Word: stage-door
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...Stage-door Janies have always been more demonstrative than stage-door Johnnies. Juvenal railed bitterly against flirtatious Roman ladies in whose eyes any gladiator, however ugly, was "transformed into a Hyacinthus." No Ziegfeld girl ever inspired a male reaction remotely comparable to the mass hysteria of Sinatra's swooners in the 1940s or Elvis Presley's frantic fanatics in the 1950s. Such adulatory demonstrations were mild, however, compared with those of a new and even more liberated breed of female hero-worshipers. They are the "groupies." Their heroes are rock musicians-and their worship knows no bounds...
...even start new careers. Mrs. Ellner, 68, a onetime Ziegfeld Follies star still proud that "my legs were insured for $50,000," is studying sociology, expects to work with delinquent girls. A widow, she decided that "the show must go on," concedes that "there will never be any more stage-door Johnnies for me-but there won't be any rocking chairs either." She dramatizes the point by pressing her palms flat on the floor without bending her knees...
...earnest if somewhat amateurish biography, Yvette is finally portrayed in truer colors. She was nearer vestal than scarlet. As a critic noted at the time, the onstage illusion Yvette so shatteringly evoked was of knowing virginity; as stage-door admirers soon discovered, it was no illusion...
...drink anything stronger than wine, are locked into their quarters before every night's matches -so that they cannot be approached by gamblers. But there are compensations: top players get $20,000 a season, and late Saturday night, when the week's work is over, the stage-door Jeanies cluster around. "All you have to do is pick up a cesta" grins one player, "and the women will come...
...Oriental spell extends beyond Miyoshi and Pat. Wilbur, the stern-eyed stage-door guard, feels that the Oriental chorus girls are politer and less brassy than the usual types; the director and the choreographer feel that the whole cast is more disciplined and quicker to learn. Says Oscar Hammerstein: "It's a strange flavor they have. They don't fawn, they don't scrape, they listen carefully. I don't think they're any more intelligent than other people, but I think the intelligence is less obscured by neuroticism." Translates Dick Rodgers: "We have...