Star and Garter Theatre

Hugh on December 30, 2015 at 9:01 pm

When the final days came for the Star and Garter, the marquee read CLEVELAND WRECKING COMPANY
THE GREATEST STRIPPER OF THEM ALL.

davidcoppock on September 5, 2017 at 8:20 am

Interesting name!!

WestSideForever on September 19, 2023 at 6:21 pm

My family lived all over the near West Side during the 50s through the 70s: Polk, Lexington, Fillmore & Taylor Sts. So naturally, my siblings and I were frequent visitors to the Star & Garter. I think tickets during this time cost 25 cents.

LouRugani on September 27, 2025 at 8:45 am

(Chicago Tribune, March 12, 1917) Church Women Reveal Suggestive Acts After Peaceful “Raids” on Theaters

BY THE REV. W. B. NORTON.

SCANTILY dressed women, lewd jokes, the American flag disgraced, the Christian religion flouted, drinking, gambling, murder paraded, crowds of men and boys in the audience, many of the boys in knickerbockers.

These are some of the things which shocked the women of the Woman’s Church federation who made a round of a dozen or more of the theaters of Chicago Saturday evening.

Mrs. J. G. Boor, chairman of the morals committee of the Woman’s Church federation, was in charge. She was assisted by fourteen women and up several men, some of whom accompanied the women, while others went to ag the theaters where men only are admitted.

Mrs. H. T. Leslie, 6844 Lafayette avenue, was one of the women who visited the Gayety theater, 531 South State street.

“The performance was vulgar and degrading,” she said. We teach our children to honor the American flag. Here they disgraced it. Girls came on the stage in tights with shoulders and arms entirely bare, draped about the waist in the red, white and blue. They formed a pyramid and the one who came the nearest being nud formed the center of the pyramíd. In this attitude they sang a song entitled “My Country.” not our national anthem, while a flag was lowered from the ceiling.

Sample of “Humor.”

“One of the comedians said: ‘It doesn’t make any difference what a woman has on or whether she has anything on. O yes it does,’ another said. When Gen. Grant surrendered to Lee he only had on a ragged union suit. Our girls have more on than that.”

“One man told a girl he would strip her to the skin. He first made her take off her hat, then her dress, then her petticoat. She had on tights, but the suggestiveness of the act was plain to see.”

Mrs. L. E. Koontz, 653 North Lockwood avenue, was one of three who visited the Star and Garter theater, 815 West Madison street.

“We sat in the gallery,” she said, “and noted that the audience was chiefly made up of young men, some of them nice young, manly looking fellows, others were of the depraved kind. My heart ached for them because I realized their legitimate desires for amusement. The air was thick with tobacco smoke. The jokes were of the coarsest character and evidently intended to inflame the imagination. One comedian told how some one threw a brick through the window and struck the leg of the girl he was sitting with and broke three of his fingers, plainly implying his hand was in contact with the girl’s leg.

Some More “Comedy.”

“In a scene one girl and two men became intoxicated, the girl being dragged off the stage in a beastly state. The men spilled the liquor on the table, dipped their hands in it, and slapped each other. Finally they kicked over the table and spilled the rest of the liquor on the floor.

“The girls were called the Jolly Widows and were dressed in tights.”

Mrs. F. M. Reynolds of Austin confirmed the report of Mrs. Koontz.

“The performance is to be condemned from start to finish,” she said. “There was not one redeeming feature. There was a lewd poem recited about looking at women, in which the name of Christ was mentioned. The drinking scene and the pajama dance were disgusting.” Mrs. R. L. Moffett, 4618 North Racine avenue, visited the Casino at 403 North State street.

“Suggestive jokes and Hula Hula dancing such as I heard and saw ought not to be tolerated,” she said. The Hula Hula dancers were bare legged and their bodies were draped only in a shawl.

Better Features Applauded.

