“…I haven’t been out of work since the day I took my pants off.” – Sally Rand
Born Harriett Gould in Elkton, Missouri in 1904 the talented and fair Sally Rand was an entertainer, dancer, actress, and businesswoman.
Her notoriety took off when she supposedly danced nude at the Chicago’s ‘Century of Progress” World’s Fair in 1933. It was there that she created her now-famous ‘fan dance”.
Blonde, petite and graceful she dazzled crowds of testosterone infused men dancing in nothing more than a pair of heels and two gigantic pink ostrich feather fans.
Although she was hauled into court numerous times for being “lewd, lascivious, and degrading to public morals” the charges were always dismissed. If anything, her legal run-ins only fueled her reputation and publicity ~ a fact she wisely exploited.
For the second year that the Chicago Fair was open, Sally used her creative talents to go beyond just the fan dance. She created the “bubble dance.” Using a translucent bubble 5 feet in diameter, Sally once again teased and titillated her eager audiences.
On an interesting note, she apparently bankrolled the R&D to create the gigantic see-through bubble because the only thing that came close to her vision was a red war-balloon that was only 30 inches in diameter. You can just picture our pert and perky heroine eyeing that one and saying, “Uh, that ain’t gonna cut it!”
After Chicago’s success, she fanned and bubbled her way to San Diego, then to Ft Worth, Texas, and then back to California, ending up in San Francisco in 1939. Capitalizing on her name and fame she opened up the Sally Rand Nude Ranch at the Golden Gate Int’l Exposition. The lovelies on the ranch were ‘decked out’ in cowboy boots, holsters, scarfs, cowboy hats and itsy-bitsy g-strings. And that’s it.
Actually there were several “flesh shows” during that second year of the fair. How else were the Fair organizers going to recoup their losses up to that point. As always, sex sells!
To read more about Sally’s life and career, there’s a couple of good websites that recount her life and escapades. Once can found on Glendora, California history. She died in Glendora in 1979 at the age of 75.
Another website featuring great photos of the Sally Rand Nude Ranch is by a strange and wonderfully sounding Bison Bill.
And there’s also this mystery person, who seems to have a thing for Sally and eBay.
Our intrepid swimmer, Sal DeGuarda, remembers meeting Sally and her girls several times. What was Sal doing at the Nude Ranch? Well, after being surrounded by all those flirtatious fillies, who all seem to find Sal cute and easily embarrassed (he’d never seen a woman naked before), he would ask Sally if the girls could play softball with the Aquabelles over at the Billy Rose Aquacade. Yep, it was Sally’s Girls vs. Billy’s Girls.
No, they didn’t play naked or in swim suits. At least that’s what Sal says!
