Lets talk about Strippers!

(A huge apology to one of the authors- i thought i had gotten the link on and FAILED! :
GO HERE for full page on Treasure Island:
http://www.sparkletack.com/2007/08/05/63-san-franciscos-treasure-island-pt-1/)




SALLY RAND

One of the great women to make it on her own, and the woman forever remembered for the 'fan dance'.
But i bet you didn't know about her exploits and her enduring fame here in San Francisco ba Area!

The photo above commemorates the day she started a show on Treasure island.
Sally Rands Nude Ranch, Opening Day
February 18, 1939
The Bancroft Library. University of California, Berkeley.

In 1939, our girl hosted Sally Rand's Nude Ranch at the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco. It was housed at a night spot called The Music Box and featured women wearing cowboy hats, gunbelts and boots, and little else. Sally's show was only one of several "flesh" shows in the Treasure Island Amusement Zone, also known as the "Gayway." [Something tells me that name won't be used again anytime soon.]

Incidentally, a postcard featuring the very "Nude Ranch" image that you see here was sold at auction in the Fall of 1997 for $160.

According to the history of "The Great American Music Hall" in San Francisco's notorious Tenderloin district:

Between the World Wars an enterprising danseuse named Sally Rand took hold of the club, now called The Music Box where a bevy of skimpily dressed girls danced for a delirious audience. Miss Rand herself became famous for her finale, a fan-twirling dance, which she rendered in the buff. But, when challenged in court by

upright citizens, she claimed that her audience never saw a thing because "the Rand is faster than the eye."

The image at left shows us a rare menu from The Music Box, where Sally's "star studded review" appeared at three shows nightly. A much larger version of this image may be seen on a page maintained by the Museum of the City of San Francisco. You will also find a couple of other Sally Rand related images on that page.

One amusing incident is recalled by theatre historian Ed Kelsey. During a performance at Sid Grauman's Metropolitan Theatre in Los Angeles (now the Paramount at Sixth and Hill streets), Sally got caught up in the stage wires during a show and was left swearing and hanging half naked in front of the entire audience.

Miss Rand became famous for her performance at the World's Fair, but she commonly made appearances at state and other local fairs. In the image shown at right we see Sally amidst the trappings of an unidentified fairground.



















The Fantabulous Sally Rand

Sally Rand: Who's Who In Hollywood 1900-1976

By: David Ragan

This amazing woman, Queen of the Fan Dancers, is in her '70s ... but she keeps her shape and her dates with her public: "I have never retired--I have averaged 40 working weeks a year since 1933."
She also keeps her equilibrium, except when labeled an "exotic" dancer. "The dictionary," she is apt to remind you, "defines 'exotic' as that which is strange and foreign. I am not "strange'; I like boys. I am not foreign; I was born and raised in Hickory County, Mo."
Her act hasn't changed. In clubs she usually does two numbers--the fan dance and her famous five-foot bubble dance; at outdoor theaters, usually just the bubble because of a long-ago experience--"when I first came out with my fans and the wind hit me, I almost took off."
How good her act is at this late date is indicated by Hollywood Reporter critic Sue Cameron, who reviewed a 1974 performance in L.A. and found the fan dance "glorious" ("The way she moves those fans is an art") and the bubble number "remarkable" (The audience loved her").
Sally Rand says she does "exactly the same" dance ... that made her the sensation of the 1933 Chicago World's Fair because, "Why not? I'm the original."
As for keeping that small (she's only 5'1"), firm, fantastic (35-22-35) shape, she says, "If you love living, you try to take care of the equipment." But, having dieted much of her life, she finds she now can eat whatever she wishes, and her dance rehearsals and performances are the only exercise she need to stay trim.
Her special campaign today is "the value of senior citizens,' and in the cities where she plays she often addresses local Kiwanis Clubs on the topic. "I'm not the type to sit on the porch and watch life go by," she says, and given the choice, she thinks most other senior citizens would not be either.
. . .Privately, Sally Rand is petite, bouncy, and miniskirted, and lives in a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed mansion in Glendora, Calif. In 1974, she became a grandmother when her son Sean and his wife Linda ... had a daughter and named her Shawna Michele, whose photograph Sally flashes often and proudly.

At Christmas time 1975, she interrupted a $1,500-a-week booking in Seattle to fly to California where she prepared a "huge crown-roast Christmas dinner" for members of her church and spent the holidays with her family. Then, flying off again on her appointed rounds, she laughed, "What in heaven's name is strange about a grandmother dancing nude? I'll bet lots of grandmothers do it."

Amazing stuff on a woman that used what she had and made it WORK.

http://www.geocities.com/~jimlowe/sally/sallydex.html

Sally Rand is an American icon, best known for her famous "fan dance." But, as with so many other celebrities, Miss Rand had a multifaceted career and personality that deserves (*ahem*) further exposure.

"Sally Rand" was born as Harriet Helen Gould Beck in the Ozark Mountain town of Elkton, Missouri on Easter Sunday, the 3rd of April, 1904. She was the daughter of Nettie Grove, a Pennsylvania Dutch Quaker, and Corporal William Beck, a veteran of the Spanish-American War. Teddy Roosevelt was President of the United States and there would come a time when little Helen would fall asleep in the great man's lap.

Sally was interested in dance from an early age and, literally, ran away with a carnival as a teenager. She later pursued such career opportunities as night club cigarette girl, artist's model, and cafe dancer.

Experience with the carnival led to employment with the Adoplh Bohm Chicago Ballet Company and the Ringling Brothers Circus. Thereafter, the path led to an association with the company of Gus Edwards, which also included Eddie Cantor, Walter Winchell, and George Jessel.

After leaving Gus Edwards, young Helen joined Will Seabury's Repertory Theatre Company. Sensing that a serious stage career was her destiny, she studied Chekov and Ibsen, among other playwrights. Believe it or not, our girl actually played Sadie Thompson in a production of "Rain" opposite, the then unknown, Humphrey Bogart, a fact to which this rare photo will attest.

The Seabury Company headed West in the early 1920's, and broke up shortly after its arrival in Los Angeles. Sally found herself unemployed, but in the film capital of the world.

Actually, "Sally" didn't find herself anywhere, because the aspiring performer was calling herself "Billy Beck" at that time. "Billy" made the rounds of the studios. Her carnival and circus background was such that she was able to land spots in comedy shorts produced by Mack Sennett and Hal Roach. One of her first stunts was to dive from a tall ladder into a small tank.

Finally, the trail led to feature roles. Cecil B. deMille was forming a stock company and found a place for Billie Beck. She credits deMille with giving her the new name--"Sally Rand." Thereafter, Miss Rand was cast in both leading and supporting roles in numerous silent films.

Sally was a WAMPAS Baby Star in 1927. When silent films gave way to "talkies," another career change became inevitable. Although Sally appeared in a few talking films, her prominent lisp foreclosed any chance of her being accepted as a major star of the silver screen.

Sometime in her late 20's, the ever resourceful Sally, having dropped out of Columbia University, when the depression set in, got the idea that she could increase her fame (and not incidentally her bank account) by combining a talent for artistic dance with the always present demand on the part of hormone driven members of the male sex for a glimpse of feminine pulchritude. Or, to offer a more blunt assessment, lots of people enjoy seeing a pretty girl in the buff. The picture at left (an active image) shows the young Miss Rand as she looked in the very early days of her "hide and peek" career.

Of course Miss Rand was not the first to hit on the idea of stimulating the male libido. Susie Johnson had displayed her charms in 1895, securing a place in history as the central figure of the infamous "Pie Girl Dinner."

Initially coming to Chicago in a show called "Sweethearts on Parade," in 1932, Sally soon accepted a position at the Paramount Club, in response to an advertisement for "exotic acts and dancers." It was at the Paramount Club that she first performed the "fan dance," using two large ostrich feather fans purchased at a second-hand shop.

