Irish McCalla - Modelling Page 8

MODELLING

Page 8 - The Vegas Showgirl

By 1951 Irish McCalla had been under contract to The Globe Syndicate for about five years and her continued popularity meant the company was always keen to search for other markets to exploit for her. They sent her to Korea where she did USO (United Service Organisations) shows for the troops abroad. It appears that after her marriage Irish was only working as a model and trying to sell some paintings because she has commented that doing the USO shows she could make more doing one show than a couple of weeks of painting. One of her brothers also served in Korea and when he returned he told her that all of the guys had her photo in the foxholes with them and that he would deny being related to her if they asked him. He told her that he wasn't ashamed of her, but if he had told his buddies she was his sister he would have to beat up a couple of them because of what they were thinking about her. An article in Night and Day magazine in June 1953, only a month before the Korean War cease-fire was reached, identified Irish as "Armed Forces No. 1 Pin-up".

A week after she discovered she was pregnant with her first child, her modelling employer at Globe Photos, Charles Bloch, informed her that the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas had called to offer her a job as a showgirl, with extra money if she would pose for publicity shots and do radio advertising. Apart from a bit of morning sickness she felt as if she was a strong, healthy young woman. The casino had offered to pay her $200 a week and she really wanted to buy her husband Pat an expensive suede jacket for Christmas, so she took the offer. Globe also wanted her to model for them a few times while she was a showgirl and kept her under contract. She figured she would have to quit both jobs as soon as the baby started to show.

She spent every evening of her first week in Vegas sitting at a table out front at the Flamingo, studying the girl she was replacing. During the days she would attend rehearsals to learn the girl's routine and attend costume fittings so that she could fit into the girl's costumes. One of the casino bosses commented that it was a good thing Irish was replacing a particular girl because she was the only one with a bust as big as Irish. ("I nodded in agreement, laughing to myself as I recalled the costume lady removing two sets of falsies out of each of the fancy bras, so I could get into them.") Irish also thought that it spoke well of the girl because it meant that the casino bosses hadn't seen her naked. She would also spend part of her days posing for

the pinup photographer that Globe Photos had supplied to furnish material for magazines. He also took photos for extra publicity for the hotel brochures. Most of the job consisted of walking at just the right pace, in a very straight and lovely pose, and in being at exactly the right place at the right time. The dance captain was Sheree North (left) and they posed together several times, which made Sheree appreciative of the additional publicity it brought her. Irish commented that Sheree left the Flamingo soon after she did when 20th Century Fox brought her to Hollywood to scare Marilyn Monroe, who was being difficult at the time (Sheree's first film was Excuse My Dust with Red Skelton, released in 1951).

Irish was soon on stage doing one show on week nights and two shows on the weekends. The girls were also required to circulate amongst the crowd to generate interest in the show and Irish was quick to point out to the casino's clients that she was happily married. The world-wise showgirls

quickly figured out why Irish would spend most of her mornings and early afternoon in the bathroom being sick. Eventually, they began joking about "the male in the dressing-room" or would comment that the baby was kicking higher than Irish when she would suddenly wince on stage. The Flamingo showgirls all lived together in an old building behind the casino referred to as "The Barracks". Irish had lived a sheltered life and she became uncomfortable at the lack of inhibition showed by some of the girls in the shared quarters ("Most of them were also very casual about going from shower to their rooms undressed, or standing and talking to each other "naked as a jay-bird, " as my mother would have said. That part of my education, both in The Barracks and in the backstage dressing room, was difficult for me to adjust to.")

One story gives a very good indication of Irish's feisty personality. One of the casino bosses was a notorious"fanny patter". One evening as she was making her way through the kitchen towards The Barracks out back, she suddenly felt a hand run over her rear end. She was very touchy about things like that and swung out at the perpetrator with a savage back hand. When she turned around she was a little perturbed to see that it was one of the "big bosses". ("I'd learned young that the best form of defense is often to attack first.") "I'm a married woman and I certainly don't appreciate familiarities from other men." She bravely declared. The boss was rubbing his cheek and looking up at her in complete amazement and she noticed that one of the cooks behind him had a horrified look on his face. The boss shook his head a little and said, "You're the one they call Irish, aren't you? She was certain she was in deep trouble. "That's one hell of a wallop you've got there" he continued in an admiring tone. "I'll watch myself around you from now on." He offered his hand, they both smiled and said "Okay." And went their separate ways. She related the story to one of the other girls who proceeded to list a series of violent acts attributed to the same man during his days in Chicago.

Another story concerned a little man named Moe who would barge into the showgirls' dressing room

and berate someone about being out of step during the show, and generally fabricate a whole list of puerile complaints in order to oggle all of the girls. He would always stare at Irish's bust when he was bawling her out (Irish's bust had swelled to over 41 inches during the pregnancy). The person Irish was talking about was "Little Moe" Sedway (right), who, along with famous gangsters Myer Lanksy and Frank Costello, had helped Bugsy Siegel establish the Flamingo Hotel in early 1947. Evidence suggests he may also have been instumental in the death of Siegel a few months later, for he and fellow gambler and mobster, Gus Greenbaum, took control of the establishment only 20 minutes after Siegel was shot in Beverly Hills. Greenbaum became the Flamingo's manager and successfully turned its fortunes around, while Sedway became his offisider. Irish said that Moe made a lot of enemies during his term there and when they heard that he had been killed in Florida the girls held an ice cream and cake celebration.

Every few weeks Pat would fly up to see her and she was spending a small fortune on long-distance phone calls because she was so homesick. She ended up working in Vegas much longer than originally expected because her height and slim build helped hide the signs of pregnancy very effectively. Eventually she had to go to a doctor who wrote a note for the casino bosses saying that she was indeed very pregnant and that it was dangerous for both herself and the baby for her to be prancing around in four inch heels with heavy, elaborate headdresses balanced on her head. She returned to LA a wiser woman. ("Las Vegas was a whole new world for me, and one I didn't like very much.") She had been in Vegas for almost five months, from late-51 to early-52 (Tease).

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PAGE 9 - CONCLUSION

IRISH McCALLA
MAGAZINE GALLERIES
To see what all of the fuss was about and the reason for her popularity, click on the image at right to explore an extensive collection of glamour and television magazines that Irish McCalla appeared in between 1950 and 2008.

SOURCES
• Tease magazine No. 8, 2003
PHOTOS
• All photos on this page are from Night and Day magazine, May 52 - private collection
LYNX
• Read a history of the Flamingo Hotel at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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