Star and Garter Theatre
815 W. Madison Street,
Chicago,
IL
60607
815 W. Madison Street,
Chicago,
IL
60607
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(Chicago Tribune, March 12, 1917) Church Women Reveal Suggestive Acts After Peaceful “Raids” on Theaters
BY THE REV. W. B. NORTON.
SCANTILY dressed women, lewd jokes, the American flag disgraced, the Christian religion flouted, drinking, gambling, murder paraded, crowds of men and boys in the audience, many of the boys in knickerbockers.
These are some of the things which shocked the women of the Woman’s Church federation who made a round of a dozen or more of the theaters of Chicago Saturday evening.
Mrs. J. G. Boor, chairman of the morals committee of the Woman’s Church federation, was in charge. She was assisted by fourteen women and up several men, some of whom accompanied the women, while others went to ag the theaters where men only are admitted.
Mrs. H. T. Leslie, 6844 Lafayette avenue, was one of the women who visited the Gayety theater, 531 South State street.
“The performance was vulgar and degrading,” she said. We teach our children to honor the American flag. Here they disgraced it. Girls came on the stage in tights with shoulders and arms entirely bare, draped about the waist in the red, white and blue. They formed a pyramid and the one who came the nearest being nud formed the center of the pyramíd. In this attitude they sang a song entitled “My Country.” not our national anthem, while a flag was lowered from the ceiling.
Sample of “Humor.”
“One of the comedians said: ‘It doesn’t make any difference what a woman has on or whether she has anything on. O yes it does,’ another said. When Gen. Grant surrendered to Lee he only had on a ragged union suit. Our girls have more on than that.”
“One man told a girl he would strip her to the skin. He first made her take off her hat, then her dress, then her petticoat. She had on tights, but the suggestiveness of the act was plain to see.”
Mrs. L. E. Koontz, 653 North Lockwood avenue, was one of three who visited the Star and Garter theater, 815 West Madison street.
“We sat in the gallery,” she said, “and noted that the audience was chiefly made up of young men, some of them nice young, manly looking fellows, others were of the depraved kind. My heart ached for them because I realized their legitimate desires for amusement. The air was thick with tobacco smoke. The jokes were of the coarsest character and evidently intended to inflame the imagination. One comedian told how some one threw a brick through the window and struck the leg of the girl he was sitting with and broke three of his fingers, plainly implying his hand was in contact with the girl’s leg.
Some More “Comedy.”
“In a scene one girl and two men became intoxicated, the girl being dragged off the stage in a beastly state. The men spilled the liquor on the table, dipped their hands in it, and slapped each other. Finally they kicked over the table and spilled the rest of the liquor on the floor.
“The girls were called the Jolly Widows and were dressed in tights.”
Mrs. F. M. Reynolds of Austin confirmed the report of Mrs. Koontz.
“The performance is to be condemned from start to finish,” she said. “There was not one redeeming feature. There was a lewd poem recited about looking at women, in which the name of Christ was mentioned. The drinking scene and the pajama dance were disgusting.” Mrs. R. L. Moffett, 4618 North Racine avenue, visited the Casino at 403 North State street.
“Suggestive jokes and Hula Hula dancing such as I heard and saw ought not to be tolerated,” she said. The Hula Hula dancers were bare legged and their bodies were draped only in a shawl.
Better Features Applauded.
“Were there any more like you in the family?” one coarse joker asked another. “No, when father died mother lost the pattern.”
“I believe the audience would enjoy a higher grade of entertainment, because a moving picture of a war scene and the performance of a player on an accordion, which were good, received the loudest applause.”
Mrs. Boor found conditions at the National, 610 South State street, she said, disgusting in the extreme.
“A young woman described a dance in a most suggestive way. ‘What did you have on?’ her male companion asked. ‘I had on a string of beads, then a little space and another string.’ ‘You ought to leave off the two last strings,’ he replied. ‘Did you dance the seven veils dance?’ she was asked. ‘If you did you left off six and a half of the veils,’ he said.”
“Forty per cent of the audience was under 21 years, many of them young boys.”
“The theaters are not as obscene as they were. They have been improved 75 per cent over the theaters of a few years ago, but they are still demoralizing, corrupting, and a disgrace to a Christian civilization.”
the most objectionable of all,“ said Mrs. E. Pretty.
“The girls were dressed so they appeared perfectly nude. They came on the stage protecting themselves with parasols. They moved the parasols from side to side so as to expose themselves for a moment to full view. Then they sang, ‘To see a little more you must meet us at the door.’ Could there be any plainer solicitation to evil than that?”
Mrs. A. C. O'Neal, 2512 West Sixty-sixth street, expressed in the strongest terms indignation of what she saw at the Haymarket theater, 722 West Madison street.
“If there is anything worse than I saw at the Haymarket, I hope I may never see it,” she said. “There was awful profanity, and from beginning to end vile love making and sexual suggestion. The twenty girls dressed in tights ran out on the run board into the center of the audience, and stooping over to the men sang songs of invitation and suggestion. I saw only two other women in the audience besides the four women in our party.”
Many Theaters Visited.
Among the theaters visited were: the South side, Gayety, National, Gem, and Stella; north side, Casino, Hippodrome; west side, Haymarket and Star and Garter.
