Long Legs and Tall Tales: A Showgirl's Wacky, Sexy Journey to the Playboy Mansion and the Radio City Rockettes (54 page)

The Rockettes exited and the male ensemble came back to do some Fred Astaire-type tapping in black tuxedos and top hats. Man, were they great tappers. A spiral staircase appeared upstage. It looked like a multi-tiered wedding cake topped with six Rockettes all dressed in different revealing hot pink, black and silver showgirl outfits with huge headpieces. The ladies all had perfect six-pack abs, which were also on display. Each of the men escorted a showgirl down the treacherous stairs to present her, her unique costume, and her beautiful, buffed body to the audience.

The Rockettes returned, still in their “Diamonds” costumes, and everyone sang, “The world is a stage; the stage is a world of entertainment!” Pyro went off on the cake like giant sparkler explosions, and it was over. The show was highly entertaining even though it didn’t have the spectacularly large set pieces, massive stage, or huge cast of the Christmas show. It was Vegas. It was hot.

My head was pounding as I thought about all I had to learn and perfect in such a short time. All I wanted to do was go home to bed to forget about the whole show for a night. But I needed to say a quick, “Great show!” to my friends. Lara met me at my table and took me backstage to greet the girls who, also anxious to get home, were already out of costume and wiping off the final smudges of make-up.

“Hey, girl!” shouted Missy, my Aussie friend from the Branson show. Jan and Ginny came running over for hugs followed by Wanda and Leslie—more pals from Branson. “You all looked gorgeous! The show was wonderful!” I gushed, truthfully. “Did you see me mess up in ‘Diamonds’?” Ginny asked, a tone of annoyance in her voice. I assured her I hadn’t. (Ginny had danced in Paris at Le Lido—the world famous, extravagant and exotic, cabaret/burlesque showgirl show to rival all showgirl shows since 1946. Even when she messed up, she looked magnifique.)

Lara showed me my dressing room spot. I felt so out of place. It’s different when you are the only new person to join the show than when everyone is starting a show at the same time. They were all used to the routine. I hadn’t a clue what to expect. I was just glad I had friends there to help.

*******

The following day, Ron set out to search for apartments while I went to the Flamingo to rehearse from ten until five. Lara, the dance captain, was already backstage when I arrived. We rehearsed right on stage so I could learn my choreography and spacing all at the same time. “Let’s start with ‘Diamonds,’ because it’s the longest and most strenuous number. That’ll give you ten days to build up your stamina and let the choreography sink in,” Lara decided. “It worked out that you don’t have to do the mirror section, so that’ll make life easier for you.” She took me by the hand and led me upstage. “Stand here and wait during the intro. The mirror set piece will be here, and you’ll be hiding behind it until you step through the mirror. Remember from the show last night?”

I shook my head yes, and was glad to have that much less choreography to learn. I liked having the one-on-one sessions with Lara, because she was friendly and let me ask all the questions I wanted. I felt more relaxed about learning, and at the same time she shoved that choreography down my throat so fast I thought I was going to choke. I had a lot to learn in ten days.
Ten days.
I spent a month in rehearsal preparing for the Branson Christmas show. Was a week and a half really going to be enough time? 

After dancing for an hour and twenty minutes in my two and one-half-inch character shoes, my feet were already starting to ache. “How am I ever going to survive another six hours today?” I moaned. When the stage manager came down to notify us that it was time for our ten-minute union break, I was more than ready. Lara offered to take me with her to “the caf,” as they called the cafeteria, to grab a cup of coffee. It was almost directly across the hall from the backstage door of the theatre. How convenient. Everything in the caf was complimentary! Free food. Twelve hundred dollars a week. I could feel my financial burdens disintegrating. We grabbed big, white Styrofoam to-go cups and filled them with thick, dark, overcooked coffee from the dispenser before heading back to the dressing room to sit for a minute and take a load off our feet. 

I liked Lara. She was a good teacher with a good heart, who didn’t scare me like the stricter, Branson creative team had. Working one-on-one made the sessions much more informal than rehearsals with an entire cast had been. I was astounded when Lara informed me that her mother had been a Rockette. The Rockettes had always been an important part of her family, and Lara had literally followed in her mother’s fancy footsteps.

