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Manhattan’s Stork Club, one of the most famous watering holes in the long history of American nightclubbing, was — from its opening in 1929 to its demise in 1965 — the place to see and be seen in the Big Apple. The slick, sexy, smoky creation of a native Oklahoman and ex-bootlegger named Sherman Billingsley, the Stork was, in the words of legendary (and notoriously Red-baiting) gossip columnist and radio loudmouth Walter Winchell, “New York’s New Yorkiest” joint."
"While a hands-on kind of guy, Billingley was also just downright handy — as in, secret hand signals sent to his staff when sitting with customers. The trick? The signals had to be discreet enough so the customers wouldn’t catch on, and clear enough, amid the din produced by a well-oiled crowd, that the staff wouldn’t screw it up."
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| "Not important people," or, "No need to pay attention to these folks." |
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Here, LIFE.com looks back at the Stork Club in its heyday and, specifically, at some of Billingsley’s most frequently employed creative gesticulations."
3 comments:
When you pick a booger outta your nose you gotta eat it. Dem's the rules at the Stork. Now eat it!
There was an old Warner Brothers cartoon where there were a bunch of anthropomorphic storks going into The Stork Club.
Some gags practically write themselves, so they say.
The problem with a lot of humor is it's merely the natural and probable consequence of naïveté.
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