“To describe the chorus girls of any theater as shapely, scantily clothed, alluring to men, will displease no owner or manager,” said Mrs. Boor.
“To picture the horror or even wrath of good women at witnessing the members of their sex on exhibition like well groomed prize winners at the international stock exhibit will merely cause a smile of ill concealed approval by those interested in the box office.
“But to pass a law giving authority to close such theaters under an injunction and abatement act, by which managers and owners are held responsible for the character of the performance, will raise a storm of protest because such a law will close the show.”
Need for New Law.
“But this is what led us women to brave the disgraceful and distasteful houses of entertainment which we believe are destructive of the young life of our city. We want our legislature to know that there is a crying need for the passage of the law offering relief from the menace of the immoral show such as is provided by the senate bill 130, introduced by Senator J. J. Barbour, and a similar one introduced by Representative Allen J. Carter, which make the owners and managers liable for whatever is exhibited in the theaters they control.”
May 26, 1946 - Star and Garter Theater Sold for $110,000 Cash
The Star & Garter theater building. 815 W. Madison st., was sold by the Hyde & Behman Amusement company and the Richard Hyde estate of New York City, to Harold L. Clamage, of St. Louis, and Harold W. Huchberger, of Chicago, for $110,000 cash, thru Thomas H. Fitzgerald. The building will be air conditioned and modernized at an estimated cost of $35,000 and operated with pictures and stage shows, it was said.
My family lived all over the near West Side during the 50s through the 70s: Polk, Lexington, Fillmore & Taylor Sts. So naturally, my siblings and I were frequent visitors to the Star & Garter. I think tickets during this time cost 25 cents.
Chicago History Museum album of Star & Garter demolition photos.
https://images.chicagohistory.org/search/?searchQuery=Star+%26+Garter&assetType=default
Interesting name!!
Marquee detail photo added courtesy of Janeen Rosenberg.
When the final days came for the Star and Garter, the marquee read CLEVELAND WRECKING COMPANY
THE GREATEST STRIPPER OF THEM ALL.
According to JAZZ AGE CHICAGO, the theater was closed from 1935-1946. You would think this theater would have been in demand during the war years, being that size, but I guess there were so many theaters during that time it didn’t matter. Still, I hope they salvaged the ornamentation for collectors during demolition.
From February 24, 1972, a short Tribune story on the Star & Garter’s demolition, with a murky interior picture. The story says that a calendar in the box office was turned to September 1971, an indication of a probable closing date.
I too went to St. Patrick’s grade school during World War Two just like juanabet above. After school I attended Marillac House until my mother could pick me up after work. I lived at Morgan and Polk streets in the Italian neighborhood. My name wasn’t Baggi, it was Campo and I frequently went to the Star and Garter movie theater on Saturdays for 15 cartoons and a couple of movies. In later years my friends and I attended the ROLLER BOWL on Saturdays for roller skating. I use MIKE BAGGI for this website.
The sale in 1946 was to my grandfather, Harold Huchberger and his partners. They operated it until the early 1970’s.
We lived on Halsted and Harrison. Just a stones throw from this theater. My dad used to take me there. My mom and sisters didn`t go because it was skid row. Right across the street there was this burger joint that made the best cheeseburgers and chocalate malts. I went to grade school at old st. Pats, which was in the neighborhood. The good old days.
The web site Jazz Age Chicago, to which I linked in a comment on January 25, 2010, has vanished from the Internet. Fortunately, the site’s article on the Star and Garter Theatre has been preserved by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. It can be read at this link.
I remember going to the Star & Garter on Sundays for the Cartoons Serials of Superman,Batman,Shadow,Rocket man,and lets not forget the News Reels in the Late Fifties and Early Sixties.I remember the Wine Bottles hitting the floor and guys Snoring,But all the Young kids sat towards the front and Left side of the show and Protected our selfs because of our Numbers .Its all in the past Just old Memories
Nice vintatge photo Bryan.
Here is a detailed history of the Star and Garter at the Jazz Age Chicago web site. The theater was designed by the New York architectural firm Dodge & Morrison.
I grew up in the Taylor Street area of Chicago in the 1940s and 1950s. I can remember on Saturdays walking with a half dozen friends over to Madison and Halsted to attend the Star & Garter theater for its three (3) movies and 15 cartoons. It was an old, dirty theater but what the heck we were young and just as dirty so we went.
There was a fellow in the neighborhood we called “Loouie Shoes” and he would sometimes hand out passes to the Star and Garter so half the times that we went we had passes.
The bums used to come in from skid row and sleep off a drunk. And I remember one Mexican kid who yelled out during a movie, “Hell, I saw this movie last week on television”. And he was right, it had been on TV.
Mike
A synopsis in the Chicago Daily Tribune announced that the theater had been sold on May 26, 1946 for $110,000 cash. Unfortunately the synopsis did not provide the parties to the sale.
Can anybody confirm/or deny that the lovely Anna Held appeared
at this venue? Thanks Isadore
The theater appears in the 1971 film My Name Is Rocco Papaleo. Filmed in Chicago, there is a brief scene where Marcello Mastroianni walks in front of the theater. I passed the theater daily while commuting to the U of I and saw them filming the scene.