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GILDA GRAY, THE SHIMMY QUEEN

© Joyce E. Eberly

GILDA GRAY, THE SHIMMY QUEEN

The shimmy has its roots in Haitian Voodoo dances, performed by a rapid shaking of the shoulders and hips. It found its way into African-American music and was danced by Ethel Waters to such songs as Mess Around and The Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble. Eventually, the shimmy was soon appropriated by white performers. Mae West claimed to have introduced the shimmy in 1918, when she sang Everybody Shimmies Now. Later she added the shimmy to her act in the Hammerstein production of Sometime in 1919. Nevertheless, the most notable performer of the shimmy was Gilda Gay.

Although Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble is widely considered the origin of the shimmy, legend has it that the shimmy was first performed to The St. Louis Blues by W. C. Handy, by Gilda Gray at the Winter Garden Theater in New York City.

Gilda Gray was born Marianna Winchalaska (or Michalski) in Warsaw, Poland, 24 October 1901. Her parents immigrated to the United States in 1909 and settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. When Marianna was fourteen or fifteen, a marriage was arranged for her with a saloonkeeper's son, John Gorecki. To increase their income, Marianna began singing in saloons owned by her father-in-law. Although the shimmy is said to have been introduced to white audiences by Gilda (after she?d changed her name) in New York, other sources say that her shimmy was born one night when she was singing the Star Spangled Banner and forgot some of the words. She covered up her embarrassment by shaking her shoulders and hips. Although the shimmy was already a well-known dance, Marianna appropriated it as her own when she was asked what she was doing, and she replied, "I'm shaking my shimmy," her version of the word "chemise."

The blatant sexuality of her dancing and her success soon led her to desert her husband and son and go to Chicago where an agent saw her and took her to New York. The agent, Frank Westphal, introduced her to his wife, Sophie Tucker. It was Sophie who changed her name to Gilda. As noted, Sophie claimed to have performed the shimmy first, but it was soon appropriated by Gilda. By 1919, she was appearing in a J. J. Shubert show, The Gaieties of 1919. By now, Gilda had found a new manager, Gallaird T. ?Gil? Boag. After being seen by Florenz Ziegfeld, she appeared in the 1922 Ziegfeld Follies where she was a sensation.

After her divorce from her first husband, in 1923 she married her new manager, Gil Boag. It was also in 1923 that she took her vaudeville show, which was rumored to be making $47,000 a week, to Hollywood. She abandoned vaudeville to become a film star, and between 1919 and 1936 Gilda made several movies, in all of which she performed her famous shimmy. Her second part was a small one in Girl with the Jazz Heart, but Jesse Lasky who owned Famous Players saw her and wanted her to be part of his company. With him she made Aloma of the South Seas, which grossed $3,000,000 in its first three months. The success of this film was enhanced by Gilda?s personal appearances doing the shimmy as a promotion. In 1927, she made two more films, The Devil Dancer and Cabaret.

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