Following a "Lady Godiva" inspired stunt at the gates of the 1933 "Century of Progress" World's Fair, Sally became a featured performer in the "Streets of Paris" concession and catapulted into stardom on May 30, 1933, with her first performance of the now legendary "Fan Dance." A full account of the circumstances may be found in the book "Sally Rand - From Film to Fans," more fully described below.

Nearly every account of Sally Rand's career includes the declaration that she "danced nude at the 1933 World's Fair." Well, ... maybe. As often as not Sally Rand's "nudity" was actually a body stocking or, perhaps, a coat of white theatrical cream. Whatever the reality, the illusion was sensational. As Sally manipulated two pink seven-foot ostrich fans to conceal and reveal much, but not all, only the eagle-eyed could successfully claim to have seen anything.

As you might imagine, the act was an unqualified sensation. The diminutive (5' 1") damsel with the knockout figure (35-22-35) began packing them in by the thousands. And it wasn't long before the shouts hit the fans. Pillars of the community were outraged, public officials were consulted, and officers of the law were dispatched. Miss Rand found herself in court, answering to charges that certain performances at the Century of Progress Exposition were "lewd, lascivious, and degrading to public morals." To his credit, the judge was a man of sober perspective:

"There is no harm and certainly no injury to public morals when the human body is exposed, some people probably would want to put pants on a horse.
. . .
When I go to the fair, I go to see the exhibits and perhaps to enjoy a little beer. As far as I'm concerned, all these charges are just a lot of old stuff to me. Case dismissed for want of equity."- Superior Judge Joseph B. David - July 19, 1933

"They planned this fair to bring business to Chicago, into the Loop. But you could have fired a cannon down state street and hit nobody, because everybody was out at the fair."

--"I doubt the mayor is a reliable weather vane when it comes to art and morality."-- Manager of the Oriental Village after mayor Kelly turned "bashful pink" at seeing women dancers scantily clad in "purely hypothetical costumes."

Some 22 million visitors celebrated the Century of Progress in Chicago, ensuring that the name "Sally Rand" would be known throughout the land. Thereafter, she exploited the popularity of the fan dance and similar routines at every opportunity.

In response to all the hub-bub, Miss Rand waxed philosophic about her career:

I have been successful, and I am grateful for my success. I have had some experiences that I wish I never had had, but that would be true in any business. I cannot say sincerely that I would have chosen just this road to fortune. Perhaps I might have wished for another way. But I took the opportunity that came to me. Certainly I am an opportunist. I admit it.

At any rate, I haven't been out of work since the day I took my pants off.

When the Chicago fair reopened in 1934, Sally perceived the need for something new: "I had to find a new twist."

She decided on a bubble dance: "I wanted a balloon sixty inches in diameter, which is my height, made of a translucent or transparent material." The only trouble was that the biggest balloons available were a mere 30" in diameter. They were heavy red target balloons used by the War Department. Since no one knew how to make the required equipment, Sally fronted the funds for necessary experimentation herself. After numerous tests, the super-dooper, see-through bubble was born. Once again, Sally was a smash hit, now heading a big show of 24 dancers and 16 showgirls.

After the Chicago exposition finally closed, Sally hit the road--and sometimes the road hit back. At the California Pacific Exposition, held in San Diego in 1935-1936, Sally suffered bruises under her left eye and on her left thigh from pebbles flung at her as she danced on stage. Bleeding at the cheek, she reappeared after a brief exit, with fans replacing her bubbles, and completed her act. The management announced it would have guards in future crowds about the dancer's stage.

When she was not dancing, Sally gave interviews, attended church services, and looked at the sights of San Diego. T. Claude Ryan of the Ryan Aeronautical Company took her on a flight over San Diego in his S-T plane. She baked a cake as part of a home show in the Palace of Better Housing, blew a balloon in a contest at the Zone, and lectured women's groups and teachers on the art of the dance.

The San Diego Expo featured a wide range of entertainment, including nudist Rosita Royce, who trained white doves to perch on her body. [Gosh, maybe I should do a web site devoted to her!] A lengthy and very entertaining essay by Richard Amero on the California Pacific Exposition, is well worth reading.

On the road again, Sally opened a "nude show" at the 1936 Frontier Exposition in Fort Worth. An article by Brad Redford on the Internet entitled "Sally Rand--The Woman Who Brought Nudity to Dallas" offers these delightful observations:

Sally revealed very little by today's standards. Sally's fan dance is tame, hell you could show it on broadcast TV! But, back then in the early thirties open skin was contained in the burlesque houses. She transcended burlesque with dance so heavenly, public opinion overrode the moral objectors, and the law. "How dare you arrest Sally Rand, America's Treasure!" She brought public nudity to Dallas by making it acceptable for the first time. She stepped out of an airplane at Love Field wearing only a bubble held in front of her, and a small toga style wrap. She was barefoot and on her toes, a vision of angelic loveliness, a real goddess. The flashbulbs wailed, the press followed her. She wore a size 4-1/2 shoe, she was a natural blond, and a small, uniform, b-cup adagio dancer. She moved with such grace and was so clever at using minimal cover that, she would not reveal the illegal parts.

Sally also continued to work as a photographer's model, appearing in "girlie" magazines of the time. The picture shown at left is from the Spring 1944 issue of "Tid Bits of Beauty." Notice that in the pin-up magazines of that day semi-skilled artists were called upon to draw fake clothing on top of the photographs before they were deemed to be suitable for publication. I wonder who had the task of writing descriptions like this one that accompanied the pictorial feature in "Tid Bits":
Sally Rand is a most attractive Terpsichorean Temptress, of whom no one can sing, "I Wonder What's Become of Sally," for she is an outstanding feature of all the best clubs on New York City's famous Broadway, and on other Broadways throughout the country from coast to coast, as well as in Canada.

Miss Rand is in demand, not only because of her technical ability and agility, but also because of her undeniable charm and attractivity. Her beautiful body, weaving through the intricacies of the dance, coupled with her beauteous smile, never fails to evoke the most ardent admiration and voluminous applause.
Sally Rand was a flamboyant artist, as well a lady with no reluctance to speak her mind. An ad-lib remark made during a radio appearance in 1950 prompted Al Wagner to file suit against NBC for "defamatory remarks." In 1952, a court ruled that the network was not liable for the unexpected comments of a guest performer.
Not surprisingly, Sally attracted more than her share of marriage proposals. She succumbed more than a couple of times. On August 12, 1954, in Las Vegas, having passed age 50, Miss Rand married for the third time, to contractor Fred Lalla, age 35.

An intellect, she once took time off from her dancing to appear on a stage with Gene Tunney. They discussed Shakespeare. Another time she appeared before 1,300 Harvard freshmen to lecture on the evils of commu

nism. In 1954, while appearing at the Silver Slipper in Las Vegas, she conducted a weekly television program. Sally was, of all things, an advisor on universal problems. She also interviewed celebrities and discussed books, music and the home. A sample quote: "Beauty comes from within; a greedy, avaricious, gossipy woman cannot be beautiful."
In 1953, having reached the area of age 50, Sally played the Dallas Fair and, she claimed, took in $14,000 in one day. For the rest of the two-week run she averaged $6,000 a day. From May, 1954 to January, 1955, she appeared at the Last Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas, "I had the longest run that anyone has ever had there." The publicity photo, above right, is from this "fiftyish" period.