When we resumed rehearsing, she tried to explain the formations, traffic patterns, and my positions relative to everyone else, but I really wouldn’t get to see the whole picture until the day of my put-in, which was also the day I’d first perform the real show.

As the dinner hour neared, the wait staff came in to set the tables for the show. The clink-clank of the sturdy white porcelain dishes being set out was distracting, not to mention the fact that I now had an audience. We put “Diamonds” to rest for the day, so I wouldn’t be completely overwhelmed and burned out, and moved on to “Soldiers,” which was much less taxing. I felt completely stupid being the only one up there doing that stiff-legged soldier walk with my arms glued down to the sides of my legs, turning my head sharply on the appropriate counts, marching all over the stage. I was like a toy robot gone haywire. When I thought about how ridiculous I looked, I burst out laughing.

My excruciatingly long, first day of rehearsal was finally over. I had lived through it and was free to go back to Jan’s to relax. Lara, on the other hand, after having taught me all day, was going to swing two shows that night. Lara appeared to be as exhausted as I was; when I left to go home, she curled up in a sleeping bag underneath the costume racks in the dressing room to take a nap before the first show. 

*******

Finding a place to live as quickly as possible worried me about as much as learning the show. Jan was more than hospitable, but the house she was staying in was really owned by her roommate, a singer in Cirque du Soleil, that mind-boggling, imaginative show of acrobatic impossibilities. She and Jan met in Branson doing
The Will Rogers Follies
with a bunch of the other Rockettes. I felt bad imposing on them. Plus every day we kept the U-haul was costing us money, and I didn’t feel comfortable with all of my life’s possessions sitting on someone’s driveway, especially in Vegas. It was July fourth, and everyone was off for the holiday, so our search would have to wait another day.

I was desperate to get some rest, but Jan and her roommate had planned an after-show Fourth of July party. There was no way I was going to sleep through it, and I felt rude not hanging out with my friends anyway. The Flamingo cast and some Cirque people filed in around twelve-thirty a.m. bringing food and drinks. I tried to put on a happy face but I was overwhelmed by the crowd of new people to meet. We stood outside twirling sparklers in the heat of the night.

The following day was our day off, thank goodness, so Ron and I anxiously continued our apartment search. First we looked in Northwest Vegas where Ginny and Jan lived, but we found no apartments that were available right away and waiting two weeks wasn’t an option. Eventually we gave in and looked in Green Valley on the southeast side of downtown. We did find a nice place on a golf course, but why pay extra if we weren’t golfers?

Finally, we discovered an apartment building on Las Vegas Boulevard, otherwise known as the “Strip.” It was located a couple of miles south of all the big casinos and not far from McCarran Airport, in a newly growing area dubbed “Enterprise,” although I doubt that anyone would have had the faintest idea what I was talking about if I said I lived in Enterprise. The location was perfect; my daily commute to work was just a few miles up the road.

Our place was close enough for convenience yet far enough away that we weren’t living in the hubbub of the Strip. The stucco and terra cotta-roofed apartment buildings that made up our complex were brand new. They were so new, in fact, that some apartments hadn’t even been cleared of construction debris because the crew had just left the premises. One unit was available for rent, but it still needed cleaning. I begged the manager to let us in that afternoon. “We’ll clean it ourselves!” They finally gave in. Whew!

For seven hundred dollars, we got a gorgeous, never-been-lived-in, one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment. It had a nice-sized living room, high ceilings, gas fireplace (fake like everything else in Vegas), oversized Jacuzzi bathtub, tiny dining room, and a kitchen with plenty of counter space. We were on the second floor (better for avoiding break-ins) and had a small balcony overlooking the pool, gym, and tennis courts. All the new apartment buildings were loaded with recreational amenities. We weren’t paying that much more for it than we paid for our crummy closet-sized studio apartment in Los Angeles. Jackpot! I returned to rehearsal the next day less stressed since the apartment situation had been resolved. Ron unpacked while I was at the theatre. 

Lara and I plugged away daily at “Diamonds,” which included so many variations of kicks that I needed to build up my stamina. The number even included a “sit-down drill,” a kick sequence we performed while seated on a long bench running horizontally the length of the stage. Sit-down drills were incredibly hard because they took tremendous abdominal strength and I didn’t currently have it. It would take time for me to develop killer abs.

