Minsky's Burlesque
Minsky's Burlesque refers to the brand of burlesque presented by the four Minsky brothers: Abe Minsky (1878-1960); Billy Minsky (1887-1932); Herbert Minsky (1892-?); and Morton Minsky (1902-1987). They started in 1912 and ended in 1937 in New York City. Although the shows were declared obscene and outlawed, they were rather tame by modern standards.
History
The eldest brother, Abe, launched the business in 1908 with a Lower East Side Nickelodeon movie theater showing racy films. His own father shut him down and bought the National Winter Garden on Houston Street, which had a theater inconveniently located on the sixth floor. He gave the theater to Abe and his brothers Billy and Herbert. At first they tried showing respectable films but couldn't compete with the large theater chains. The Minskys tried to bolster their shows by bringing in vaudeville performers, but couldn't afford good acts.
Then they considered burlesque. Burlesque acts were cheaper, and circuits (called "wheels") supplied a new show every week, complete with cast, costumes and scenery. There was the Columbia Wheel, the American Wheel, and the Mutual Wheel. Burlesque during this period was clean; a fourth wheel, the Independent, actually went bankrupt in 1916 after refusing to clean up its act. The Minskys briefly considered signing with a wheel but decided to stage their own shows because it was cheaper and Billy longed to be the next Florenz Ziegfeld.
But Minsky's clientèle of poor immigrants hadn't been taught to appreciate clean burlesque, and the Minskys were not about to teach them. Plus, their audience needed a compelling reason to trek up to a sixth-floor theater. Billy realized that success in burlesque depended on how the girls were featured. Abe, who had been to Paris and the Folies Bergere and Moulin Rouge, suggested importing one of their trademarks: a runway to bring the girls out into the audience. The theater was reconfigured, and the Minskys were the first to feature a runway in the United States. Billy had the sign out front changed to "Burlesque As You Like It--Not a Family Show," and the Minskys were on their way.
The Minskys were raided for the first time in 1917 when Mae Dix absent-mindedly began removing her costume before she reached the wings. When the crowd cheered, Dix returned to the stage to continue removing her clothing to wild applause. Billy ordered the "accident" repeated every night. This began an endless cycle: to keep their license, the Minskys had to keep their shows clean, but to keep drawing customers they had to be risque. Whenever they went too far, they were raided.
Morton joined the company in 1924, after graduating from New York University, and worked at the Little Apollo Theater on 125th Street. There was a raid during the very first show. For the next four years, the theater showed a weekly profit of $20,000 after payola.
Billy's attempt, however, to present classy burlesque at the Park Theater on Columbus Circle failed miserably.
Another famous raid occurred in April, 1925, and inspired the book and film The Night They Raided Minsky's. By this time it was permissible for girls in shows staged by Ziegfeld, George White and Earl Carroll--as well as burlesque--to appear topless as long as they didn't move. In a show at the National Winter Garden, Madamoiselle Fifi (nee Mary Dawson from Pennsylvania) stripped to the waist and then moved.
Occasionally a raid was triggered by the comedy material, but filthy comics didn't last long because they were a liability to the management.
Business boomed during Prohibition and the National Winter Garden's notoriety grew. Regular patrons included John Dos Passos, Robert Benchley, George Jean Nathan, Condé Montrose Nast (Conde Nast), and Hart Crane.
Billy realized that while burlesque couldn't be classy, it could be presented in classy surroundings. In 1931 he proposed bringing the Minsky brand to Broadway, amid the respectable shows. The brothers leased the Republic Theater on 42nd Street and staged their first show on February 12. The Republic became Minsky's flagship theater and the capital of burlesque in the United States. (The theater is now called the New Victory Theatre and, ironically, specializes in children's entertainment.) Other burlesque shows were inspired to open on 42nd Street at the nearby Eltinge and Apollo Theaters.