Sally milked the same basic act for the remainder of her career. She was still strutting her stuff in 1967 at the age of 63. This picture of the sensuous senior accompanied an article by Miami Herald staff writer Don Ediger, published in the August 20, 1967, Sunday edition of that paper. The full text, including a reproduction of the newspaper ad for "Her

Sexellency" appearing in "Anatomy of Burlesque," is available for your examination.
Strutting her stuff at 63? For that matter, Sally was still

wearing miniskirts and turning heads in 1974. Pressed on the subject of continuing her act into a 7th decade, the petite Miss

Rand declared: "What in heaven's name is strange about a grandmother dancing nude? I'll bet lots of grandmothers do it."
Silent and other feature films aside, your best chance to actually see Sally Rand on film is in one of these shorts, available on video:

* Sally Rand's Bubble Dance -- Tru-Vue #1312
* Sally Rand's Dude (Nude) Ranch -- Tru-Vue #1313
* Sally Rand's Fan Dance -- Tru-Vue #1314

The Tru-Vue numbers refer to the fact that these "movies" were available as filmstrips that could be seen in stereoscopic 3-D through the use of a special "Tru-Vue" viewer. Several hundred such filmstrips were produced over a period of many years. They are now sought after by collectors. A fascinating overview of the Tru-Vue phenomena may be found at a web site devoted to that subject.
[You can see Sally Rand in 3-D yourself! Just print out this page, place the edge of a stiff card that is about six inches wide between the two pictures. Rest your nose on the other edge of the card and focus! You could try this on the screen, itself, but please don't send me your optometrist's bill.]

At least one other version of the bubble dance exists on film. A release from Official Films, entitled simply "Bubble Dance starring Sally Rand," which runs less than 3 minutes, shows Miss Rand dancing to classical music, twirling, kicking, and otherwise maneuvering a large bubble around a stage. The film concludes with a removal of her costume as the dimming lights reveal her "nude" body ... which is actually covered by a body stocking. The four little images seen here are from that version.

As to availability on video, a search of those dealers that handle vintage material will probably turn up opportunities to buy these films. For example, the "Fan Dance" is one of the shorts included in "Exploitation Mini-Classics Vol. 1" offered by Sinister Cinema for $16.95.

These are all standard publicity shots. From left to right:

• Young Sally Rand as the epitome of the 1920s "flapper."
• The lovely Miss Rand with her famous bubble.
• If neither a fan nor a bubble is handy, why not a swan?
• That's "Funny Girl" Fanny Brice, hamming it up as a Rodin's fan dancer.
• A still photograph autographed to a fan.
• Sally Rand, still something to see at age 50.

So there we have the fantastic Miss Sally Rand. The innocent age in which a performer such as she could tickle our fancy is long gone. The fires of fantasy in 1997 are fanned by a steady stream of breaking glass, pyrotechnic explosions, planes crashing into familiar landmarks, and lots of gunfire--not to mention matters of a severely gynecological nature. Sally Rand appeared among us during a time when a flight of fantasy could be enjoyed with little risk of permanent damage. And, speaking of such, there is one last flight for those who have stayed with me all this way. Behold and enjoy!
BOOKS

Some of the biographical information and a few of the photos added in the January 1998 update to this page are from the book "Sally Rand - From Film to Fans," by Holly Knox (Maverick Publications, 1988). Holly Knox is a Las Vegas performer who knew and worked with Sally Rand.
This book (which could have benefited from a more careful editorial hand) contains a wealth of entertaining and informative biographical information, as well as many, many, interesting photos not shown on this page. The book is sort of out of print, but you may still be able to get a copy from: Richard Bloomfield, 10693 Chestnut Street, Los Alamitos, CA 90720-2143. That's how I got mine, for a mere $11.95, postpaid, in the Fall of 1997. Tell Richard I sent you.
It is my understanding that at least one other book is currently in preparation.

EPILOGUE For additional Randisms and further biographical information, view the entry on Sally Rand from the terrific reference work "Who's Who in Hollywood 1900-1976" by David Ragan.
A trivia question: What do cowboy Tom Mix, singer Rudy Vallee, contralto Marian Anderson, and fan-dancer Sally Rand have in common? They all performed in Tallahassee, Florida, in the 1930s. Wow, they must have all taken a wrong turn on some rural back road!
Speaking of turns in the road, the western traveler will want to plan a stop at "The Exotic World Burlesque Hall of Fame and Nostalgia Museum" to view Sally Rand's original set of fans. The ivory alone is said to be valued at five thousand dollars. More about the museum is available for those who wish to linger awhile.
You should also enjoy the September 11, 1995, article in the Calgary Herald entitled "Fair or Foul: Nudes and midgets drew big crowds to Chicago." Columnist Jeff Adams recalls that Miss Rand covered herself in powder and danced behind two large feathered fans--raising them high at the end of her packed performances."

Sally Rand: . . . . Midgets?

Sally Rand died in Glendora, California, August 31, 1979.

Nudes and midgets drew big crowds to Chicago

Sept. 11, 1995

By JEFF ADAMS

Calgary Herald

Imagine if a village filled with midgets, and a stripper who covers her naked body with white powder, were key attractions at a world's fair in Calgary.

It's a safe bet neither one will be here if the city secures rights to Expo 2005. But both were hot properties at previous world's fairs, along with lots of other lowbrow lures.

Although the first world's fairs were filled with industrial exhibits, organizers gradually realized that to attract big crowds and avoid big losses, they had to generate some mass appeal.

One of the first successful responses was the "flume ride" at the Dublin fair in 1907. A forerunner of log rides that are popular today at amusement parks , it featured a boat that quickly slid down a steep ramp into a pond.

Causing an even bigger splash was George Ferris' giant revolving wheel, capable of carrying hundreds of people aloft at a time, when it was introduced at the 1893 fair in Chicago.

Chicago organizers scored again 40 years later with their Midget Village at the 1933 fair. More than 60 dwarfs lived in tiny houses and staged plays and other daily entertainment.

If that wasn't tacky enough, 1933 fairgoers could enjoy the obvious delights of Sally Rand. The former model and silent movie actress covered herself in powder and danced behind two large feathered fans - raising them high at the end of her packed performances.

Although Rand first took to the stage in May, it was August before Chicago police finally got around to arresting her and insisting she wear clothes in future performances. Rand ignored the warnings, was arrested again in September and sentenced to a year in jail. The case was dismissed under appeal, and she returned to entertain when the fair reconvened in 1934.with fanny brice :

Sally Rand's Silent Films

Of some 21 silent films in which Sally Rand was featured, we have details and/or titles on the following:

• The Dressmaker from Paris (1924) [details unknown]
  
  
• Braveheart (Cinema Corp. of America, 1925), directed by Alan Hale
  
  
• The Road To Yesterday (De Mille Pictures, 1925), directed by Cecil B. De Mille
  
  Our gal appeared in "The Road To Yesterday" with a black wig and sporting a little hair curl of the sort that would later be adopted by Bill Haley. Check the larger version of this exceptional publicity shot.
  
  
• Man Bait (PDC Productions, 1926)
  
  
• Sunny Side Up (De Mille Pictures, 1926), directed by Donald Crisp
  
  
• Night of Love (Goldwyn, United Artists, 1927)
  
  Yes, this is Miss Rand, though you would never guess it if someone didn't tell you. Some sources list this film with the title "A Night For Love" or "The Night of Love." A larger version of this one is also available for your viewing pleasure.
  
  
• His Dog (Pathe, 1927)
  
  
• Getting Gertie's Garter (Metropolitan Pictures Corp of California, 1927), directed by E. Mason Hopper
  
  
• Galloping fury (Universal, 1927)
  
  
• Heroes In Blue (Rajart, 1927)
  
  
• The King Of Kings (De Mille Pictures, 1927), directed by Cecil B. De Mille
  Miss Rand played the slave to Mary Magdalene.
  
  
• The Fighting Eagle (De Mille Pictures, 1927), directed by Donald Crisp
  Cast: Rod La Rocque, Phyllis Haver, Sam De Grasse and Sally Rand. This black and white film runs approximately 54 minutes and is available on video.
  
  
• Crashing Through (Pathe, 1928)
  
  
• Women Against the World (Tiffany Productions, 1928)
  
  
• Nameless Men (Tiffany Productions, 1928)
  
  
• Golf Widows (Columbia, 1928)
  The image at the top of this page shows Sally with Harrison Ford [Gosh, he sure has aged well!] in a risque scene which appears to have something to do with a pair of ladies unmentionables.
  
