Rat Pack Party Girl: From Prostitute to Women’s Advocate

by McCormick, Jane

  I said to Vic, “That was sure nice of Elvis to give them such a wonderful gift. I sure could use a new car and fur coat myself!”

  Vic laughed and waved a cab down.

  After the Sahara, Vic took me back to the Flamingo and we went to the cocktail lounge.

  “You know Vic, I have to tell you something,” I said, “I go to bed for money. That’s how I make a good living.”

  He was surprised. “You’ve got to be kidding. A sweet little thing like you shouldn’t have to do that.”

  “It’s the only way I can make big money, to pay for my girls.”

  Vic looked at me seriously and said, “I don’t want to be seen with you if that’s what you’re doing for a living.”

  I looked at him and said, “You don’t understand what happens to women when they’re out in the street without any money. I have to get money to feed my children and pay for a place to live.”

  But Vic didn’t seem to care about my problems. Back at my apartment, I lay on my bed and cried. Every day I asked God to help me get out of this life. But then every night, I stopped crying, took a shower, swallowed some pills, and went back to the casinos.

  Chapter 8

  Jerry Lewis and Harry James

  I drove to the Dunes to continue my circuit. In the lounge, I spotted Major Riddle, owner of the Dunes Hotel and a high-rolling gambler. I had met him on another occasion in the casino and we had talked a few times since. We were becoming good friends.

  He joined me for drinks and the conversation turned to the topless revues in town. He had booked the Minsky’s Follies, starring Lou Costello, for six weeks at the Dunes. It was the first show featuring bare-breasted women, and it was an overnight sensation. It had saved his hotel, previously in the red.

  Riddle told me he also brought the French show Casino de Paris to Vegas, produced by Frederic Apgar. That was the second bare-breast show and another tremendous success; it played at least five years at the Dunes. At one time, various religious groups picketed the hotels, protesting the nudity. Then and later, the protests failed. Topless shows are still a staple of Vegas entertainment.

  As we talked, Riddle noticed one of his managers coming toward the lounge. “Hey, come here Sid. I want you to meet this little doll here, Janie.”

  Sid Wyman joined us. A sweetheart in his late forties, he had charisma and a laugh that shook the room. He was a huge poker player and a co-owner of the Dunes, Sands, Riviera, and Royal Nevada hotels. I met him one night at Golden Nugget where he was playing poker. He had me come to a room where many gamblers were playing poker. He asked me to serve drinks to the guys and I never saw so much money before. The good thing was that I didn’t have to turn any tricks and I left with five hundred bucks in my bra.

  Riddle excused himself, saying he had an appointment in the counting room, where the casino intake was taken.

  Pulling his chair closer, Sid said, “You sure are a good-looking little gal. What do you do for a living here?”

  “The best I can with what I’ve got . . . if you know what I mean.” I winked.

  “As a matter of fact, there’s a friend of mine here from Chicago. He’s looking for a little plaything just like you.”

  “Well let’s go meet him.”

  We went to the blackjack table and Sid introduced me to a Mr. Goldblum from Chicago. Middle-aged and somewhat stocky, he had a sort of mid-western look.

  Goldblum handed me a stack of chips and we gambled for hours. I won a ton of money and he let me keep it—all the men let me keep any money I won. By about 5 A.M. we were getting hungry, so Goldblum took me to the casino restaurant for a snack. Then he wanted to go to his room to play and he asked me how much it would cost him—just like they always did!

  I told him what it would cost for a trip around the world and he said, “What’s that?”

  I looked warmly into his eyes and said, “I’ll show you when we get to the room.”

  I collected the money before I took him to the bathroom sink to check if he had gonorrhea or syphilis before washing him with soap. After drying off, I had him lay down on his back in the bed. I began my “around the world” routine as I started licking his ears and kissing his neck down to his chest between his legs and down to his toes. I turned him over and started again with his legs, kissing and licking them up to his butt and up across his back. I turned him over again and kissed his nipples and chest. That gave him a rise, and when I put my mouth all the way on it, he exploded like a cannon ball. That’s how I’d become known as the best BJ in Las Vegas. I never swallowed any of their juices because I had a valve in my throat that I learned to shut off so it wouldn’t go down my throat. Most women didn’t know how to shut their valve off.

