How Go-Go Dancers Got Going

Southern California has been the birthplace of such phenomena as the drive-in church (Emmanuel Lutheran, North Hollywood, 1948), hang-gliding (Dockweiler State Beach, about 1960) and the Hula Hoop (Wham-O Manufacturing, San Gabriel, 1958).

And, of course, L.A. gave the world the go-go dancer in 1964. You may be shocked to learn, however, that such a momentous creation came about accidentally at the Whisky A Go Go.

Elmer Valentine, founder of the Sunset Strip nightclub, had only wanted a female disc jockey to play records between the live acts. That coveted post went to his cigarette girl, Patty Brockhurst.

Valentine suspended her above the audience in a glass-walled cage because there was no room for her on the small floor.

As Valentine, 77, recounted the scene to Vanity Fair magazine’s David Kamp, “She’s up there playing the records. She’s a young girl, so while she’s playing ‘em, all of a sudden she starts dancing to ‘em. It was a dream. It worked.”

Valentine quickly installed two more cages for Go-Go girls to Watusi away, including Joanie Labine, whom Kamp credits with designing “the official go-go-girl costume of fringed dress and white boots.”

Memories.

THANKS A LOT: Glendale News-Press columnist Will Rogers sent me an ad for a “spatacular” beauty treatment that is being offered as a holiday gift suggestion (see accompanying). I’m not sure I’d want to imply to anyone that they needed to be worked over until 2003.

A PLACE TO STOW YOUR VALUABLES? No, the sign that Ruth Hoffman of Tarzana snapped on a boat trip in Bangkok actually referred to life preservers (see photo).

FAREWELL TO DIGGER: In that long-ago time when the Dodgers had World Series teams, I would receive mail mistakenly addressed to first baseman Steve Garvey. So, my colleague Burt Folkart began addressing me as “Garvey.”

Folkart had a nickname for everyone, including himself; he was “Digger” because he wrote obituaries.

As you may have read, Folkart died the other day at 68. Like most newspaper people, he had a fondness for the macabre. On one wall, he used to stack a dozen or so headlines announcing the deaths of notables.

One day the headlines disappeared. A since-vanished editor was said to have asked him to take them down because they supposedly upset tour groups.

Digger, bless him, did hold on to his paper-mache tombstone, the one that was inscribed, “I Told You I Was Sick.”

miscelLAny:

Sylvia Mogel of L.A. spotted a sign that had made an illegal U-turn, though it wasn’t half as confusing as an incredible collection of dueling signs in Pasadena (see photos). Actually, the latter is an art piece.

*

Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.