  
• A Girl In Every Port (Fox, 1928), directed by Howard Hawks
  Cast: Victor McLaglen, Robert Armstrong, Louise Brooks, Rosita Marstini, Myrna Loy, William Demarest, Natalie Joyce, Sally Rand. Leonard Maltin describes it as a "lusty silent comedy about two swaggering sailor pals who travel the world brawling over anything--especially women.
  
  
• Black Feather (Daily Productions, 1928)

COLLECTIBLES

In addition to the rare photos, postcard, and menu shown on this page, there is quite a selection of Sally Rand figurines and other collectibles available for your perusal on a separate page. Great stuff! Don't leave without taking a look!

I am often asked "Where can I buy an autographed picture of Miss Rand?" or some other rare collectible. The answer is -- the eBay auctions! Click the eBay icon and become a registered member today. Yes, it's free to use and there are always several Sally Rand items up for bid.
FILMOGRAPHY According to John DeBartolo, Sally Rand appeared in approximately 21 feature films during her silent screen career. Among them were Cecil B. DeMille's "The King of Kings," in which Sally played the slave to Mary Magdalene. Titles and minimal details of most of them, together with some great photos, may be found on a separate page.
Following the advent of "talking" pictures, Miss Rand appeared in only a couple of other feature films:

Sunny Side Up (1929)
Cast: Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, Jackie Cooper, Zazu Pitts, Joe Brown, Sally Rand.

As described in Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide, this is a "charming antique, quite impressive for early-talkie musical." Said to be available on laser disc.

Hotel Variety (1933) [I have no information about this film.]

Bolero (1934)
Cast: George Raft, Carole Lombard, Sally Rand, William Frawley and Ray Milland

The pictures at right are publicity stills from this 83-minute film. That's George Raft with our Sally. According to Leonard Maltin, "Bolero" is a:

Silly, protracted story of cocky dancer's rise to fame ... made fun by good stars and production values; dance sequences are first-rate ... Rand, in a rare film appearance, performs her famous fan dance.

ld,


presents









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Home Index By Subject By Year Biographies The Gift Shop Sally Rand (1904-1979) Rare menu from The Music Box, Sally Rand’s nightclub, then located at 859 O’Farrell Street, in the Polk Gulch district of San Francisco. The building, opened as Blanco's after the Great Earthquake, currently houses the Great American Music Hall, and the interior remains much as it did when Rand performed her famed fan dances there. The venue was sold in 2000 to Palo Alto-based Riffage.com, a dot-com startup, that planned live Internet broadcasts of new music from the former Music Box. Riffage.com, unfortunately, ceased operations Dec. 8, 2000. Its website said, “we cannot continue to service these fine [music] communities in the current economic marketplace.” The Great American Music Hall was put up for sale by the company. Sally Rand came to prominence during the 1933-1934 Chicago Century of Progress world’s fair that was to celebrate the progress of civilization during Chicago’s first century of existence. The Chicago fair opened May 27, 1933, and drew 39,000,000 visitors. Like the Treasure Island fair, it was repeated a year later. The Century of Progress is, incidentally, one of the few world’s fairs that did not lose money. This was the fair that made Sally Rand famous. She had been a nightclub cigarette girl and dancer, and joined a chorus line at the fair. She was arrested for an “obscene” performance, and was catapulted to fame. It is said her act, in Chicago, grossed $6,000 per week during the depths of the Depression. After the Chicago fair closed she performed in vaudeville, motion pictures, expositions in Texas and San Diego, then came to San Francisco in anticipation of the 1939 Treasure Island World’s Fair. In the Treasure Island amusement zone, known as the “Gayway,” was the Sally Rand Nude Ranch, one of the highlights of the fair. It featured women wearing cowboy hats, gunbelts and boots, and little else. The fair’s Official Guide Book delicately described it as “Sally Rand Nude Ranch: A dude ranch a la 1939.” The Nude Ranch was just one of several “flesh” shows at the Treasure Island Fair. Others included Candid Camera, which featured live, nude, models, and Greenwich Village, described by the Official Guide Book as “Model artists’ colony and revue theatre.” The Gayway also featured the Mark Twain House, a replica of a newspaper office where the famed author worked, and Incubator Babies, Inc., with live infants in a modern hospital— on display at the fair. Unabashed stag shows at Treasure Island did cause some controversy. However, one San Francisco neighborhood newspaper, the Polk Progress, wrote: “One might gather from the snickering and naughty attitude toward the ‘flesh’ shows at the Exposition, that the success of the $50,000,000 enterprise hangs or fails upon the relative number of inches of epidermis displayed. Bringing stag shows out into the open in order that women may attend and feel devilish will pay good dividends, but the marvelous exhibitions of paintings and other displays will also attract a few.” Sally Rand, who said she was born in 1904, may have been an “overnight sensation” in Chicago, but had appeared in motion pictures and vaudeville from the 1920s. Her screen credits include 1924s “The Dressmaker from Paris,” two Rod La Rocque 1926 films “Bachelor Brides,” and “Gigolo,”; “Getting Gertie’s Garter” in 1927, as well as Cecil B. De Mille’s “King of Kings.” She was in the 1928 film “The Fighting Eagle,” and the 1934 musical “Bolero,” with George Raft. She also appeared in two “Soundies” features filmed in 1942 - “The Fan Dancer” and “The Artist Model.” Return to top of page

Treasure Island Timeline
1872 Emperor Norton demands bridge to Oakland
1879 Robert Louis Stevenson arrives in San Francisco
1898 Naval Training Station established on Yerba Buena Island
1929 The Great Depression
1931 San Francisco Junior Chamber of Commerce plans airport
1932 Election of Franklin D. Roosevelt
1/5/33 Golden Gate Bridge begun
7/9/33 San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge begun
1933 Joseph Dixon suggests a World's Fair to celebrate bridges
1934 Yerba Buena Shoals selected as site for World's Fair and future airport
1935 Works Progress Administration launched
2/11/36 Army Corp of Engineers begin work on Treasure Island
11/12/36 San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opens
5/27/37 Golden Gate Bridge opens
8/24/37 Treasure Island construction complete
1/39 Flying Clippers begin to fly out of Treasure Island
2/19/39 Golden Gate International Exposition opens
10/29/39 Golden Gate International Exposition closes
5/25/40 Golden Gate International Exposition reopens
9/29/40 Golden Gate International Exposition closes for good
2/28/41 Navy signs lease with San Francisco forming "Naval Station Treasure Island"
4/1/41 Navy seizes Treasure Island
12/7/41 Word War II begins with attack on Pearl Harbour
8/15/45 Word War II ends; V-J Day riots in San Francisco
1946 Flying Clipper service ends
1993 Naval Station Treasure Island slated for closure
5/8/97 Naval Station Treasure Island decommissioned
11/30/97 San Francisco takes formal control of island, Navy still legal owner
2006 Redevelopment plan for island approved
2007 Noise Pop & Another Planet produce the Inaugural Treasure Island Music Festival
2008(?) Treasure Island finally "conveyed" to San Francisco
2013(?) First residents move onto redeveloped island
2022(?) Treasure Island Redevelopment Project complete

The Story of Treasure Island
By Richard Miller aka Sparkletack

the story of treasure island

I. HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT
I guess it goes without saying that we humans have done a great deal to change the face of San Francisco since the first Europeans arrived almost 250 years ago. But even though most of these changes are relatively recent, as a rule we barely even notice them today. The Financial District and Embarcadero conceal what were once open waters of the Bay. Golden Gate Park was once a dreary wasteland of sand dunes. Rincon Hill is a shadow of its former self, its rocky heights reduced to a mere stump with a bridge growing out of it. These alterations are invisible to us now, and without a study of our history, it would be easy to think that this is how things have always been.