  Goldblum was happy with me and I was happy with my pocket full of money.

  I showered and dressed while he was still lying satisfied on the bed. I gave him a peck on the cheek and slipped my phone number into his hand.

  “Give me a call when you get back into town.” I picked up my bag and walked out with a wave.

  My next stop was the Sands. I stood and talked for a few minutes to Bucky Harris, a pit boss there. He was another major connection to my high-rollers.

  “You know who’s here in the hotel?” Bucky asked.

  “I didn’t notice the billboard. Who is it?”

  “Jerry Lewis,” Bucky said as if I should have known.

  “Oh, that crazy guy! He’s so funny!”

  “And he’s a fun guy. He’s in his room now. Why don’t you go surprise him? He starts his show tomorrow night, so he might have time for a pretty little thing like you. Let me call and see if he wants me to send you to the cottage.”

  Bucky went to call Jerry’s room from the house phone in the pit. Then he came back and said, “Go on over there.”

  I was a little nervous. I had always thought Jerry Lewis was a great entertainer, never dreaming I would meet him, much less turn a trick with him. He opened the door to his suite.

  “Well come on in sweetie. What’s your name?”

  “Jane Harvey.”

  “That’s a pretty name. It fits that pretty face,” Jerry said. “Sit down. Let’s have a drink.”

  We sat there for about two hours laughing and telling jokes. I said I had always wanted to meet him, that I thought he was one of the greatest comedians in the world.

  “Do you like it when I do this?” he asked. He stood, then stumbled around the room, being clumsy, feet and legs of jelly, doing his nerdy routine. He cracked me up.

  Jerry said I reminded him of someone he had noticed among the fans hanging around after his shows in New York. On the way from the building was a staircase where the fans gathered to get his autograph. In the crowd was a girl with a beautiful face, blond hair and green eyes. Jerry said he had never met her or talked with her but that she had always stuck in his mind.

  “And you, my dear, have the same face,” he said. Then he did a little song-and-dance routine: “That face, that fabulous face . . .” he laughed, doing a soft-shoe shuffle across the carpet, then jumped up and clicked his heels together.

  By this time, we’d had a few drinks and I noticed how soft-spoken he could be, and how serious he was about his work. He wasn’t at all the zany, crazy guy I’d thought. He told me how much he loved his family and how hard he worked for the causes he promoted. He said he felt lonely on the road and he was glad to meet such a sweet girl. Maybe, for a few moments, I could take some of his loneliness away.

  I was thinking about how handsome he was when he was serious and sincere. I wished he wasn’t attached because I felt attracted to him. I’ll always remember when I told him how I’d been molested as a little girl. He held me in his arms while I cried and he cried with me. He told me it was the most horrible thing he’d ever heard. I just loved him then, and I do to this day.

  Jerry was almost bashful when it came to having sex, but he thoroughly enjoyed it. Still, he had a quirky way of dealing with his loyalty to his wife. He would no
t climax inside me, no matter what kind of sex we had.

  Afterward we had drinks and Jerry took me to his car, a Lincoln. We went for a drive toward downtown and he showed me the recording equipment he had installed in his car. Jerry practiced many of his routines using that tape recorder and played them back while he was driving. As we returned to the Sands on Las Vegas Boulevard, we quietly enjoyed the sunrise over Sunrise Mountain.

  It was breathtaking! Jerry pulled the car to the side of the street, and we simply watched. Jerry said he loved the morning hours more than any part of the day. I told him I did too but that I never got to see much of the morning because I was just going to bed. He laughed. I think he liked my sense of humor.

  “I wish I had my airplane here. I love to go flying in the morning. It’s the most beautiful time of day,” he said.

  At the Sands, Jerry drove into the circle drive in the wrong direction. He was still pretty drunk, and he was being crazy. He headed the Lincoln toward the curb and drove up onto the sidewalk near the entrance of the casino.

