Ladies must fight

PAUL CALLICO

■ Roseland is one of the three taxi dance-

halls on Broadway. Its fleeting incandescents are part of the great street of light and laughter that runs from 42nd to 52nd Street. It is garish, seductive, infinitely amusing. The Roseland hostesses wear evening dresses, preferably without undergarments, so that all contours are clearly and unmistakably defined—a great help to the business. Their companionships may be acquired at the rate of $1.85 an hour, and ten cents a dance. In addition, it is customary, at Roseland, to provide the client with some divertissement towards the end of the evening, some attraction that will draw him in off the streets and through the fifty-cent turnstile into the ballroom where, by soft lights, primitive rhythms, and slim young girls, further dimes may he coaxed from his pocket.

Thus, on a recent Monday night, Roseland's illuminated marquee advertised as its chief attraction, five star bouts featuring lady prizefighters, including Sadie Sloan, the Buffalo Belter; Peg Mason, the Chicago Terror; Dot Reid, the Newark Tigress and Sunny Ray Cohen, lady heavyweight from Baltimore— who upon inspection was immediately christened "the Baltimore Blimp."

The lady prizefighters undressed for combat upstairs in the Roseland offices—glass-partitioned spaces where by day the auditors checked the tickets acquired by the hostesses against the cash in the till, and where at night the specialty artists set their valises and make-up boxes alongside hooded typewriters and adding machines.

Frederica Tarzan Lee, in a green bathing suit and white sneakers, stood leaning against a partition working on her finger nails with an orange stick. Dot Reid, a small, neat figure with close-bobbed brown hair, shoebutton eyes, and a boyish back, was making up out of a suitcase. She carefully shaded her white lids with blue, dusted mascara under her lashes, lengthened her brows with a pencil, rouged lips and cheeks, patted her face all over with powder and turned around, saying, "I'm ready."

There were some eight girls in the room, young, some pretty, all in trunks and white shirts or bathing suits, all giggling, all with glowing spots of red marked in the centers of their cheeks. Peg Mason, a pretty dancer from Chicago, stood against a partition getting final instructions from Bobby Dawson, an ex-pug with a tin ear and a nose that veered abruptly from due South to Southwest. Peg looked bewildered. Dawson had her by both arms and was pinning her against the partition.

"Now when they gitclia against the ropes, grab the both of their arms and turn them like this. Turn them." Dawson executed the quick, shifty motion whereby a fighter whirls of! the ropes and reverses his opponent into the beleaguered position.

Peg, clad in her blue-gray trunks and a white shirt, went ''Cha! Cha! Do-dat Chacha," shook her head and did an equivalent measure of a tap step, winding up with two slaps on her rump. Dawson turned and addressed the reporters. "I teached her all she knows. I teach all these girls. I wish we had that Jean LaMar here. There's a little girl in there, that kid with the short hair, who will knock her block off. Wait till you see her lef'. Dot, come over here and show this gemmun your lef'." Dot dutifully came over, struck a pose with her right hand guarding her jaw and jabbed with her left three times at the outstretched palm of Dawson's hand where it smacked neatly. "Is that a lef'?" inquired Dawson.

Over in a corner, another ex-pugilist named Monk, who was to act as a second, was showing a dark-haired girl in red trunks (and with a red and a white star on the breast of her white gym shirt) how to shift. The girl's name was Nydia Dubroskowsky, a Russian from Pennsylvania. She was one of the regular hostesses at Roseland who had accepted Peg Mason's challenge delivered earlier in the evening to the effect that Peg would fight any woman in the house. Peg was bigger and stronger than Dot and so the challenging was usually left to her. All of the hostesses downstairs were betting on Nydia.

K.O. Clancy, who, because of her pimply skin was immediately dubbed the Acne Queen, was there with her mother, a fat old lady who resembled a toad. K.O. was a sullen blonde with baleful blue eyes; she looked like a kitchen mechanic. Her mother watched her pridefully. K.O. wore a blue bathing suit and her stringy, yellow hair was fastened back with three wire barettes.

Some one called out—"Hey, Pauline, you go on third."

B Pauline turned out to be La Clancy, who replied succinctly "Ah, Nuts!"—and said no more. The door opened and a short, fat Jewess came in with a paper parcel under one arm. She had a large, hooked nose, an enormous mouth and untidy rat-colored hair done into a knot on the back of her head. She grinned good-naturedly. Dawson said— "There's Sunny Ray Cohen now. She fights Clancy. Some kid, eh?"

Sunny, who belonged back of a delicatessen counter, grinned and waved a stubby flipper. Then she said to Clancy—"Hello, honey. Clancy said nothing. A little mousy man with a waxed mustache, named Berg, who seemed to be in charge of the troupe, was fluttering about. One of the reporters asked him— "What the hell is this, anyway, a gag? Are these dolls gonna fight?"

The mousy man looked aghast. "Is this a gag, you're asking me? Lissen, wait till you see these girls fight. I'm telling you they're good. It's sensational. That's what it is. sensational. We're gonna apply to the Boxing Commission for a license. Is it a gag!"