But there is one earth-shaping venture -- just 70 years old -- that is unmistakably the work of human hands. Its rectilinear shape makes it stand out from the organic environment like a knife in the spoon drawer. This epic reshaping of the natural landscape is hidden in plain sight, smack in the middle of San Francisco Bay. I'm talking about Treasure Island.
It's easily visible from San Francisco's Embarcadero, a low-lying front porch jutting out towards the Golden Gate Bridge from Yerba Buena Island. Palm trees in a silhouetted row set off massive white buildings, dwarfed by the towering silver Bay Bridge marching across the water towards Oakland. That bridge carries over 130,000 people a day within yards of this artificial lily pad, most of them whizzing by at 70 miles per hour without giving it a second thought.
This story gives Treasure Island that second thought. What is it? Why is it there? And where is it going? The story of the island begins with an airport. But to put that airport in context, let's step backwards.

II. THE ERA OF THINKING BIG
"We Must Master Our Environment"
The transcontinental railroad was completed in the middle of the nineteenth century. The driving of the final spike in 1869 served not only to physically stitch the two halves of the North American continent together, compressing space and time in a single stroke, but to summon an even larger vision into the American imagination. The physical enormity of this engineering feat marked a turning point after which nothing would seem impossible. By 1900 the United States had become the leading industrial nation on earth, completely transformed from its early agrarian roots. As the second phase of the industrial revolution provided ever larger and more powerful tools with which to mold the environment for human convenience, the size of a project was limited only by the human capacity to conceive it. This was particularly true in the West, where the outsize and rugged scale of the environment offered challenges that couldn't be ignored.

A flurry of Bay Area engineering projects were born in the boom following the end of World War I, inspired by the earth-shaping success of the 1914 Panama Canal. The Hetch-Hetchy Valley up in the Sierra Nevada was dammed to provide San Francisco with a reliable water supply. The San Francisco Bay was spanned for the first time by the Dumbarton bridge, and the Carquinez bridge, the "highest in the world" followed right on its heels. The most impressive projects of the 1920s, though, were without question our Golden Gate and San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridges. Though our self-anointed Emperor Norton had ordered that a bridge to Oakland be built as early as 1872, such massive and technically difficult structures still seemed audacious a half-century later. Then when the Great Depression struck the country in 1929, it seemed as though this kind of colossal undertaking would simply have to wait until prosperity returned.
But with the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, a do-or-die optimism swept the country. America would build its way out of the Depression. Roosevelt's notion was that the American economy could be jump-started by pouring federal money into it, and under his "New Deal", public works projects were among the favoured recipients. The immensity of the country's financial woes seemed to influence the scale of these ventures, again bringing intense attention to the West, where the Depression had come late but hit hard. The awesome Hoover Dam on the Colorado River provides one of the most impressive examples of 1930s governmental largesse, but the focus on large-scale construction extended to private industry as well.

In this atmosphere, despite the fact that San Francisco millionaires were compelled to sell apples on the corners of Market Street for survival, construction of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge began in 1933 -- at the very depth of the Depression. It's still amazing to me that either one of those bridges ever made it off the drawing board. The fact that both of these marvels of nature-defying engineering were constructed simultaneously gives you some idea of the manic mixture of desperation and hubris bred by the times. Roosevelt captured the mood in the West perfectly, saying, "We can no longer escape into virgin territory; we must master our environment."


The Airport Connection
This was the backdrop to a 1931 meeting of the San Francisco Junior Chamber of Commerce, convened to consider a little problem vital to the future of San Francisco. Air traffic was on the rise in the Bay Area, as it was all across the country, and Pan American Airways had just inaugurated the era of international passenger service. The young businessmen in the Junior Chamber saw clearly that San Francisco stood to profit greatly from an airport easily accessible to the downtown area. Of course, San Francisco already had a small airport, Mills Field down near South San Francisco. Mills was just a few years old, established in 1927 in a desperate attempt to keep air traffic away from Oakland, San Francisco's eternal rival. By the early thirties, though, Mills Field had developed a bad reputation for fog and for being a second-rate facility. These complaints were mostly undeserved, but an infamous incident in which the celebrated aviator Charles Lindbergh swerved off a runway and got stuck in the mud lowered the airport's standing even further.

Treasure Island in its intended final incarnation as an airport. Clippers circle overhead, and the terminal and two hangars are clearly visible at the southern end. - artist's conception

Because broad, flat, and open spaces are not exactly easy to come by on the peninsula, the Junior Chamber of Commerce kept an open mind about potential sites. One sketch from the period show an elaborate airfield built on fill stretching eastward from China Basin, and this was not an anomaly. As you may recall, San Francisco has a long established tradition of filling in the bay to create land -- compare any map of the pre-1860's city to a modern plan and it's easy to see how the land-mass has expanded. It's not clear exactly who came up with the winning idea, but you've probably guessed what it was.

Yerba Buena Shoals
Today it seems like a bizarre place to plant an airport. In 1931 Yerba Buena Shoals were completely underwater, way out in the middle of the bay, and the Bay Bridge, which would one day link the spot to civilization, existed only on a drawing board.

But considering the tenor of the times and San Francisco's bay-filling history, the concept of building out there must have seemed obvious -- you can almost imagine someone slapping his forehead: "why didn't we think of this before?" The shoals were a 735-acre sandbar, submerged between 2 and 26 feet beneath the surface of the bay. They had long presented a navigational hazard for mariners, and since they couldn’t be built on or sailed over, were considered nothing more than waste territory. Of course, the idea of planting a massive artificial island in the middle of San Francisco Bay's fragile ecosystem is one that would never get off the ground today, but remember, it's the thirties, we're thinking big, and contemporary concepts of ecology or environmental protection lie a long, long way in the future.

And so it was settled. The Junior Chamber began to lean on city officials to have the state legislature transfer the underwater property to San Francisco. And though that's what happened, it's just the beginning of the story. Factoring in the speed of bureaucracy -- glacial then as it is now -- it would have taken decades before work on the airport project would even begin.

III. AN ISLAND AND A WORLD'S FAIR
A Celebration of Bridges

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge under construction in January of 1935. Note Yerba Buena Island in foreground. - San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library

But then in 1933, a San Francisco real estate man named Joseph Dixon wrote a letter to the editor of the San Francisco News. He pointed out that the completion of our two gorgeous bridges, our pair of cutting-edge "wonders of the world" was something to celebrate, and made a modest suggestion. Why not hold a World's Fair to show them off?
This idea caught fire in San Francisco, particularly in political and business circles. Mayor Angelo Rossi stuck a white carnation in his lapel and jumped on board with both feet. The rest of the city, stirred by pride and local patriotism, was right behind him. But there were other reasons to push the idea forward. The bridges were certainly something to crow about, but at the depth of the Depression, the thought of the money that would be attracted by an International Exposition made the whole region salivate. And on top of that, a World's Fair would give San Francisco a chance to proclaim itself the natural American gateway to the Pacific, thereby staking a claim to leadership of this newly ascendant cultural and economic region.
With the whole city whipped into an enthusiastic froth, the Bridge Celebration Founding Committee was formed by business leaders to consider the vital question of "Where?". A bevy of architects was engaged to review potential locations. The government-owned military lands of the Presidio were considered, as was the Lake Merced area in the south-east. Golden Gate Park seemed like a natural site, with one plan even suggesting that the city acquire all the land between the Park and City Hall, demolishing the existing structures and rebuilding the whole swath. The bay-filled lands of China Basin and Hunters Point were also discussed, but each of these sites had some major disadvantage. Golden Gate Park? Too fragile! Lake Merced? Too foggy! China Basin? Too ugly! But Yerba Buena Shoals.... hmm! A barge was dispatched to the spot, and a little test drilling showed that the shoals could indeed support a man-made island.
As the World's Fair debate raged on, the Junior Chamber of Commerce was still thinking airport. Citizens tend to doze off at the very mention of a public works project, but the Junior Chamber quickly realized that World's Fair-fever provided a wonderful opportunity to kick-start their airport dream. In fact, if they could get, say, 400 acres of Yerba Buena Shoals filled for the Fair, their airport could take over the artificial island the moment it was over... and if one of the ventures lost money it could pay the expenses of the other!
The idea was a natural, though admittedly that term sounds a bit odd in reference to a manufactured land-mass. The World's Fair site would be right in the middle of the bay, more or less equally accessible from all parts of the Bay Area. Legions of ferry boats already cut through these waters at an astonishing rate, shuttling 250,000 people a day across the bay. The Bay Bridge had been designed to use Yerba Buena Island as a stepping stone, and now that opportune placement would provide a convenient link to the Fair from both sides of the Bay. Visitors would even be able to take the train, since in those good old days, public transportation in the form of rail -- part of the old "Key System" -- was planned to roll along the bridge's lower deck.
Endorsement of the new island wasn't to be that easy, of course. As soon as the mid-bay plan for the Fair was revealed by the Bridge Celebration Committee, objections began to fly. Many were concerned that a site outside of the city might "bring a profit to Oakland at the expense of San Francisco"! With some foresight, a member of the Junior Chamber retorted, "the time has come for San Francisco to throw off the yoke of provincialism and smug satisfaction and work in harmony with her sister cities ... to achieve her desired greatness, now threatened by ... Southern California." The San Francisco Board of Supervisors were hopelessly deadlocked. After days of conflict, they abdicated the final decision, throwing up their hands and putting the matter to a public vote. The conclusion? The good people of San Francisco were in favour of building the new island -- but they didn't want to pay for it.