  “I think we’ve landed,” he screamed in his nerdy voice.

  Laughing like crazy, we jumped out of the car, ran into the casino, and out the side door by the pool. We both ran yelling around the pool twice before heading back to the room. We fell onto the bed in stitches. We had another drink. Then Jerry said we’d better eat something and sent for sandwiches. I could tell he was tired so I said I had to leave, that I had some important things to do.

  Jerry invited me to his show that night. I accepted and really enjoyed it. He saw me in the crowd and looked right down at me. He directed some of the lines and antics in his routine straight at me. He was one of the nicest men I’d ever met.

  Jerry just liked me. He liked to talk, and he felt comfortable with me. I knew that being a celebrity on the road could be hard and lonely. I think guys like Jerry thought of me as a breath of fresh air because I saw them as the people they were, and I was down-to-earth with them, as if we’d known each other for years.

  One afternoon I went to see my daughters in Los Angeles. I took them shopping and bought them beautiful little dresses, had their hair done and took them to lunch. It hurt me that I had to return them in the afternoon, and I could tell by their tears that they wanted to stay with me.

  With tears rolling down my face, I drove to the Beverly Hills Hotel and got a room. After refreshing my makeup, I went to the Polo Lounge to have a drink, and soon the president of the Spalding golf company joined me. He was an elderly man that liked young and beautiful women. He took me to lunch at the Brown Derby in Hollywood, after which we stopped at Trader Vic’s for drinks. I loved that place, especially the exotic drinks.

  Afterwards I gave him a trip around the world then returned to Trader Vic’s for another Mai Tai. I could tell a lot of wealthy guys hung around there.

  A man sitting at a table next to mine looked over and smiled. I smiled back and he walked over and introduced himself as Harry James. Harry owned the Harry James Orchestra during the Big Swing Era. He hired Frank Sinatra in 1939, giving him his first gig as a vocalist with a known band.

  “Wow! The famous horn player?”

  “I’m the one. You sure are a beautiful little thing,” he said. “Have you ever been to a recording studio?”

  “No, but that seems like something fun to do.”

  “Well I think I’m going to take you with me, but first I want to take you to my friend’s apartment, where we can get comfortable.”

  “You’ve got it babe!”

  Afterwards, Harry told me about his ex-wife, Betty Grable, an international sex symbol. He said she was a nymphomaniac, never sexually satisfied. He said he couldn’t handle her infidelities—she had to have sex with other men to get enough—which led to their divorce. But I never did hear her side of the story.

  At the recording studio Harry took me into a room with a glass window and a lot of instrument panels. He would be working on the other side, but I could sit in the booth and watch the recording artists. Harry was doing a song accompanied by only a few instruments and a backup singer. I watched as they performed and re-performed it. I’d had no idea how much work went into the recording of just one song.

  After the session, Harry took me for a bite to eat. I told him I was leaving for Las Vegas the next day and that I would call him when I returned to L.A.

  We were together three more times. Harry always welcomed my phone calls and treated me well. He was at least thirty-five years older than me, but I don’t think the difference crossed his mind. He was young at heart, and he just liked to have fun. It was all about money for me, but I’ll admit I loved listening to him blow that horn! Whenever I hear the song they recorded that day, I think of my time with Harry James.

  Chapter 9

  Sinatra and Ocean’s 11

  When a high-roller came to town, the pit bosses from the Sands, Dunes, Flamingo, Tropicana, and Desert Inn all called me. “Are you available for Mr. P. right now or are you busy?”

  “No problem, I’ll be there in an hour.” A high-class hustler had to be ready to meet a high-roller at any time, day or night. High-rollers were willing to pay big bucks for a top-notch girl who could be seen going out to dinner, attending stage shows, gambling and having drinks, and she needed to be willing to satisfy whatever private fantasies the roller might have during that period of time.