“Were there any more like you in the family?” one coarse joker asked another. “No, when father died mother lost the pattern.”

“I believe the audience would enjoy a higher grade of entertainment, because a moving picture of a war scene and the performance of a player on an accordion, which were good, received the loudest applause.”

Mrs. Boor found conditions at the National, 610 South State street, she said, disgusting in the extreme.

“A young woman described a dance in a most suggestive way. ‘What did you have on?’ her male companion asked. ‘I had on a string of beads, then a little space and another string.’ ‘You ought to leave off the two last strings,’ he replied. ‘Did you dance the seven veils dance?’ she was asked. ‘If you did you left off six and a half of the veils,’ he said.”

“Forty per cent of the audience was under 21 years, many of them young boys.”

“The theaters are not as obscene as they were. They have been improved 75 per cent over the theaters of a few years ago, but they are still demoralizing, corrupting, and a disgrace to a Christian civilization.”

the most objectionable of all,“ said Mrs. E. Pretty.

“The girls were dressed so they appeared perfectly nude. They came on the stage protecting themselves with parasols. They moved the parasols from side to side so as to expose themselves for a moment to full view. Then they sang, ‘To see a little more you must meet us at the door.’ Could there be any plainer solicitation to evil than that?”

Mrs. A. C. O'Neal, 2512 West Sixty-sixth street, expressed in the strongest terms indignation of what she saw at the Haymarket theater, 722 West Madison street.

“If there is anything worse than I saw at the Haymarket, I hope I may never see it,” she said. “There was awful profanity, and from beginning to end vile love making and sexual suggestion. The twenty girls dressed in tights ran out on the run board into the center of the audience, and stooping over to the men sang songs of invitation and suggestion. I saw only two other women in the audience besides the four women in our party.”

Many Theaters Visited.

Among the theaters visited were: the South side, Gayety, National, Gem, and Stella; north side, Casino, Hippodrome; west side, Haymarket and Star and Garter.

“To describe the chorus girls of any theater as shapely, scantily clothed, alluring to men, will displease no owner or manager,” said Mrs. Boor.

“To picture the horror or even wrath of good women at witnessing the members of their sex on exhibition like well groomed prize winners at the international stock exhibit will merely cause a smile of ill concealed approval by those interested in the box office.

“But to pass a law giving authority to close such theaters under an injunction and abatement act, by which managers and owners are held responsible for the character of the performance, will raise a storm of protest because such a law will close the show.”

Need for New Law.

“But this is what led us women to brave the disgraceful and distasteful houses of entertainment which we believe are destructive of the young life of our city. We want our legislature to know that there is a crying need for the passage of the law offering relief from the menace of the immoral show such as is provided by the senate bill 130, introduced by Senator J. J. Barbour, and a similar one introduced by Representative Allen J. Carter, which make the owners and managers liable for whatever is exhibited in the theaters they control.”

LouRugani on December 11, 2025 at 7:11 am

Star & Garter Theater - 815 West Madison Street Built 1907; demolished 1972 Architects: Dodge & Morrison

The Star & Garter Theater, one of Chicago’s largest and best-known burlesque theaters, opened in February 1908 and was located at 815 West Madison Street. Designed and decorated in the style of the city’s leading dramatic theaters, the Star & Garter aimed to legitimize burlesque as a form of elite entertainment. During its more than fifty years in operation, the theater showcased the talents of many of the nation’s best-known burlesque troupes and vaudeville comedians. Its presence near the intersection of Madison and Halsted Streets helped establish the Near West Side as one of Chicago’s leading outlying amusement centers.

