The War of the Worlds Murder - By Max Allan Collins Page 0,25
from a banty rooster nicknamed “the Killer” into a dapper, sophisticated elder statesman of racketeers.
Despite the Harlem location, Madden ran the Cotton Club strictly for white patrons—Negroes were allowed solely on stage and/or in service capacities—in the manner of a posh downtown club, only showcasing exotic uptown talent. Cover charge was three dollars, beer a buck a bottle, the food prices (including neighborhood favorites like Southern fried chicken and Kansas City–style barbecue ribs) in line with the better Broadway clubs.
That the Cotton Club’s late show began after-hours—when the late shows of other clubs were over—attracted entertainers, making it an “in” spot for the likes of Eddie Cantor, Jimmy Durante and Milton Berle. On a big stage—invoking the antebellum South via white plantation-style columns and a stove-cabin backdrop—cavorted a chorus line of gorgeous “high-yallar” gals (light-skinned black beauties, “Tall, Tan and Terrific!”); all under twenty-one, these girls were among the best singers and dancers in New York, and the show they gave was as wild as it was scantily clad. Both Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington had reigned over Cotton Club house bands through the years, and Ethel Waters and Lena Horne made their mark there.
The new club on Broadway opened in the fall of ’36, and Calloway, Ellington and such other “colored” stars as Louis Armstrong, Steppin’ Fetchit and Dorothy Dandridge (with her sisters) made it the hottest nightspot in Manhattan, pulling in thirty thousand dollars a week (despite the Depression), a new dance called the Boogie Woogie creating a sensation. The stage shows featured choreography, music, costumes and sets challenging Broadway’s best.
Was it any wonder young Orson Welles was a frequent patron?
CHAPTER THREE
COTTON CLUBBED
THAT HUMAN WHIRLING DERVISH, CAB Calloway—wide eyes and wider smile turned skyward—was blazing through “Minnie the Moocher,” in tailored tails, forelock flopping, working that conductor’s baton as if nonchalantly yet energetically battling an invisible swordsman. Not merely his orchestra but the entire crowd—Walter Gibson and Orson Welles included—echoed the charismatic bandleader’s “Hi-de-ho” chant.
Gibson had been to the original Cotton Club a few times, once with first-wife Charlotte and then again with Jewel, and he rather preferred the thatched-roof jungle look of the lavish reinvented club over the former one’s Old South, moss-draped oak tree atmosphere. He full well realized the cannibal stereotype was even more offensive than that of the happy cotton-pickin’ slave, but a tongue-in-cheek humor took the edge off. And, unlike the former club, this one welcomed Negro patrons—though relegated them to the rear.
Gibson felt underdressed in his brown suit with a striped red-and-yellow tie, and he’d worn his vest, to seem at least a little respectable. He’d never guessed, leaving on this work trip, that he’d be going nightclubbing with Orson Welles, who in a black suit with black bow tie, black cape and black fedora didn’t seem to have thrown off his Shadow persona, even if he had stepped down from the role on the radio.
Hell, Gibson hadn’t even imagined he’d be sitting, clapping and yelling, “Hi de ho!” a mere few hours ago, back at the hotel....
After the early-morning meeting at the Mercury Theatre yesterday, Gibson had returned to the St. Regis and caught a few more hours of sleep. Though his family had been fairly well off, particularly before the Depression, Gibson found the St. Regis almost off-puttingly posh. The eighteen-story Fifth Avenue hotel, facing Central Park, had been built in 1904 by John Jacob Astor for himself and his rich pals; Astor hadn’t had much time to enjoy it, before going down with the Titanic, leaving behind this lavish relic of the Gilded Age.
But in hard times like these, you could feel guilty lounging around in a world of fine furnishings, marble floors and mahogany panelling with its gold-leaf-garnished molding. Bellboys didn’t attend you—butlers did!
And Gibson didn’t imagine any other pulp writer had ever before sat pounding away at a portable Corona at the antique writing desk in this high-ceilinged room with its silk wallpaper, Waterford chandelier and marble floor. He doubted the $75 he’d be receiving from Street and Smith for this short story (“Old Crime Week”) would pay for even a night in this mink-lined flophouse.
By two P.M., having worked through what would have been lunch if it had occurred to him, he’d about hit the halfway point with the story. It featured his character Norgil—a composite of Harry Blackstone, Joseph Dunniger and several other real-life magicians—who appeared in short stories (as opposed to his novel-length Shadow yarns) in the pulp magazine Crime Busters.