Prying Open the Checkbook
So. The proposed Fair now had an address, but not a cent available to raise it from beneath the waters of the bay. Meanwhile, however, the exploratory committee formed by Mayor Rossi had become a corporation, with insurance man Leland Cutler at its head. As the representative of San Francisco Bay Exposition, Inc., Cutler had immediately begun an assault on the coffers of Washington DC. Even with a World's Fair in New York also in the works, the Feds were receptive. The huge employment numbers promised by the project were attractive, but it was the investment in infrastructure that really got them to bite -- the airport. Cutler returned home with a verbal promise from President Roosevelt himself for $3.8 million, to be delivered on condition that matching funds of three-quarters of a million come from San Francisco. For a little perspective, if we crank that sum into contemporary dollars, even using a conservative metric it comes to well over $50 million. According to Richard Reinhardt, local author and historian, the men of San Francisco's Republican-dominated Exposition Corporation were at first reluctant to trust a Democratic President, but Roosevelt was as good as his word; in 1935, his administration formally approved the island-building project.

"And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so." That's how Genesis 1:9 reads, but God probably didn't mind having his place usurped by the Army Corps of Engineers. The construction of the island had originally fallen to the New Deal put-folks-to-work agency known as the WPA, the Works Progress Administration. Now, I'm not sure if they'd imagined that the job could be done by a bunch of guys with rubber boots and tin buckets, but after taking a closer look, the WPA decided that the scope of the project was way out of their league. Yerba Buena Island was still property of the United States government, so it seemed logical that the Secretary of War authorize the Army Corps of Engineers to take over. By the time it was finally begun, this artificial island would represent one of the most complicated multi-agency projects ever attempted in California, encompassing the WPA, the Exposition Corporation, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the Federal Public Works Administration, the Navy, and of course the Army Engineers. It's incredible that any project of such complexity could succeed with so many cooks in the kitchen, but the construction of our little island stands out as a stellar example of choosing the right group for the job and getting out of the way.

Building the Island

Treasure Island breaks the surface of the bay in the spring of 1936. Note the floating pipe pointing at its center, and the unfinished eastern span of the Bay Bridge in the background. - National Archives

The Army Engineers had at first hoped to contract much of the work out to local dredging companies, but finding no takers for the risky venture, took on the job themselves. Assembling the necessary array of large equipment was easier said than done. The two bridges that the island was intended to celebrate were still under construction, and much of the San Francisco Bay's maritime building resources were already occupied. Not to worry; Colonel Fred Butler issued a few well-chosen orders, and a fleet of government dredges and barges began to converge on the shoals from up and down the West Coast.
On February 11, 1936, a day of pomp and circumstance was planned to accompany the first load of fill onto the site. Mother Nature seemed to resent the gesture, and the largest storm in over a decade drenched the Bay Area. Enthusiasm was undampened on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle, however, which shrieked "Fair Officially Started!" The reporter gushed:
"When pretty close to a hundred silk hats will get up before breakfast, skid across town to a pier shed half submerged in water, grab a toehold on a water taxi pointing towards heaven one second and a firehouse the next, go out in the middle of the bay and take their morning shower outdoors for the sake of saying the exposition is officially started, they must be one of two things: they must be crazy, or they must be imbued with a lofty purpose."
That lofty purpose was the inauguration of the construction of the largest artificial island on earth, and the "silk hats" were worn by Mayor Rossi, Leland Cutler, and dozens of other San Francisco businessmen and politicos, each determined to associate themselves with the popular project. The mayors of cities from Oakland to San Jose made their perilous way out to the middle of the bay as well, along with a phalanx of military brass hats representing the Navy, the Army, and the Army Corps of Engineers.

A pumping dredge sucks up sand from the bay floor and blasts it onto the emerging island. - San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library

Though Mayor Rossi did manage to cut the pink ribbon symbolically draped over the controls of the US Army dredge, his speech was cut short by the downpour. The wisecracking Chronicle reporter noted that, "Mayor Rossi did start to open his mouth, but when the third cubic foot of water and the second mackerel passed his Adam's apple, he gave up."
That rainy February day marked the beginning of months of ceaseless labor. Clamshell dredges scooped up bulging mouthfuls from nearby sandbars and dumped them onto barges headed for the building site. Huge floating pipes snaked their way across the bay, connected to a flotilla of pipeline dredges. These sucked up staggering quantities of sand and sediment directly from the bay floor, using massive pumps to disgorge the muck directly into the waters over Yerba Buena Shoals.
When the first soggy lump of the nascent island broke the surface later that spring, Leland Cutler, already in high promotional gear, was there in a rowboat to plant the American flag in the virgin "soil" and smile for photographers.
The simple but ingenious design for the island called for the erection of long stone seawalls, which would contain the fill in a kind of artificial atoll. 287,000 tons of rock quarried from Napa, Greenbrae, and McNear's Point were delivered on barges and sunk in razor-straight lines, building up a rocky wall to the height of 14 feet. The outline was simple; picture a rectangle with three of the four corners snipped off. The southernmost corner, left unsnipped, was linked to Yerba Buena Island by a sloping causeway. The narrow rectangular slot delineated by the causeway and the two islands was designed to act as a protected harbor. The whole, elongated stop-sign shape measured three-quarters of a mile wide by one mile long. Admittedly, it does look like something designed by an engineer. Though a curvier, more island-shaped island might have been nice, that rectilinear shape lent itself to construction; straight lines are easier than curved ones, and cheaper too.
As the enormous pipes vacuumed up the sea floor, they often performed a sort of inadvertent archeology. Human bones were dumped onto the site, most likely the remnants of early Native American tribes. Another find was a prehistoric mammoth tusk, certified by scientists at UC Berkeley as having lived in the late Pleistocene period -- around 250,000 years ago. Millions of pounds of very modern fish were also caught in the flow. Countless seagulls already made their living by scavenging ferryboat garbage, and a huge proportion of their number -- attracted by this fishy windfall -- made the construction site their new permanent cafeteria. The sheer quantity of food drove the big birds wild, and attacks on workers who happened to be in the way were so fierce that they were issued "seagull suits" for protection.
The island was completed on August 24, 1937 -- in just 18 and a half months. All told twenty million cubic yards of sea bottom had been dredged, dug, dumped and poured inside the rocky walls. The sea-soaked muck was too salty too support any life but marsh grass, so engineers drilled 300 wells and pumped millions of gallons of briny water from the bowels of the island. As a final step, the surface was frosted like a chocolate cake with 50,000 cubic yards of topsoil -- rich, earthy loam imported from the Sacramento Delta. And with that, the Army Corps of Engineers were finished, having performed their task with jaw-dropping efficiency, 15 days ahead of schedule and $4100 under budget.
"Pacific Unity" Groundbreaking ceremony, August 1936. As evidenced by the Japanese and Nazi flags, the United States is not yet formally involved with the wars in Europe and Asia.
A formal ground-breaking was held on the new island with the surface still damp. With the newly completed Bay Bridge serving as a dramatic backdrop the ceremony was attended by mayors, businessmen and consular diplomats from each of the countries preparing to participate in the Fair, whose theme had by this time been officially designated as "Pacific Unity". I must confess that I had something of a shock when I saw a photo of this event. The Governor of California is there, Mayor Rossi, a brass band, a troop of boy scouts... but what really grabs your attention are two of the dozen flags flying in the background; the rising sun of Imperial Japan and the menacing black and red swastika of Nazi Germany.
It's difficult to imagine a more inauspicious time to open an international exposition: evidence that the world was dissolving into violence was all around. As a flamboyantly gold-plated shovel broke the fresh ground of our idealized island, Hitler was negotiating with Stalin over how to carve up Eastern Europe, Italy and Spain were plunging into fascism, and the Japanese occupation of China and the rape of Nanking made the concept of "Pacific Unity" sound almost chilling.

