Sally Rand was the #1 Money Maker at the Worlds Fair

She did it all with her clothes off. She came from a small town in the Ozarks. Her real name was Harriet Beck. She wanted to be a dancer and follow the sun to Hollywood. She ran away when she was twelve and of course she ran to the circus. Her parents brought her back but she ran away again. She learned the trapeze and found she was very athletic. She was barely five feet tall and compact. This time she made it the coast and began to get big parts. Cecil B. Demills noticed her and asked Harriet her name. He frowned and looked around and saw an Atlas. Your name is Sally Rand he pronounced.

Sally Rand did well in the silent movies. She was a WAMPAS Baby Star which was basically a whos who of up and coming actresses. Everything was going fine until sound came along. Her screen test was a disaster. Sally Rand had a bad lisp that ended her Hollywood aspirations. Demills showed her the door and she ended up taking a bus to Chicago to look for work. She found it at the Paramount when she showed up with two giant Ostrich feathers and took off her clothes. Her dance was a hit and in three years the Worlds Fair was going to open.

Sally Rand crashed the opening ceremonies on the back of a white horse. She was naked of course and the people thought she was part of the fair. She was hired and quickly her fan dance became the number one draw. The fair had to hire extra accountants to take in all the money. Her fame lasted but the money did not. She had to go on the road and never got off. Sally Rand died penniless and obscure, only to live on in Youtube videos and rare 1933 Worlds Fair viewers.  Her dressing room was bought by a millionaire on the North Shore. Irony upon irony.

Al Capone and the 1933 Worlds Fair

Judy Garlands Strange Encounter with John Dillinger During the 1933 Worlds Fair

It was hot. Judy was with her mother and sisters. They had no money and were singing at the Chicago Worlds Fair of 1933. This is six years before The Wizard of Oz would bring her fame. Judy decides to duck out and catch a movie at the Biograph. It is air conditioned and she stays for five shows and finally leaves when Manhattan Melodrama ends a final time with Clark Gable getting the electric chair. She walks into the lobby and then out to the sidewalk and sees a man she recognizes.

Garland thinks he is a movie star because she recognizes his face from the papers. This is Chicago after all and famous people are out and about. Judy asks him for his autograph and he obliges, giving her a grin. Then the man goes into the theater leaving the young singer staring at his signature. John Dillinger. The famous bank robber was going in to catch a movie and probably get away from the heat as well. Judy cant believe it and goes back to the fairgrounds to tell her mother.

Three hours later John Dillinger is confronted by the police and shot dead in the alley outside the
Biograph. He is thirty one. Judy sings that night at the Worlds Fair but she is not famous yet. Thirty years later she will tell her story of running into Public Enemy #1 on a hot Chicago night when she took a break from the Chicago Worlds Fair of 1933.

Al Capone and the 1933 Worlds Fair