The Great Depression ushered in the greatest era for burlesque, and Minsky burlesque in particular. Few could afford to attend expensive Broadway shows, yet people craved entertainment. Furthermore, there now seemed to be an unlimited supply of unemployed pretty girls who considered the steady work offered by burlesque. By the time they finished expanding, the various Minskys controlled over a dozen theaters--six in New York and others in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Albany, and Pittsburgh. They even formed their own "wheel."
Minsky's nourished the careers of such later headliners as Phil Silvers, Joey Faye, who was "House Comic" from 1931-1939. Abbott and Costello, Red Buttons and Robert Alda, as well as strippers Gypsy Rose Lee, Georgia Sothern, Ann Corio, Margie Hart, and Sherry Britton. These women, who began stripping in their teens, made between $700 and $2,000 a week.
With burlesque thriving in New York (there were now 14 burlesque theaters, including Minsky's rivals), competition was fierce. Each year, various license commissioners issued restrictions to keep burlesque from pushing the limits. But convictions were rare, so theater managers saw no need to tone down their shows.
In 1935, irate citizens groups began calling for action against burlesque. The city's license commissioner, Paul Moss, tried to revoke Minsky's license but the State Court of Appeals ruled that he didn't have grounds without a criminal conviction. Finally, in April, 1937, a stripper at Abe Minsky's New Gotham Theater in Harlem was spotted working without a G-string. The conviction allowed Moss to revoke Abe's license and refuse to renew all of the other burlesque licenses in New York. (It was this raid that should have inspired the movie, since it led to the demise not only of Minsky burlesque, but of all burlesque in New York.)
After several appeals, the Minskys and their rivals were allowed to reopen only if they adhered to new rules that forbid strippers. The owners went along, hoping to stay in business until the November election when reformist mayor Fiorello LaGuardia might be voted out. But business under the new code was so bad that many New York burlesque theaters closed their doors for good. By the time LaGuardia was re-elected, the word "burlesque" had been banned and, soon after, the Minsky name itself, since the two were synonymous. With that final blow, burlesque and the Minskys were finished in New York. Politicians across the country soon followed suit, and burlesque passed the way of the horse and buggy.
Of all the Minskys, only Harold, Abe's son, remained active in burlesque. In 1956 he brought the Minsky name to a Las Vegas, Nevada revue, where it could exist without apology.
Reference
"Time Magazine" Monday, May 2, 1932:
- "There are three burlesque theaters in Brooklyn, six in Manhattan. The Minskys own half of the Manhattan ones. Until last winter the Minsky mother house, the National Winter Garden, was at Houston Street and Second Avenue, teeming Jewish district. Father Minsky immigrated from Russia and became a leading merchant on Grand Street when Grand Street was the location of Lord & Taylor and Arnold Constable. He was also elected alderman and got in the construction business. With Lawyer Max D. Steuer he put up the Winter Garden Building. It housed two theaters, one on the sixth floor, one on the first. Brother Billy, 45, started showing films in the upper auditorium in 1912. Brother Abe, 54, had been running a nickelodeon theater of his own and drifted in to help. When Brother Herbert, 40, acquired his law degree from Columbia and Brother Morton, 30, was graduated from New York University, they helped out, too. For a while, they showed vaudeville, but in 1915 they turned to burlesque. Brother Billy, onetime newspaperman, ablest of the group, had at that time never seen a burlesque show. ... A chorus and one of the principals come out. When the chorus leaves the stage the principal begins disrobing. Up to a certain point, she will continue to take her clothes off so long as the audience whistles, claps, and howls for it. Since the Depression, the pulchritude of the strip artists and chorus has visibly increased. The Minsky acts differ from week to week almost solely in their titles, which run to punning. Last week's performance was called Eileen Dover From Aiken."
The Night They Raided Minsky's
"The Night They Raided Minsky's" was made into a musical and then a film by the same name.
Review Review Minsky's Burlesque on Internet Movie Database
- More information is available at [ Wikipedia:The Night They Raided Minsky's ]
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