Zeigfeld Girl

An old friend of mind died a few years ago. She was in her 97^th year. I had known her ever since my husband and I opened our little retail fish store back in 1959 on Woodhaven Boulevard in Queens. She was one of our first customers, perhaps because she lived right around the corner from us. She had been born in London too just like Len.  Her name was Dana O’Connell and she had been a Ziegfeld Girl, dancing under the stage name of Eleanor Dana.

I had heard about the Ziegfeld Girls and had seen the old movie, “The Great Ziegfeld”, with William Powell, so I was interested in Dana and what she had to tell me about those fascinating days in the 1920’s when she danced in the Follies at the New Amsterdam Theatre.

There is a Ziegfeld Club in Manhattan. Dana would take me to the meetings and I met the other dozen or so Ziegfeld Girls who were still alive back then. I believe the last Ziegfeld Girl, Dorothy Travis Eaton, died just a few years ago.

I would have Dana over to London Lennie’s for lunch often and I would ask her about her early days as a dancer and about Mr. Ziegfeld. She said he was always a gentleman. He looked for young women who had a certain class. He watched how they walked and spoke and danced, too, of course, but he looked at the whole persona and wanted each young woman to project a ladylike demeanor.

One time I asked her about Prohibition and how it had affected her and her friends. Her answer was that they still went out for a drink, but the waiter put the alcohol in a teacup, “And”, she smiled, “You know what? It tasted just the same”.

Another time she was reminiscing about being on the stage. She said when you looked out at the audience it was like looking at rows and rows of penguins, because all the men wore black tie. Hard for us to realize now when we all go to Broadway shows and even to the opera dressed so casually.

She could remember when George Gershwin was a rehearsal pianist.

When Dana was getting older I took her to the ballet with me one night. At intermission, I suggested a glass of wine, but mentioned, laughingly, that I didn’t want her to fall asleep on me in the next act. She drew up all of her five feet two and said in a dignified voice, “Really, Joan, I think I am more seasoned than that”.

Oh, Dana, I miss you. You were so much fun to be with.

She had a good sense of style. If she found a pair of shoes, or a jacket that she felt looked really nice on her, she would buy four or five pair of the same shoes or jacket in different colours.

She never lost that certain something, that charisma that Mr. Ziegfeld must have seen in her early years. We had a party at London Lennie’s one year when my daughter got married. Her husband’s mother and father came east from Iowa to attend. Dana was invited. I had told my daughter’s new father-in-law that Dana had been a Ziegfeld Follies dancer. Ed asked Dana to dance. They spun around nicely together and when they sat down, Ed said he couldn’t wait to tell his cronies in Iowa that he had danced with a Ziegfeld Girl. There were stars in his eyes.

As the number of Ziegfeld Girls dwindled, the ones who were left became more and more famous. The Disney Company decided to rehabilitate the old New Amsterdam Theatre where the Follies had always been performed. Dana had kindly asked me if I would accompany her to the Opening Night. What a night it was. Doris Travis Eaton, another Ziegfeld Follies girl who was very active and did not show her years at all, asked Dana and me and some of the remaining Ziegfeld girls to her suite in the Palace to have a bite to eat before we went to the theatre. Doris had married well, and had a huge ranch in Oklahoma. She, her brother, who had also been in some of the Follies, and her ranch manager, were all in the suite at the Palace waiting for us. Doris had drinks and sandwiches sent up. The Ziegfeld Club had arranged for us to go by stretch limousine to the Theatre.

The time came for us to leave the suite, go downstairs and into the limousines. This was not as easy as it sounded. Don’t forget, these women are all pretty old. If we managed to get them in the limo, it was a worry about whether we could get them out. I felt like a young chicken next to them. “I can’t bend”, was the most common complaint.

However, we got them all in, drove around a couple of blocks and pulled up next to the New Amsterdam Theatre, red carpet laid out in front, and plenty of reporters and photographers ready to take pictures and interview these famous old dancers.

Joan Rivers was there, microphone in hand, asking Dana questions. Dana always did very well in these situations. She never got flustered, would take her time, and answer a question fully and completely. The photographers were taking photos at a great rate. As we walked into the theatre and looked around, we saw beautiful stained glass murals on the ceilings and the walls. We found out later that the artist had chosen a picture of Dana as a young girl and used that as her model for one of the young women in one of the murals.

We saw a lot of famous people once inside the theatre. Dr. Ruth, the little old lady who had all the answers on sex, was sitting in front of us. A former Miss America was near by. We saw Glen Close and then saw Geoffrey Holder, the famous black dancer.

Mayor Giuliani opened the show and said a few words. He asked all the Ziegfeld Girls who were in the theatre to stand. They all stood, tottering a bit in their high heels. We all stood too and gave them a long standing ovation. We were proud of these dignified old ladies who had survived for so many years and had such great memories of an era in New York City that will never be replicated.

After the opening speeches, we sat back and watched an original musical, called “King David” by Tim Rice. The entertainment over, we filed through an exit door which led under a huge tent that covered one square block around the New Amsterdam Theatre. We walked along Persian carpets and every few feet a waiter would be offering us flutes of champagne. We arrived at the reception, but it was hard to tell where we were as far as address went, as we could not see anything outside. I could not believe a whole block in the heart of Times Square could be tented over.

Michael Eisner was head of Disney then. He came over to have his picture taken with Dana and to say a few words. We were almost too excited to eat or drink. Eventually, I could see Dana was getting tired. We decided it was time to leave. We walked over to the car park and waited for the valet to bring my car. Dana found a seat, still clutching the bouquet of flowers she had been presented with. I told everyone who she was and what a wonderful evening it had been for her. All the people in the car park, waiting for their cars, were anxious to shake her hand and congratulate her. Some even took pictures.

The New York Times the next day featured a story on the Ziegfeld Girls and the re-opening of the New Amsterdam Theatre. There was a picture of Dana taken a short time earlier in the middle of Times Square, with her arms outstretched as if this part of the city belonged to her and she to it. She loved that picture.

She lived for another three or four years and died in a nursing home in Elizabeth, N.J. I used to go and visit her. I hated the trip, as it was over the George Washington Bridge and took about an hour, but when I got to her room, she would look at me wistfully and say, It’s not so far, is it, Joan?” And I would smile and say, “No, Dana, it’s not so far”.