"...She Am
A Spunky Gal..."
by Sylvester Lewis
Polly Preshus
was born backstage at Pinsky's Burlesque house in
downtown Kansas City. It was during intermission
on a Friday, the 13th, I think Her pregnant
mother, Ayn Tai Preshus, a buxom Eurasian half-caste,
had just finished her bump and grind dancing-with-balloon
strip routine and immediately went into labor
which lasted less than ten minutes. The show must
go on, don't you know. The baby just seemed to
plop out crying at the top of her little not-completely-formed
lungs. “That's my baby,” Ayn Tai
bragged. “Isn't she pretty? Listen to that
voice. Mark my words! She's gonna be another
Streisand.” (Streisand - not the singer -
was the show closer who gave imitations of steam
engines in full steam ahead mode and who always
brought down the house.) The proud mama decided
then and there to name her Polly, after her best
friend Polly Wannacracker, and cooingly referred
to her as her little Polly Wolly.
Polly made her
stage debut at age 2 when Ayn Tai Preshus, unable
to find a baby sitter, was forced to carry her
onstage. She incorporated her into the act by
using her precious Polly Wolly as she would have
used her balloon – cover a breast here, a
buttock there. Even though Polly felt a little
dizzy, poor thing, the child seemed to enjoy all
the rhythmic moving about, the music and
particularly the applause which was like manna to
her ears. And though she wasn't aware of it at
the time, her forming mind decided this was the
life for her.
Using the
stage name Pretty Polly, she trampled on anyone
who stood in her way, and was a headlining
stripper by 14, married at 16, divorced at 17,
quit burlesque at 18, took Broadway by storm at
19 and, on her 21st birthday, it was bye-bye
Broadway, hello Hollywood, with Ayn Tai Preshus
in tow.
Her reputation
preceded her. No auditions for this gal. MGM,
Paramount, Warner Brothers and all the others
circled around like sharks in a feeding frenzy,
fighting tooth and nail to get her to sign a
contract. But she just sat around sipping
champagne and buffing her nails as the offers
rose higher and higher.
Eventually, a
bored Polly cha-chad south of the border to
Tijuana where she met and had a depraved fling
with the hyper-sexual bull fighter, Getta
Loadahme Gonzales.
Shortly after
her return, Polly learned she had contracted a
particularly virulent communicable disease. The
news spread quickly throughout Hollywood causing
a stampede of leading men (and several leading
ladies), sailors and busboys clamoring for hush-hush
appointments with their doctors. The tabloids
soon began referring to her as “STD Polly.”
All the studio gates were closed to her. It was
as though she never existed. Her health
deteriorated rapidly, leaving her scarred and
almost bald.
Ayn Tai
Preshus took her ravaged Polly Wolly back to
Kansas City and, after years of nursing her to
health with the help of Polly Wannacracker, not
so pretty Polly ended up back at Pinsky's
Burlesque house cleaning toilets and mopping
floors. Most of the people she demolished on her
way to the top were delighted to learn that what
goes around really does come around.
So, dreaming
of her depraved days with Getta Loadahme, and
with nothing else to do in her spare time, with
paper and pencil “...Polly Wolly doodled
all the day...”.
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