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If I were doing an end-of-year roundup of obits, Schiller would be in it. Her husband opened the Pink Pussycat in an old Hollywood jazz club on Santa Monica Boulevard, but it was Schiller who turned it into a Los Angeles landmark and, I guess, a classy strip joint. She gets staff obits in the New York Times and L.A. Times, where Elaine Woo explains:
Alice Schiller was a bit of a prude who didn't swear, drink or smoke, much less endorse women disrobing for entertainment. So when her husband told her he wanted to turn his struggling Hollywood nightclub into a striptease house, she cried....Opened in 1961, it was pink through and through, just like the inside of Schiller's house and her entire wardrobe. For the next two decades, Schiller was the club's hostess extraordinaire, who took pride in marketing burlesque to fit mainstream tastes.
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She also invented stage names for the strippers -- including Fran Sinatra, Samya Davis Jr., Dina Martin, Peeler Lawford and Joie Bishop -- that drew on the popularity of Frank Sinatra and the other members of the so-called Rat Pack, who were among the era's leading entertainers. That helped draw the Hollywood set, including the Rat Packers themselves, as well as politicians, sports figures, visiting dignitaries, wealthy businessmen and droves of tourists.
Comedian Bob Hope confirmed the club's status when he quipped at the 1964 opening of the downtown Music Center, "L.A. needs culture and the Pink Pussycat can't do it alone."
Rim shot.
Matchbook via DonnaLethal.com