The idea of celebrating brotherhood and peace on an island full of grand buildings, commercial hucksterism and gay frivolity seems naive today, almost sweetly optimistic. The country's capacity to be swept away by spectacle, pageantry and grand themes was petering out in the face of a ruthlessly unsentimental Modern Era -- this sliver of time between the Depression and World War II was perhaps its last gasp. The day of the grand World's Fair was over, but somehow, nobody knew it yet.
Naming the Island

The 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition in all its glory, with the "Tower of the Sun" standing towards the near corner.

As the island was taking shape, another group put the finishing touches on its own plans, feverishly at work planning the Fair to end all fairs. Architects, sculptors, horticulturalists, but most visibly, publicists put their shoulders to the wheel. Clyde Vandeburg was the head of the publicity machine, and it turns out that he was the man responsible for something I've always wondered about; how the island got its name. There's a letter on file in the San Francisco Library History Room in which Vandeburg points out that the official name of his organization -- "The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridges Corporation and Golden Gate International Exposition" -- was just too long to fit on a letterhead!
But seriously, folks. Something a little punchier was needed for publicity reasons. I've speculated that Treasure Island was named for Robert Louis Stevenson's famous children's book about adventure and pirate gold. There is already a real (if murky) history of treasure buried on Yerba Buena, treasure of the very best kind: undiscovered! And since the whole affair was to be called "The Pageant of the Pacific", Vandeburg was searching for a name redolent of palm trees, sandy beaches, and warm tropical breezes -- as well as something with a little spark and excitement. Did it matter that pirates never really operated in the Pacific Ocean? Robert Louis Stevenson's brief stay in San Francisco provided a tenuous link to a name that fit the criteria like a glove: "Treasure Island"
A more practical reason was suggested after the fact by none other than ex-president Herbert Hoover. As a California native and friend to the Bay Area -- as president he'd made the Bay Bridge possible -- Hoover was invited to attend the ground-breaking of the Mines and Minerals exhibition building. Hoover had once worked out West as a mining engineer, and showed up in full gold miner's drag. It occurred to him that the "Treasure Island" moniker was literally accurate; the sand and earth used as fill for the island had been washed down from the same gold-veined hills that spawned the 1849 gold rush. He examined the soil and remarked "if a man worked hard 10 hours a day he could probably pan about a dollar's worth of gold on Treasure Island!" Since he just happened to have the right tool handy, he squatted down and panned a couple of specks of genuine yellow on the spot. The official name of the Fair remained the "Golden Gate International Exposition", but not a soul ever called it that. To one and all its name would forever be synonymous with the island.

Let the Hype Begin

Treasure Island's official "Theme Girl" Zoe Dell Lantis flashes some leg and her trademark sparkling smile.

The ballyhoo and hype surrounding the event flooded every conceivable media outlet, and the whole city was infected. Theme songs were written, celebrities showed up, and shop-owners changed the names of their operations to "Expo" this and "World's Fair" that. Official visits were made separately by both Roosevelts, Franklin and Eleanor. As a publicity man, Vandeburg knew what would really sell, so he hired a perky young ballet dancer named Zoe Dell Lantis to become "Treasure Island's Theme Girl". Wearing a pirate hat, cuffed boots and short shorts, Zoe became the hardest working buccaneer in show business, criss-crossing first the state and then the country. She was the most-photographed person of 1939, happily hammering "Treasure Island" into the consciousness of an entire population with long legs and a big bright smile.

Planning and construction continued at a pace even more frenetic than the publicity blitz. At the south end of the island, adjacent to the harbour, the WPA had already begun the three buildings intended to outlive the Fair -- and indeed they're still there. Timothy Pflueger's tall and elegantly semi-circular Administration building would serve as the terminal for the post-Fair airport, and you can still see the glass-windowed air traffic control tower at its top. Behind this classic of "streamline moderne" stood two massive rectangular buildings. These were intended to devolve into aircraft hangars, but first served the Fair as the "Palace of Fine and Decorative Arts" and, appropriately, the "Hall of Air Transportation". Since the north end of the island was actually still sinking as construction began, that end was relegated to use as a parking lot and carnival zone. In the acres between, a temporary wonderland of lath and stucco was soon to arise.
A "Magic City"
The New York World's Fair, scheduled to open just two months after Treasure Island, had already claimed the Future as its theme. Historian Reinhardt recalls that "there was widespread indignation that New York had tried to steal our thunder", but San Francisco had already staked its claim to an imaginary multi-cultural past.

The architects charged with developing the visual style of the fair were the cream of the San Francisco old school, George Kelham, Timothy Pflueger, Arthur Brown and others. Many of them had worked on San Francisco's previous World's Fair, the classically romantic Pan-Pacific Exhibition of 1915. Their task was to reflect the Fair's theme by blending sources from all around the Pacific Rim into a "new" architectural style: "Pacifica". There wasn't a whiff of Frank Lloyd Wright in this bunch, and the result of their labors was a kind of monumental orientalist fantasy, an art deco hallucination of a walled imperial city.
The walls were in part a practical consideration. If you've ever been to Treasure Island, you know that the afternoon wind roars across with startling ferocity pretty much every day of the year. A wall of staggered baffles on the windward side of the Fair was the result of careful experimentation with a cardboard model and electric fan.
Once through the gates, romantic vistas of pools, fountains and gardens would reveal themselves to the visitor through a series of courtyards and grand avenues, all organized around a huge cylindrical bell tower reminiscent of an art-deco rocket -- the 400 foot high "Tower of the Sun". A pair of mammoth ziggurats topped with cubist elephants would flank the Tower, creating an awe-inspiring centerpiece. The island's nomenclature -- the Court of the Moon and Stars, the Enchanted Garden, the Avenue of the Seven Seas -- revealed something of the island's retro-romantic flavour. Chunky, stylized sculptures by Bay Area artists were to be generously distributed throughout the magic city, trumped by the gigantic stone "Pacifica". This 40-foot Polynesian goddess played the role of the island's muse, the physical embodiment of the "Pan-Pacific" theme. The overall aesthetic was evocative of Cecil B. deMille's 1927 Technicolor movie epic "The Ten Commandments", becoming a fantasy island that historian Harold Gilliam would later compare to Coleridge's "Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan".

