Working at the Pink Pussy Cat

I was working at the Pink Pussy Cat in Kansas City, Missouri as a stripper and the Park Plaza as one. They were across the street from each other. The Park Plaza was on one corner, across the street from it on another corner was the Follie's Burlesque Theater, and across the street from the Follie's was the Pink Pussy Cat in the middle of the block; so the Park Plaza and the Pink Pussy Cat were catty-cornered from each other. When I would walk from the Pink Pussy Cat to the Park Plaza, I would have to cross in front of the Follie's Theater.

It scared me. It was so slimy-looking. They showed dirty movies and had the strippers perform stage shows four or five times a day between the movies.

John Ory, ,the manager of the Follie's, would be standing on the corner sometimes when I would walk by. He scared me, too. He was sleezy-looking, fat with a goatee and mustache, and smoking his little cigar. Later on, I found out that he never lit his cigar. He just chewed on it.

He would say to me as I walked by, "Come in and talk to me sometime. You should go to work for us. You could make a lot more money than you do here at these joints".

One day I took him up on his offer and went in to talk to him. He made it sound exciting. I would make more money for less work and get to travel.

I was pretty-well country through and through and was extremely dumb about the "world". I said, "Well, is dancing ALL I would have to do?" He acted rerally shocked as he replied, "Well, yes. What ELSE do you think you would have to do?" I answered, "Well, I don't want to have to go to bed with any of the managers". He laughed. "Don't worry about that! You won't have to!"

I was still very skeptical but took the job. I worked on the Al Baker Burlesque Theater Circuit for approximately ten years. Some of the places I worked besides Kansas City, Missouri were Detroit, Michigan, Canton, Ohio, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Yew York City, New York. These are places my children and I would probably never had seen if I had not taken the step John Ory offered me.

It was very exciting s John had made it sound and opened a whole new life, in a positive way, for us which led to many more jobs in more citites for different agents over the NEXT, approximately, ten years.

Oh! Yes! And none of Al Baker's managers EVER tried to take me to bed!