The rest of the girls were introduced. There was Cecile Seitz, an unattractive girl from New York with one eye that appeared to be a mite off center, black curls that fell below her neck, and a curious bathing suit bound with white ribbons around the waist so that the ends hung down in back. There was Jeanne Howard, a narrow-faced girl with black hair parted in the middle and eyes set close together, and Eleanor Bright, a skinny, wide-mouthed, henna-head from New Orleans who said she was a jazz singer on the side, and to prove it went "Poo-poo-padoo."

A man in an ill-fitting dinner coat appeared at the door and saitl—"They're all ready downstairs. . . ."

The ring, which was no ring at all. but a small uncovered wooden platform with four brass posts enclosed by a single plush rope stood on the dance floor in front of the negro band. Baby spotlights from the tops of pillars picked it out. The shafts of light reflected from the white eyeballs of the bandsmen and shattered into darting splinters on their shining instruments. The spectators, some 800, sat cross-legged on the floor on the other three sides. The crowd was made up of sheiks and gigolos and hostesses and customers. Monk appeared with two galvanized iron buckets, stools and two mason jars fdled with water. The Master of Ceremonies in the ill-fitting dinner coat climbed over the ropes and spoke into the microphone that amplified his voice until it reached into the last brocaded cranny of the room:

"An' folks we have a lot of celebrities here who I'm gonna innerduce a li'l later, an' now I wanna tell you it gives me great pleasure to innerduce one of the greatest ol' time fighters of all time: Leach Cross, who will ack as the referee. An' folks there's also another great fighter here who will also ack as referee in some of the bouts. I wanner innerduce the light heavyweight champion, Maxie Rosenbloom."

Cross was a shrunken cartoon of his former self. He got into the ring and fumbled with his glasses. Rosenbloom arose to his feet, grinning his simple grin and exhibiting his balloon ear. A girl in the crowd said— "Oooh, my God, lookadisear! " and laughed hysterically. Cross moved to the hanging mike, fumbled with his glasses again, looked at a sheet of paper and said—"De fois bout is between Cecile Seitz, a hunnert an' sixteen pouns, an' Dorothy Reid, a hunnert an' seventeen pouns. May the best man win." The crowd laughed at the witticism. Dot and Cecile climbed into the ring and took opposite corners. Monk attended Dot. Peg Mason seconded Cecile. The girls had their hands encased in the brown mittens. Cross called them to the center of the ring and mumbled to them. Monk, who was time-keeper too, blew a whistle and then tapped the gong.

Cecile boxed with her arriere pensee well to the fore, her right hand glued to the right side of her face and a look of alarm on her face. She galloped around the ring with a peculiar motion which caused the white ribbons hanging down behind her to flag up and down rhythmically. Dot had style. She bobbed her head, feinted, jabbed, crossed. She gave Cecile a good going-over. Cecile landed one right swing with her eyes closed that shook Dot up a little. The crowd began to chant—"Down below. Down below!" The bell rang. They were boxing only one-and-ahalf-minute rounds.

■ Monk flapped a large and cloudy-looking towel with "Hotel Forrest" embroidered on it at Dot. Peg attended Cecile, who had had her nose punched. From Cecile's bosom she extracted a tiny lace handkerchief. With this she delicately wiped the punched nose, which, while it had reddened, did not bleed. Then she restored the handkerchief where she had found it and fell to arranging Cecile's hair. The second round found a wiser Cecile. She fought with both hands in front of her face. The agile Dot, her shoe-button eyes glittering like jet beads in the calcium light, immediately switched her brisk, boyish, two-handed attack and punched at Cecile's stomach. Cecile doubled up and galloped miserably away. Her curls bounced up and down on her neck, the white ribbons bounced further down. The crowd continued to chant "Down below, Dot. She can't take 'em down there" until the bell ended it and Cross held up Dot's hand. Cecile went off into a corner and cried a little.

The next pair were announced as Ginger Rogers and Peg Sloan. But Ginger turned out to be the girl who upstairs had given her name as Jeanne Howard—none of them gave their right names to reporters—and later the pair likewise turned out to be sisters. Peg was a pretty thing with tawny hair and brown eyes, an oval face and good legs. Ginger popped her with straight right crosses to the chin and Peg went down, but it was strictly a phony fall. Cross scuttled to her side looking like a frightened monkey and waved the count over her while the crowd yelled for Ginger to knock her out. The girl got up and went down again, but always with prudence and care, in the manner of Phil Scott, the English heavyweight, executing one of his swoons. Her bushy head was always the last to light on the hardwood floor, gently and carefully.

® In the third round, Ginger forgot that she was a lady and accidentally led with her Sunday punch. It was a Lil, and the bout suddenly lost its humor. Peg came undone all over, but particularly at the knees. Her large brown eyes glazed, her red lips parted into a vacuous "0". She sagged, teetered and staggered. As she lost control of her head, her hair fell forward about her face and for a moment or two she became a hag and a crone. Cross, looking like an agitated marmoset, scuttled about the platform trying to keep behind her to catch her should she collapse. He, too, must have been hypnotized by the spectacle which was enacted before a crowd gone suddenly silent, because he made no attempt to interfere, and charming Ginger punched her all over the ring. The spectators were a little shocked, but the negroes in the band grinned and the calcium rays glinted from their white teeth as well as their eyes.

