CoL49 group reading backtracking - Finocchio’s

[Michael Bailey]

When Oedipa visits The Greek Way after being re-tagged as Arnold Snarb, the
tour guide says, “Two drinks and when you hear the whistle it means out, on
the double, regroup right here. If you’re well behaved we’ll hit
Finocchio’s next.”


According to Wikipedia, “finocchio” is Italian for “fennel” but is also a
slang term for homosexual.

However, in the next paragraph, the article also notes that the club was
owned and operated by Joseph and Eve Finocchio.



https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Finocchio%27s,_a_Short_Retrospective

The article has photos, too.

“One of the most interesting things I've done recently was prowl around the
premises of Finocchio's, San Francisco's fabled female impersonator club,
which closed November 27, 1999 after 63 years in the same location.

The club's history actually began back in the Roaring '20s, when founder
Joe Finocchio opened a speakeasy on Stockton Street on the edge of the
seedy Tenderloin District. The place featured female impersonation even
then. The club went above-ground with the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 and
moved to the trendy North Beach nightclub district in 1936. Most gay men
and lesbians today don't think of professional female impersonator clubs as
being particularly queer, but in the days before gay liberation they
provided valuable semi-public social spaces for sexual minorities to
congregate.


For decades, Finocchio's was a world-renowned venue. Hollywood stars
frequented the club, flying up to San Francisco from Los Angeles to see
themselves being impersonated -- as Tallulah Bankhead did in the
accompanying photo. Ms. Bankhead is joined by members of the show,
including Elton Paris (left) and Lucian Phelps (3rd from left). It's worth
noting the mixed-race audience, a rarity in the era of segregation.

Well aware of its former glory, I was a bit sad to see Finocchio's look so
down at the heels last week as GLBT Historical Society staff members carted
away a truckload of memorabilia. The drag club business just ain't what it
used to be, and it hasn't been for a good long time. It felt like a piece
of old San Francisco -- and old gay life -- had quietly passed away. Joe
Finocchio's second wife Eve, a feisty grand dame well into her 80s, sat in
a chair in the middle of the room and watched her grandson, the club's
manager, box up the liquor stock as we historians circled like buzzards
around ratty dressing room fixtures, odd scraps of cast-off costumes, a
pair of false eyelashes stored in an empty Premarin prescription bottle,
and other detritus that had accumulated over more than half a century.


At one point, Eve Finocchio motioned for me to come to her. "Here, honey,
why don't you take this, too," she said, handing me an exquisite ermine
stole. "I once gave it to a queen who worked here, but he doesn't need it
now. He's a Catholic priest. Anyway, I might as well donate it to history
-- you just can't get away with wearing fur these days.




Another article has a possibly apocryphal anecdote about Howard Hughes:

https://hoodline.com/2022/10/remembering-finocchio-s-the-north-beach-club-that-arguably-gave-birth-to-american-drag/

Over the years, Frank Sinatra, Tallulah Bankhead, David Niven, and Errol
Flynn would all be noted guests at Finocchio's. And according to one legend
Hoodline's Art Peterson relayed, "When Howard Hughes saw the show with his
then-girlfriend Ava Gardner, he returned to the club and whisked away one
of the performers for what turned out to be an extended relationship."