The Star & Garter was owned and operated by the Hyde & Behman burlesque theater circuit. Hoping to set their new theater apart from the city’s smaller and less highly regarded burlesque houses, Hyde and Behman spared few expenses in the design and construction of the Star & Garter. Most accounts put the theater’s cost at between $450,000 and $500,000, or roughly $11 million in 2009 dollars. It was designed by the New York architectural firm of Dodge & Morrison and had a seating capacity of 1,960. When the theater opened in 1908, most observers considered it to be one of the best-designed and lavishly decorated theaters in the city. The entrance lobby measured 30 feet by 46 feet and featured marble-clad walls and dark-red tile floors. Wide aisles and bronzed stairways led patrons to their leather-upholstered seats on one of three levels. Aside from the main floor, the mezzanine boxes, and the balcony, there were six boxes on either side of the stage. The seats were upholstered in buff leather. Crimson-red draperies decorated the stage and proscenium boxes. Other features included a men’s smoking room, a ladies' parlor, a basement rathskeller, and carved marble drinking fountains in the inner lobby. The entire building was designed to be fireproof, with an automatic sprinkler system and a 18,000-gallon emergency supply of water stored in a rooftop tank. The theater was, according to Variety, “a marvel in beauty and architecture.”

The formal opening of the Star & Garter took place on Sunday afternoon, 9 February 1908. Admission prices ranged from 15 cents for the balcony to 75 cents for box seats. Charles Robinson and his burletta-performing “Night Owls” were the opening attraction, along with an assortment of vaudeville acts. Many other all-female dancing troupes performed at the theater in the months and years that followed. During the theater’s first year in business, groups like Fred Irwin’s “New Majestics,” the “Transatlantic Burlesquers,” “The Mardi Gras Beauties,” and “The Jersey Lillies” all made appearances at the theater. Among the best-known performers to step onto the Star & Garter stage were Jack Conway, Lester Allen, Don Barclay, Ethel Shutta, Watson and Cohan, Bobby Barry, Tommy “Bozo” Snyder, and Dave Marion, also known as Snuffy the Cabman.

During the theater’s early years, Hyde & Behman sought to differentiate the Star & Garter from other burlesque houses by carefully regulating the content of each act that performed there. House managers reviewed each performer’s act prior to showtime and ordered them to eliminate anything deemed too risque. “It seems that there are two brands of burlesque,” one commentator explained, “censored and uncensored.” At the Star & Garter, “Each traveling company is warned before beginning an engagement which kind will be tolerated. If the character of the theater demands a censored variety, a reasonably clean and inoffensive musical farce results. If the ‘lid’ is lifted the comedians and their women assistants are permitted to go as far as the police will permit.” As a result, the style of burlesque presented at the Star & Garter during the 1910s was decidedly less provocative and sexually suggestive than that offered by some of Chicago’s less refined burlesque houses, such as the Trocadero and Folly Theaters on South State Street. Indeed, many of the theater’s burlesque shows were more reminiscent of nineteenth-century minstrel or burlesque shows insofar as they combined leggy dance numbers with comedy routines and other vaudeville acts that skewered the “legitimate” theater and lampooned contemporary social taboos.

One reason Hyde & Behman had for placing restrictions on performers was to avoid gaining a reputation as a “down-and-dirty” burlesque house patronized by men only. With nearly 2,000 seats to fill, the theater’s managers could not rely solely on male customers to ensure profitability. Accordingly, they made a sustained and concerted effort to convice Chicago women that visiting the Star & Garter was not only safe and respectable, but also enjoyable. A 1919 advertisement, for instance, reminded potential customers that “Every Day [Was] Ladies Day” at the Star & Garter, while another one from 1921 pointed out that “10,000 Women Attend Our Shows Weekly.” Women also received a discount on their the price of admission for all performances. Additionally, several of the theater’s rules of conduct and operational policies were designed with women in mind. For example, smoking was prohibited on the main floor of the auditorium. Also, candy barkers and souvenir vendors were not permitted to sell their goods inside the theater, as was customary at other burlesque houses.

