Rose La Rose

[1] According to her public relations manager, Eddie Jaffee, she attended Textile High School in New York City.

[1] One night, when one of the Minsky showgirls failed to report to work, La Rose was tapped to replace her.

[2] La Rose became renowned for performing a "reverse strip," appearing on stage wearing very little, then getting dressed before the audience.

[1] La Rose appeared in the 1938 film The Wages of SIn, performing a partial striptease until interrupted by an angry boyfriend who covers her with a table cloth.

In 1958, after moving to Toledo, she found the Town Hall Theater (at St. Clair and Orange Streets) for sale and purchased it.

[1] In May 1968, weeks before its demolition, La Rose auctioned off memorabilia from the theater, including trunk loads of her own personal costumes from her early years in burlesque.

[2] Shortly before the Town Hall's demolition, La Rose bought the Esquire Theater (at Superior and Jefferson Streets), a move that prompted the city council, at the urging of a group of businessmen on the same block as the Esquire, to ban burlesque in March 1968.

[2] La Rose fought the ban and succeeded in obtaining a federal court injunction to stop the city from enforcing it.

[2] The Esquire was still operating the year of her death, showing adult movies with occasional burlesque performances.

"When I stopped live burlesque and substituted a second movie instead, I told myself it was just temporary," she said in an interview shortly before she died.

According to an item in the Oct. 21, 1952, issue of the New York Daily News: Ten years ago, when she divorced Price, she complained that her first hubby made her take-'em-off after hours, while he played the harmonica in their bedroom.