so happily introduced thanks to her trial for offending the sensibilities of French - Apart from Joan Warner there is only one - American cote in the whole really first-hahistory tea-drinke- rs nd That Is the presence of Lulu performance Gould who does a repertoire of American jazz songs and dances and does th era very cleverly Lulu born in New Orleans lived there three years so she hat some claim to the real thing : in blues '" ' '- - - f But apart from Lulu the Nevy York stuff has come fa long way and- Io4t plenty la traES--i port The show at the Alcazar isa't the is It's the fact that the "New portant thing York" trademark pulls ea iniin Paris which is has come to slay : remarkable - "Hi-dee-ho- l" Ul!ll!lillli!llili!IIIII!il!II!lllllllIlii!llllllIlil'll!!illllllll!illi!l v |
