Sally Rand Rode Naked into The Worlds Fair of 1933 and Became a Star

Sally Rand looked like something from the heavens on her white horse, her bare skin painted white. Holding onto a bridle, she sat bareback atop the skittish horse and glided across Lake Michigan toward the back of the fairgrounds. The lake whooshed softly against the gurgling motor as the pumping horse blood warmed her thighs. The fair’s colored lights jumped in the cool, rushing water. Sally was pimply with goosebumps, even though it was late May.

The low-riding wooden Chris-Craft could barely contain the horse, and as water slapped up, she leaned close to his ear. “It’s fine . . . it’s fine, baby. We are almost there.” She pulled the white velvet cape around her and felt the wind pass over her loins and breasts. Except for the ankle bracelet, her blond wig, some makeup, and the cape that barely covered her breasts, Sally Rand, a.k.a. Harriet Helen Beck from Missouri, was naked from her painted toes to her dimpled smile. Who would turn away this gliding nymph approaching the opening of the 1933 World’s Fair?

The boat bumped the dock, and the horse stepped down from the low bow as if he had done so all his life. Sally Rand clamped his sides with her legs and dug her heels in. The horse jumped to life as her blond hair flew back. They raced down the deserted streets heading for the grand opening, where people gathered around the stage. A Century of Progress, the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, was about to open during the worst year of the Great Depression, with a gangster-ridden city at its back. It was a perfect setup for a naked woman on a charging white steed.

Al Capone and the 1933 Worlds Fair

The Second Worlds Fair In Chicago

Since the first fair in 1893 made famous in the book Devil in the White City people assume the Colombian Exposition was it. But forty years later there was another fair in 1933. This time the fair was during the worst year of the Great Depression and while there was no mass murderer like Dr. Holmes there was Al Capone. Arguably Capone was more of a mass killer than Holmes could ever hope to be and this presented a problem for Chicago. How do you have a Worlds Fair when everyone thinks Chicago is out of control?

The truth was Chicago was out of control. Capone had a lock down on the cops, the judges, the mayor, witnesses...basically the city. It is hard to believed a major American city could come under the control of one man but that was the situation. The St. Valentines Day Massacre confirmed to the world that Chicago was under the thumb of gangsters. Worse, the city was due to have a Worlds Fair in 1933 which would turn out to be the worst year of the Great Depression with the city literally broke.

tt would take Six Millionaires banning  together to get rid of Capone while the Worlds Fair was built with private funds from corporations and some very creative financing. Judy Garland would sing, Sally Rand would dance, the Zephyr would a record with a run from Denver to Chicago, people would see an image from a device called television, make a long distance call, and go on the Sky Ride which would take people higher than they had ever been before.

How Chicago pulled off  A Century of Progress and rid the city of AL Capone is the story of the Worlds Fair  of 1933...the Second Worlds Fair in Chicago.


Al Capone and the 1933 Worlds Fair