K.O. Clancy and Sunny Ray Cohen came into the ring and relieved the tension. K.O. fought carefully and sullenly. She had height, weight and reach on squat Sunny, whose arms looked like sausages and whose hands resembled the little string-tied nubbins on the end of them. Thus she danced about, a lumbering ungainly dance, and poked at Sunny's nose and bashed her in the mouth while La Cohen made prodigious passes at the air, or rather at K.O. whom she could not reach.

At the end of the round, Miss Clancy returned to her corner and said to Cecile, who was acting as her second,—"Fix my hair, dearie". Cecile removed all the wire barettes from K.O.'s hair and put them in her mouth, gathered the limp, yellow strands in her fingers, worked them into a knot that looked like a dreadfully underdone Easter bun and anchored it at the back of the neck.

In the second round, Sunny made the felicitous discovery that K.O. couldn't take it in the chest, and so she centered her fire there with great success, the Acne Queen retiring in pain and panic. Sunny's back hair came undone with the force of her fury. The bun that Cecile had kneaded to Clancy's neck likewise surrendered. The women in the vicinity sucked in their breath sharply through their teeth as Sunny batted energetically at K.O.'s bosom and the two of them presented in the last half minute an appealing and delicate sporting vignette—two slatterns from Soho engaged in a tea-time, bar-room brawl. The referee voted a draw and the crowd cheered. One of the negro musicians tilted the stem of his bassoon to his lips and blew a mean, lowdown note which sent the spectators into convulsions and caused Sunny to grin her fat, oily, satisfied grin.

Maxie Rosenbloom skipped into the ring where he shook hands with himself, minced and grimaced. There was a treble shrilling from the hostesses gathered in a gay knot on the floor beside the platform as Nydia Dubroskowsky and Peg Mason took the stage. Nydia was so pale the rouge on her cheeks looked like circles cut out of red paper and pasted there. Mason exhibited all of the calm that befits the circus boxing champion waiting to meet the rustic pride and sat in her corner with white, well-shaped legs outstretched.

Nydia, the Roseland hostess, was aflame with battle lust. When the bell rang she darted from her stool, ran across the ring and sailed into Mason with both hands flying, a magnificent little virago.

"Holy Jee.s," howled the stout man, "It's a grudge fight!"

All of the pretty Roseland hostesses were up on their feet, their arms up-raised like a Greek Chorus. Their high pitched, little voices topped all the rest. An inspired bandsman thought to reach for and clash his cymbals together and Nydia proceeded to beat the devil out of the champion.

Mason covered, but Nydia was an untutored little savage punching away with both hands. Mason went bouncing around on a sea of punches like a cork in the ocean. Mason's floppy brown hair registered each of Nydia's blows. Mason went into full retreat, searching as she did so for an exit in the ropes, an ageold gesture of the ring. Nydia, hair flying, eyes gleaming, breath rasping through her mouth, pursued her, a raging harpy, and neither heard the final bell. Both had to be pried loose. Each returned to her corner weeping. The crowd rocked and roared with laughter and its size was multiplied and exaggerated a hundredfold by the crystal mirrors that surrounded the dance floor. The laughter grew louder and more hysterical when, after the lady prizefighters had gone back upstairs, someone pushed an enormous Jewess from the audience into the ring where she and Rosenbloom donned a set of discarded gloves and staged a mock bout in which they drew their arms around one another and soundly slapped, each the other's behind. Men came and took away the posts and ropes. The audience rose and drifted apart. Young men began eyeing the hostesses. . . .

Upstairs in the offices the tall Frederica Tarzan Lee leaned against the partition. She was clad in a blouse and skirt and was crying. She said she was crying because she hadn't got a fight.

Nydia came out of one of the offices. She was back in her red silk evening dress again with her hair hanging in a cluster of curls over one ear. Peg looked at her with no particular animosity. "My dear, you gotta go back an' dance?" she said.

"Sure. I gotta dance until one o'clock."

"Isn'at awful. Well, see you later, dearie."

Dot Reid pulled steel gray stockings onto her legs and fastened them with a garter band. She admitted that she got twenty-five dollars for an evening's fighting—when she could get someone to fight—that she was born in Jersey City and worked as a stenographer for an electrical company, that she was 26 years old. had been boxing six months, was the sole support of an aged mother, and had always been a tomboy and athletic.

"Look how hard I am," she said—"Feel."

Everyone felt.

All the girls had their small valises packed. The reporter slipped the envelopes on the backs of which he had been making notes into his inside pocket, called out—"So long, girls!" and started down the stairs. The little hennahead from New Orleans pursued him half way down the steps.

"Oh, Mister Newspaper Man!"

"Yeah?"

"Are you gonna put in a good write-up about our fights?"

"Sure."

"Are you gonna say we was good?"

"Uhuh!"

"You won't forget now. Put my name in the paper."

"0. K. baby."

"Poop Poop Padoop!"