It is not entirely clear how successful Hyde & Behman were at attracting women to the Star & Garter. No reliable numbers exist, but the anecdotal evidence appears to confirm that women made up a far greater proportion of audiences at the Star & Garter than at the city’s other burlesque theaters, even if they were still outnumbered by the men. For example, a reporter for Variety wrote the following shortly after the theater’s debut: “During the two weeks the house has been open the increase in women patronage has been marked, and the audience from pit to dome are not of the customary burlesque kind. If the high standard of refinement is maintained and the attractions kept up to the inauguration level the theatre will enjoy an enviable reputation and large business all season.” A few weeks later, a second report noted, “Since the house opened the women attendance has steadily increased. At a matinee one day last week there were 280 women in the audience, the largest aggregation of femininity in the history of Chicago burlesque.” Regardless of the exact numbers, the Star & Garter did enjoy a slightly better reputation than many of the city’s other burlesque theaters. Indeed, in the eyes of many Chicagoans of the time, the mere presence of women conveyed a certain degree of moral respectability upon an establishment, owing to traditional assumptions about the supposedly innate virtuousness of women. Hyde & Behman played upon and to some extent succeeded in using these gendered notions of human behavior to boost attendance, increase profits, and maximize the return on their investment.

With the advent of the less sexually restrictive era of the flapper in the 1920s, the Star & Garter’s more conservative brand of burlesque began to lose its appeal. By 1922, Hyde & Behman discontinued burlesque shows at the theater. They were replaced by amateur boxing bouts and “professional” wrestling matches that pitted members of different ethnic groups against one another in overtly nationalistic athletic confrontations. During one wrestling match at the theater in April 1923, for example, Italian heavyweight champion Renato Gardini squared off against Greek wrestler Demetrius Tofalos. Other matches featured Irish, Turkish, Czech, Lithuanian, French-Canadian, Polish, and Jewish wrestlers and boxers, including many drawn from Chicago’s own neighborhoods. Between November 1922 and April 1926, dozens of wresting and boxing matches were held at the Star & Garter. Fans from across the west side crowded into the theater to cheer on their compatriots and jeer those boxers and wrestlers who were of different ethnic background than their own.

Burlesque shows returned to the Star & Garter in late 1927, usually in conjunction with a feature motion picture. The burlesque shows of the late 1920s and 1930s, while still far more ostentatious and skillfully produced than those at Chicago’s smaller and less pricey burlesque houses, were nonetheless more sexually suggestive than those presented at the theater prior to 1922. Each show was built around one particularly charismatic performer and her supporting cast of female dancers. Mary Sunde was the theater’s headliner for much of 1934. Promotional materials for Sunde, who was born in Norway but raised in Wisconsin, depicted her as the perfect combination—at least in the eyes of men inclined to attend burlesque shows—of exotic beauty and down-home wholesomeness. Her flowing blonde hair and youthful figure made her “the last word in feminine pulchritude,” and yet she was nonetheless “a demure lassie, who lives to sew, cook, and keep house.” Such testaments helped build up a dreamgirl image around the women who performed at the Star & Garter, reassuring male patrons that the women who performed at the theater, despite their status as women with a career of their own and a strong awareness of their own sexuality, were in actuality no threat to their power and authority as men. “In short,” read one tribute to Sunde, she “is sister under the skin to the typical American home girl.” Other headliners of the 1930s included Ada Leonard, who first appeared at the theater in September 1934, and Maxine De Shon, who arrived one year later.

In late 1935, the Star & Garter went dark and remained closed until September 1946, when Hyde & Behman sold the theater to two investors, Harold L. Clamage of Saint Louis and Harold W. Buchberger of Chicago, for the sum of $110,000. The new owners installed air-conditioning in the theater, touched up its appearance, and reopened the theater. During late 1946, it operated briefly as a combination burlesque and movie house, but quickly shifted to an all-movie policy, which remained in place until September 1971, when the adjacent Mid-City National Bank purchased the property to make way for a parking lot. Demolition of the theater took place during the months of February and March 1972. (from Jazz Age Chicago)