  During my first year alone in Vegas I hustled seven days a week, making sure the pit bosses and casino owners knew me. They heard I gave the top blow job, the best in town. The casinos liked me because I kept their high-rollers spending millions of dollars in their casino and I kept them coming back to their casinos to have fun.

  The high rollers wanted me because I knew how to please a man in many ways. I could walk and talk the gambling game, getting hundred-dollar chips flowing like water. I was trustworthy—which was the most important thing to any trick. I could keep it all a secret—about these men who wanted to be seen with a classy doll on his arm in public and get what he wanted in the bed. Now, I want people to understand what I had to do to survive in Las Vegas.

  In the 1960s the casinos never allowed girls off the streets inside. If they tried to enter, the vice cops were called and escorted them out or arrested them for vagrancy. But a few of my new friends—Annette, Audrey and Laurie—and myself, who were the new and youngest of the girls, were allowed through the casino doors. We were the queen bees of Vegas—elegant, charming, witty, seemingly carefree, beautiful, and fun. We didn’t steal, cheat, complain or take stories of sex out of the bedroom. We were the exception to the rule.

  One evening in June, I went to the Regency Lounge at the Sands and I met Harry Goodheart, the Sands casino manager. He was a friendly guy in his early fifties and he always listened to my problems, offering advice and support. He never judged me and I looked forward to seeing him every time I went into the Sands. He also became another big connection; I trusted his judgment and knew he wouldn’t set me up with anyone who wasn’t in good standing with the casino. Harry and I had a good talk about what he expected from the “inside” girls.

  Later that evening after Harry left, Annette walked in and joined me. Annette was one of the elite hustlers in Vegas that I’d met through Jonesy, the pit boss from the Sahara. Annette had worked Vegas for six years and she knew this business.

  Annette was not what I would call beautiful but she was an attractive shapely brunette. Six years older than I, she was outgoing and down-to-earth and we got along right away. After a few minutes of small talk, Annette asked, “Would you like to meet a high-paying guy who’s coming to town tomorrow?”

  “Honey, I’d like to meet anyone who pays big bucks.”

  “Well I think you’d like him, and I know he’d like you.”

  “What’s his name?” I asked, my curiosity growing.

  “Oh, Frank Sinatra,” she said casually.

  “Oh . . . my . . . god! The Frank Sinatra? You’re kidding!”

  “No, I�
�m not kidding. Listen. Frank’s coming to town tomorrow and I want you to meet him. He’s staying at the Sands while he’s performing and we can meet there tomorrow afternoon when he gets in. They’re making a movie called Ocean’s 11.

  “Oh my God!” The “what-ifs” struck—the thought of being with such a big name made my stomach drop to my feet. I knew I’d have to look especially good for a guy like Frank.

  “Don’t worry honey. He’ll love you. Frank likes girls who are young, natural and beautiful. Just be yourself.”

  For the next twelve hours I was a nervous wreck. I could hardly sleep, and it wasn’t the diet pills keeping me awake. In my mind I dressed and undressed myself a hundred times, never finding anything that I thought was impressive.

  I didn’t trick anyone that day but devoted the whole morning and afternoon to getting ready for my introduction to Frank Sinatra. I searched frantically through the dress shops, finally settling on a tight, double-knit dress with a plunging neckline and spaghetti straps. The dress was lemon yellow at the top, gradually changing to a darker yellow toward the hem. It was covered with yellow sequins that sparkled wherever the light hit them. It had a sequined jacket that I could remove if I wanted to reveal what was hidden beneath. I found a pair of white six-inch heels and had them dyed to match.

  After shopping, I headed to see Jim at the Colonial House. He was almost as excited as me to hear I was going to meet Sinatra that evening.

  “Listen dear. We’ll make you look like a princess. I hear Frank likes princesses.”

  “You can forget the tiara,” I laughed.

  He worked his magic. When I walked out of that salon I had hair a foot high. He had attached a hairpiece of cascading ringlets to the top of my head. In back, more ringlets fell almost to the middle of my shoulders. The sides swept up and back forming a nest for all the curls. I probably looked like a walking waterfall but I thought it was perfect.