Two Showgirls of Yesteryear
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It may be hard or many of us to imagine the glitter and the sometimes risque fun associated with the old nightclubs, burlesques and vaudeville houses of the 1920s and 1930s, especially in New York, where such entertainment reached a certain height of glamor. But what was that life like for those on the other side of the footlights? For this piece, I spoke with the late Dorshka Rafaelson, formerly of the Ziegfeld Follies, and Isabelle Powell, widow of Adam Clayton Powell, who graced Harlem’s Cotton Club. Both were still-beautiful, and beautifully spirited, women.
Posted in Americana, History, New York, Oral History-oid, Women Tags: Broadway, burlesque, chorus girls, Cotton Club, Gay White Way, glamor, Jazz Age, oral history, subrette, vaudeville, Ziegfeld Follies
Forty years after Woodstock, the iconic music festival still looms large in the public mind as the high point — or, some say, the death knell — of America’s 1960s’ counterculture. What was it like to be there for “veteran” audience members and performers, and what is the legacy of this unique cultural happening? Adam went tripping for some answers.
