GOLD FEVER Part Three. Ken Salter
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to give performances and tour Sacramento and possibly some larger mining towns. As Manon pointed out, she might well not return to San Francisco for quite awhile and even if she did, might not dance her signature “Spider Dance” again, which had made her the envy of so many other performers and critics.
I was a bit surprised as Manon usually opposed outings to balls or theatrical performances that featured sexy women. Fortunately, the performance was scheduled for mid-week when we served only lunch in our restaurant. Giselle agreed to sit our babes. Manon insisted I purchase seats in the first balcony next to the stage so we’d have the best view of the performance and the audience. We took our seats well in advance of the performance due to begin at 8 P.M. in order to watch the spectacle of San Franciscans from the highest to the lowest ranks taking their seats.
Charles Cora had reserved several front row boxes to showcase his mistress, Belle, who was stunning in a gauzy, slinky mauve silk dress that hugged her curvaceous body and whose daring décolletage showcased her luscious bosom. The additional seats were for Belle’s parlor house ladies, each of whom was decked out in her sexiest finery. Belle had moved permanently to San Francisco from Sacramento and her bordello was the top one in the city. Her “girls” were the most beautiful courtesans to be had in the state and Belle’s opulently furnished parlor house was frequented by the all the rich and powerful from the governor down to our local judges and merchants. No doubt, she would do a roaring business after the performance with her “girls” on public display.
Belle was not the only top-tier madam in attendance. Ah Toy, the tall, beautiful Chinese madam dressed in bewitching silk trousers and jacket was also in attendance. She’d moved from independent Chinese burlesque queen in 1849 when she charged an ounce of gold to view her peep show to owner of the top Chinese parlor house across the street from Belle’s. Her “girls” were beautiful and she charged through the nose those who sought the mysteries of the Orient. She gave a subtle wave of recognition to Manon from her nearby box she shared with her protector.
All of San Francisco’s “high society” including the mayor, aldermen, judges and sheriff were present as well as grubby, crusty miners and laborers from every corner of the world. However poor they might be, they’d scraped together $3.50 for a standing room admission and were now hooting and hollering for “Lola, Lola, Lola.”
Lola Montez must have been monitoring her audience—letting the hooters build heightened anticipation for her entry. It was at least twenty minutes past eight P.M. before the house lights dimmed and the curtain lifted. Close up Lola Montez was a bit more plump than she had been in her teens. She was dressed in tights and a short skirt showcasing her shapely legs. She proceeded to wiggle, twist, and sashay around the stage dropping little rubber spiders from her skirt which she continued to raise higher and higher to the delight of the hooters who started a chorus hollering “higher, higher.” As she swished her skirt higher and higher to the top of her thighs, she started a bump and grind routine worthy of the best girly pole dancers and strippers in London or Paris. As she paraded around the stage bumping, swishing and grinding, she attacked the little rubber spiders she’d released from the folds of her skirt by stomping on them with her high-heeled slippers. When the last spider was finally crushed, she raised her skimpy skirt even higher, did a series of pirouettes and then a deep bow to her audience as the curtain dropped for her exit. Manon whispered in my ear, “Ooh, la, la.”
The stunned audience erupted as one in a cacophony of sound—hollers, wolf whistles, bravos, and calls for “encore”—and the hooters started stamping their boots to mimic Montez stomping spiders. When after several minutes the noise reached fever pitch, Montez slipped out from behind the curtain, sashayed to center stage all the while swishing her short skirt to give dazzling but fleeting glimpses of juicy thighs and a delectable derriere. She did another deep bow as a cascade of flower bouquets, some with notes attached, rained onto the stage. As she picked them up she returned the gesture by tossing several rubber spiders as souvenirs to the delighted audience. And just like that it was over. House gaslights returned to full brightness. We’d seen the infamous “Spider Dance” in a performance that occupied the stage for a little over an hour and had probably raked in another $4,000 or more in proceeds. We watched the hoi polloi, gentry, movers and shakers and riffraff scoot out of the theatre heading for their favorite watering holes to regale each other and brag about what they’d seen and how high she’d lifted her skirt; we eventually made our way back home.
“So Chéri, you like what you saw?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I said no, would you?”
“Of course not. All men like sexy ladies. Your poor wife has to slave in a restaurant to make a living while Miss Montez makes a fortune every night as she wiggles her ass and shows her legs to horny men, yes? Is that fair?” Manon added with a pouty look.
I laughed. “I have to admit, you’ve got better stuff than Montez and, if I remember correctly in Valparaiso and later with a big belly, you did a strip tease that would get you more applause than Montez, if you took your act on the stage.”
Manon was so pleased with my praise and comparison that I got an encore performance in our bedroom before our twins awakened us howling rudely.
Lola Montez decided to marry her companion, Patrick Hull, in Mission Dolores before starting her tour to Sacramento and the gold country where she received rave reviews from critics for her dancing the “Spider Dance” and “El Olé” from her repertoire, but her mostly male audiences turned rowdy and belligerent as her tour proceeded. During one performance, she stopped dancing to dress down a raucous crowd who would not be appeased. Taking offense, some unruly troublemakers threw apples and rotten eggs at her and she responded by stomping on a bouquet of flowers which she then threw at them along with a return volley of their missiles. Finally, fed up with the rough and tumble miners and riffraff and their crude behavior, she abruptly cancelled the rest of her performances after an engagement in Marysville was poorly received.
Montez had been quarreling with Hull and shouting at members of her cast all along the trip. It culminated with her throwing Hull’s clothing out of a second storey hotel room. After dumping Hull, she proceeded to Grass Valley where she rented, then bought a cottage on Mill Street near the center of town. She sent Hull packing for good claiming he was living off her money; she now referred to herself as “Mrs. Heald.” She established a Wednesday evening salon at her cottage where she offered her guests good food, brandy and cigars in exchange for stimulating conversation. For the time being, she was “semi-retired,” dancing only on special occasions in the small theatre above the Alta Saloon or when in the mood in nearby mining camps.
Levi Strauss invited us to join him during the annual German festivities celebrated on May Day (May 1st). The German population in the city was somewhere between five and six thousand people, many of whom were Jewish immigrants from Prussian Poland. Fortunately, the weather was clear despite an early fog that lifted late morning and clear skies with a bone-chilling wind off the bay. About 1,800 Germans took part in the celebrations as brass bands accompanied gymnastic parades and played patriotic German tunes as the merrymakers, men in Tyrolean costumes and women in colorful dirndls whirled and danced and shouted the lyrics of “Das Deutsche Vaterland.”
We were seated at a stand sipping German white wine and sampling cold cuts when Manon remarked in English, “It would be nice to have a couple of German women to run our wine bar and canteen. They’d sell as much wine as Teri did wearing her native costumes.”
Levi Strauss replied, “I know two sisters who used to work in a biergarten. They’re looking for work. I get them for you, yes?”
Manon looked at me and shrugged, “Why not.” Strauss was off like a bullet and after tugging two very pretty dancers out of the parade, he hustled them towards us. The two women arrived gasping for breath, with faces flushed a rosy hue. Their dirndls featured tight bodices and waistbands, short sleeves, low necklines and gathered skirts. Strauss introduced them as Heidi and Anneliese Blumental. Both looked to be in their mid-twenties. Heidi, the elder of the two sisters, locked steely-blue