When I needed a break from the rigors of “Diamonds,” Lara would introduce other numbers. Luckily, I was just a hair too tall to be in “Gold and Silver,” which only required a subset of the smaller girls. That was one less number to learn. I was a little sad but a lot relieved. The opening tap number was the second most strenuous dance, but I could handle it. “Bolero” utilized simple choreography (mostly a lot of running around holding our arms up in a Spanish-style, “Ole!”-type pose), partially due to costume constraints. The oversized, flying-saucer-like hats restricted arm movements, and the tight, mermaid-mimicking skirts limited leg movements. I was happy to take a break from kicking and primarily concentrate on looking pretty.

“Big Band” was fun and cutesy, and I was perfectly capable of doing the dance, even the challenge tap that had sounded so difficult. The hardest part was the intro to the number where I had to pretend to be part of a band. Luck of the draw landed me a trombone, which felt like a monstrosity. I had to swing it side to side and up and down pretending I was playing, but I couldn’t really touch my lips to the mouthpiece or I would mess up my cherry-red lipstick. This cumbersome arm stretcher was a bit weighty for my weak arms.

*******

As the evening approached, the wardrobe crew began filing in to do repairs and prepare for the show. Lara led me down the hall from my dressing room and around the corner to a room tucked away in the back where I would have my costume fitting. The pregnant momma I was replacing had left the show, so her costumes were finally available for alterations. I couldn’t figure out how they were going to make that tiny bikini fit me because, even with child, she was decidedly smaller than I was. 

We walked into the wardrobe room where a small group of polite females in their forties and fifties were hand-stitching strands of beads that had fallen off back on the “Diamonds” costumes. In a tinier room behind the worker bees sat the Queen Bee of Wardrobe himself: Raoul. Lara made the introductions: “Raoul, this is Kristi. Kristi this is Raoul, Head of Wardrobe.”

“I know who she is; who else would she be?” Raoul snapped. “Well, get undressed, and let’s get this over with.” His Highness tossed me a package of nude tights to put on.

I discreetly tried to change, while he mustered the motivation to buzz off and retrieve my opening costume. My guard was up; I could see his stinger was poised to prick.

I was standing there in my G-string, nude tights, and sports bra when Raoul handed me the red bikini bottom. It was so small it terrified me. I had bigger underwear. I stepped my feet through the holes and then yanked and tugged to pull it up. I held my breath as I fastened the hooks on the side. The tight costume piece was cinching me below the waist and squishing me in unflattering ways. I tried pulling the sides of the bikini up as high as possible to hide my love handles and make my legs look longer. But I knew it would never stay in place once I started dancing. I didn’t think Rockettes ever had to show their midriffs. They didn’t, except in Vegas. I started to panic. “Don’t you have anything bigger?” I pleaded. “Ha ha. Right,” Raoul retorted, rolling his eyes. I cursed myself for all the pub trips Ron and I had made on our recent vacation to visit his family in England and decided I’d better start that workout routine right away.

On the back of the bikini bottom was a pocket (we called it a “butt pack”) into which a giant, red, tail-feather plume was velcroed. Add a skimpy, nude-colored, rhinestone-studded bikini top, sparkly neckband and arm bracelets, and a tall, red top hat also adorned with a feather on the side, and that was about all there was to the opening outfit. Fully dressed in the costume, I felt only slightly less vulnerable than when I was standing in my G-string, bra, and tights. I don’t know which was more frightening, that minuscule costume or Raoul. Thankfully, the rest of the costumes were less traumatic, and Raoul was more bark than bite (or buzz than sting).

*******

As if I didn’t feel insecure enough about my body, Lara informed me that I had to see a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for my official weigh-in and body fat testing. “Not to worry, if the results show that you are over or underweight you have a whole two weeks to make the necessary adjustments,” Lara said.
Two weeks? How healthy can that be?
I grudgingly dragged myself in to be weighed, to have my love handles, back fat, thighs, arms, and stomach pinched with barbeque tongs, and then to sit in a water displacement tank. The measurements were combined and scientifically manipulated, graphed, and calculated to determine what it would take to create the perfect woman’s body for my body type.