The Helen Morgan Page

… 1926, Helen Morgan played the Silver Slipper in Atlantic City.

Fans of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire will remember Steve Buscemi’s turn as Nucky Thompson, a character that bore more than a passing resemblance to Enoch Lewis “Nucky” Johnson, the Atlantic County Republic boss and sheriff, who, on the side but never out of view, oversaw bootlegging, prostitution, and gambling in Atlantic City.

Nucky ruled Atlantic City and the Silver Slipper with an iron hand.

Morgan’s tenure proved mercifully brief.

Although she had just come into her own as a cabaret chanteuse at New York’s 54th Street Club, in July 1926, Atlantic City only knew her from her turn in the George White’s Scandals, which held its world premiere the previous summer in the shore town.

And so, Johnson billed her as a dancer. While the content of her act at the Silver Slipper was not noted at length in any review of that week’s show, if safe to assume she did more singing than dancing.

In the end, Morgan’s billing made little difference. The summer of 1926 was one of the wettest on record at the Jersey resort, and business was down across the board. It did not help that Johnson continued to give Hilda Ferguson top billing despite that fact that Morgan had in fact replaced the Ziegfeld dancer as the leading act in the floorshow.

Morgan, at this point, was not a draw in any cabaret outside New York or Chicago, especially under such adverse conditions. Regardless of the size of the house, Helen sang four shows a night, from ten until almost dawn. More demoralizing than the lack of an audience was the request from the management to go out and conspicuously romp on the beach all day after a late night at the club – to drum up business.

Nothing helped, not even the addition of the reigning queen of the nightclubs, Texas Guinan, who brought her entire New York floorshow with her for the Independence Day weekend. That’s right, for two nights, guests were treated to two complete floorshows for the price of one.

And the rain kept the customers away.

Morgan endured this career setback for just one week, when George Raft and his Charleston dancing took over the floorshow.

Helen went immediately into another Broadway review, Americana, although it is unlikely she stepped into the production the following Monday when it debuted out of town, also at the Jersey shore, in Long Branch.

In any event, she was in Americana when it bowed on Broadway on July 26.

More to the point, before Labor Day, she was leading the floorshow at the Playground, the Broadway nightclub run by Texas Guinan’s brother Tommy.

In November, Morgan had her name above the door of her first nightclub.

This site serves as a companion to the book Helen Morgan: The Original Torch Singer and Ziegfeld’s Last Star.