The 40-foot "Tower of the Sun" looms over the "Court of Reflections" - Courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley

Some observers have seen overtones of fascist architecture in the inhumanly clean lines and awe-inspiring imperial scale of the place. To my mind, the veneer of fanciful eastern-inspired decoration, shallow or even kitschy though it may seem to our jaded eyes, rescues it from that sordid company. I mean, what self-respecting fascist builds a ziggurat with an elephant perched on top? The populist art and architecture of the Fair were universally despised or dismissed by its contemporary critics, but all the same, the "Magic City" was to be beloved by fairgoers.
The Future did manage to sneak into the Fair's design through innovative lighting and a vivid color scheme -- this involving nineteen tints of sparkling spray-on Zonolite, ranging from "Santa Clara Apricot" to "Death Valley Mauve". A WPA sponsored writing project reported:
"The island's colors, stimulating, unforgettable, represent the first extensive application of chromotherapy—the science of health treatment by color usage. In the daytime the effects are gained with flowers and tinted walls; at night, with fluorescent tubes, with the new “black light,“ with ultra-violet floods, underwater lamps, translucent glass fabric pillars, and cylindrical lanterns 75 feet high. The $1,000,000 illumination program presents at nightfall the illusion of a magic city of light, floating on the waters of San Francisco Bay."

The dazzling light and color were reinforced by hundreds of thousands of plants from all around the globe -- orchids, hibiscus, palm trees and countless more. Twenty-five acres on the San Francisco side of the island were covered by multi-colored iceplant, a fairgoer-favourite known as the Magic Carpet. This plant was so exotic to 1930s eyes that countless people were moved to take cuttings home, which may explain the ubiquity of the plant in California today. Some of that original stock can still be seen along the seawall, along with a number of surviving trees from the "Avenue of Palms". Most of the more exotic species had been carefully nurtured in nurseries all around Northern California just for the occasion, but many trees and shrubs were actually donated by public-spirited citizens from their own front yards.
Opening Day, 1939
The night before the long-anticipated opening day, the Pacific theme was given a final polish. At precisely 10:30 pm on February 18, 1939, a photoelectric cell in Bombay caught the rays of the sun and hurled a radio signal across the Pacific. On Treasure Island, the darkened fairyland was suddenly bathed in brilliant light, and the carillon atop the Tower of the Sun began to ring. This 44-bell carillon would retire to its final home in the bell-tower of Grace Cathedral at the Fair's end, and as it pealed "The Bells of Treasure Island", San Francisco held its breath in anticipation.

The next morning Governor Culbert Olson thrust a $35,000 jeweled key into the lock of a gilded miniature Golden Gate Bridge, and the Fair was officially underway. Publicist Leland Cutler had been terrified that his months of relentless hype were going to be too successful. A radio announcement warned of tremendous traffic jams and advised people to stay away or prepare for the worst. The warnings worked so well that the ticket booth -- located beneath a streetcar-sized cash register -- received just a little over half of the 200,000 visitors expected to arrive that day. Though this disappointing turnout foreshadowed financial disaster, few of the millions of visitors, clad in hats, ties, and their Sunday best, would regret forking over their fifty cents admission -- each one had experienced something that they would remember forever.

The Sally Rand Nude Ranch - need we say more? - Courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley

The Kaleidoscopic Fair
Just what that "something" turned out to be was as various as the individuals who passed through the gates. The sights, sounds and smells of the Treasure Island Fair presented such a kaleidoscope of experience that hundreds of pages could be written without exhausting the subject -- and in fact, they have. It wasn't just about architecture and a half-baked dream of Pacific unity -- the whole point of a World's Fair is to show off new technology and entertain the masses. The island was packed with a myriad of shows and attractions both highbrow and low, as well as exhibits from 36 foreign countries and a motley assembly of commercial enterprises. Let me give you just a taste of the bizarre variety offered on those 400 acres:

A working dairy. A Lucite Packard. An art gallery with both Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" and Salvador Dali's "Construction with Soft Beans" on display. The Sally Rand "Nude Ranch", featuring scantily clad beauties twirling lariats and riding burros. A socialist mural by Diego Rivera, painted as the fairgoers watched (it's now on display at San Francisco City College). An attempt to break the world record for catching a baseball -- dropped 800 feet from the Goodyear blimp (the would-be recipient, Seals catcher Joe Sprinz, lost the ball in the sun and got his cheek smashed in). The "Gayway", 40 acres of chaotic, disorganized fun complete with thrill rides, freak shows and teeth-rotting candy. An earnestly polite Japanese pavilion, attempting diplomacy as armies marched. A cigarette-smoking robot. A marionette rodeo. Premature babies in glass incubators. Bing Crosby, Count Basie, and Benny Goodman. Tourists ferried from court to court by rickshaw or brightly painted Elephant Train. Billy Rose's water drenched Aquacade, featuring future movie starlet Esther Williams cavorting with Tarzan himself, Johnny Weissmuller. A thousand-pound fruitcake. Ford's 27 millionth motorcar. The Queen of the Nudists, failing a bid to swim the bay on account of imminent frostbite. Live concerts. Daily parades. Live kangaroos. And oh so much more....

The China Clipper, namesake of Pan-Am's famous fleet of flying boats, floats in the "Port of the Trade Winds".
An extra dimension of entertainment was offered by the presence of five new Boeing 314 Flying Clippers at the "Port of the Trade Winds". Cross-Pacific air travel was strictly a luxury item, partaken of by millionaires and movie stars, but these beautiful streamlined flying boats foreshadowed Treasure Island's planned future as an airport and, crossing the Pacific to Hawaii, the Philippines, and Hong Kong, provided concrete evidence that the "Pacific Unity" theme could be more than just words.

World's Fair, v2: 1940
Unfortunately, the one thing apparently not available at the Exposition was profit. The 1939 Fair closed six weeks early and over four million dollars in debt. The primary balm to disappointed investors was a certain schadenfreude in knowing that the New York Fair was in even worse shape.

Still, the same desperate optimism that had launched the project in the first place resulted in taking another shot. Major changes were required, of course -- bright new paint, fresh new acts and crazier gimmicks all around. The dismal progress of the war in Europe and Asia meant that Latin America became the primary Pacific Rim focus. But though so many exhibits and shows were replaced that there was almost no continuity between the two fairs, in the memories of most of its 16 million visitors, the two merged into one. The Golden Gate International Exposition, 1940 Edition, opened in June and ran for just four more months.
The high point may have been an enormous live concert in the Fair's final week, featuring many of the greatest stars of the day. Judy Garland, Johnny Mercer, Jerome Kern, and WC Handy were among the performers, but the climax was delivered by the frail Irving Berlin. He performed "God Bless America", a song he'd written just two years earlier as an American hymn of peace. In the face of a world filled with conflict, the United States had already adopted it as a new national anthem. A very young Herb Caen was on hand as well, reviewing the concerts for the San Francisco Chronicle and capturing the power of the moment: "Hundreds started to sing with him. Then thousands. And when he came to the end of his song, 15,000 Americans were on their feet singing with him. Then it was all over."
And with that, so was the Fair. Though the California Chamber of Commerce would put a brave face on it, citing all manner of positive by-products for the state, by almost any financial standard the $50 million event was a flop.

The End of an Idealistic Era
It's hard to know what to say about the Golden Gate International Exposition -- it was a sprawling, messy affair, not amenable to a neat summing-up. On the one hand, it was a parochial dinosaur and a terrific commercial failure; on the other, the "Magic City" was one of the most gorgeous, evocative, and seductive events the city had ever seen. As it fades into history, the '39 Fair has become one of the most beloved moments in San Francisco's story, inspiring volumes of nostalgia, fanatical collections of memorabilia, and a celebration of the event as the symbolic end of an era. And of course, thousands of people were kept off of bread lines by either the WPA or by employment in one of the Fair's hundreds of exhibits and attractions. But for the purposes of our story, the ultimate consequence of that ephemeral Fair is still floating in the middle of the bay -- Treasure Island.

On September 29, 1940, the lights of the Golden Gate International Exposition went out forever. As the merchants and exhibitors packed their bags and glumly counted their receipts, Nazi Germany had begun a terror bombing campaign from the skies above London. And across the Pacific, Imperial Japan was planning a surprise attack on a United States naval base in Hawaii, turning the concept of "Pacific Unity" into a hollow joke.