Then it begins to climb into the moonlight.” It would be the act she would perform for the next forty years to much acclaim and wealth. “My interpretation of a white bird flying in the moonlight at dusk.” Painting a beautiful picture. She would go on to mythologize the dance, saying it had been inspired by the herons that flew over the lake on her grandfather’s property. She quickly moved onto a position at the 1933 Chicago’s World Fair, performing for literally thousands by the time the fair closed in 1934. She started at a nightclub, heavily populated with gangsters. I won’t relate all the details here, but, in the early 1930s Sally Rand found herself playing peek-a-boo between two large - and heavy - ostrich feather fans in Chicago.
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It had been both chance and desperation that led to an engagement that would radically change her life. The introduction song “I Wonder What’s Become of Sally” had to leave Sally wondering the same thing. Returning to the vaudeville stage in her own show, she was backed by handsome dancing boys. She would blame it on her accent and a lisp. She was endless photographed, came up with a dozen publicity stunts to get her name and face and figure in the papers, still stardom was elusive. It did not happen, though she tried hard, the studios tried hard.
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She was sure fame as an actress was within reach. Once she made it to Hollywood after unsuccessful attempts at finding her place in entertainment, she - or rather the eminent director Cecil B. She had pluck, courage and a driving need to be loved. She was born in Missouri in 1904 as Harriet “Hattie” Helen Gould Beck. But, unlike so many, her fame would endure. She started in the theatre, spent time in the circus, went onto Hollywood, returned to vaudeville, and supposedly a brief stint (if true) in Florence Ziegfeld’s Follies only to finally find fame as America’s №1 fan dancer. Though not traditionally thought of as a “showgirl” Sally Rand was actually the epitome of one.