Word: maryanna
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Dates: during 1960-1960
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...Sometimes, when she thought about it, she remembered those rhythmic shivers as a spontaneous creation - something that just came naturally one night when the band played ragtime. Sometimes the shimmy was born to the tune of The Star-Spangled Banner. But always it all began when Gilda was still Maryanna Michalska, a 14-year-old Polish immigrant, belting out sentimental ballads in John Letzka's saloon in Cudahy...
...just shaking my chemise." Maryanna explained to a popeyed customer, but her pronunciation was a little awk ward, and the shimmy got its name. World War I had just ended, and the new dance and the girl who invented it sluiced east ward toward Broadway on a rising tide of bathtub gin and needled beer. By then, Maryanna had become Mary Gray. But Red Hot Mamma Sophie Tucker caught her act and told her that Mary was no handle for a hoofer. Sophie looked at the spun-gold hair above the lithe, slim shape and decreed that Mary should...
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