Sally Rand
Sally Rand (April 03, 1904 – August 31, 1979) was born Harriet Helen Gould Beck in Hickory County, Missouri. She also performed under the name Billie Beck. She was a burlesque dancer and actress.
Career
During the 1920s, Sally acted on stage and appeared in silent films. Cecil B. DeMille gave her the name Sally Rand. She was selected as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1927.
After the introduction of sound film, she became a dancer, known for the fan dance, which she popularized starting at the Paramount Club. Her most famous appearance was at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair entitled Century of Progress. She had been arrested a few times due to indecent exposure while dancing, but the nudity was only an illusion. She also conceived and developed the bubble dance, in part to cope with wind while performing outdoors.
She performed the fan dance on film in Bolero, released in 1934.
In 1936, she purchased The Music Box burlesque hall in San Francisco, which would later become the Great American Music Hall.
She continued to appear on stage doing her fan dance into her sixties. Rand once replaced an ill Ann Corio in the stage show, "This Was Burlesque" during the 1960s. Rand appeared at the Mitchell Brothers in San Francisco, in the early 1970s. Later, would appear Tempest Storm and Blaze Starr.
She died in 1979 in Glendora, California, aged 75.
In popular culture
In Tex Avery's cartoon "Hollywood Steps Out" (1941), a rotoscoped Rand performs her famous bubble dance onstage to an appreciative crowd. A grinning Peter Lorre caricature in the front row comments, "I haven't seen such a beautiful bubble since I was a child." The routine continues until the bubble suddenly pops, with a surprised Rand (her nudity covered by a well-placed wooden barrel) reacting with shock. Rand is referred to as "Sally Strand" here.
Sally Rand and her 1933 World's Fair fan-dance were mentioned in the 1972 episode of The Waltons entitled "The Carnival".
In the 1979 book The Right Stuff, the author Tom Wolfe described Sally Rand fan-dancing for the first American astronauts and other dignitaries and referred to the astronauts observing this sixtyish woman's "ancient haunches".
In the 1983 film version of The Right Stuff, Sally Rand was portrayed by actress Peggy Davis.
A fictionalized version of Sally Rand appeared in Toni Dove's interactive cinema project Spectropia, played by Helen Pickett of the Wooster Group.
Filmography
Features:
- The Dressmaker from Paris (1925)
- The Texas Bearcat (1925)
- The Road to Yesterday (1925)
- Braveheart (1925)
- Bachelor Brides (1926)
- Sunny Side Up (1926)
- Gigolo (1926)
- Man Bait (1927)
- The Night of Love (1927)
- Getting Gertie's Garter (1927)
- The Yankee Clipper (1927)
- The King of Kings (1927)
- His Dog (1927)
- The Fighting Eagle (1927)
- Galloping Fury (1927)
- Heroes in Blue (1927)
- A Woman Against the World (1928)
- Crashing Through (1928)
- Nameless Men (1928)
- A Girl in Every Port (1928)
- Golf Widows (1928)
- Black Feather (1928)
- The Sign of the Cross (1932)
- Hotel Variety (1933)
- Bolero (1934)
- The Sunset Murder Case (1938)
Short Subjects:
- The Czarina's Secret (1928)