Not everything is what it seems

I think the real root of my little weight problem actually stems from having been underweight at a vulnerable time in my life. Fifty years ago, and I mean that literally, I was dancing at the Sahara as a George Moro dancer in a line of 12 dancers that opened the show and sometimes also worked with the great headliners in the large dinner theater -- the Caravan Room.

It so happened that the other 11 dancers were on the beefy side. Two of them, sisters, had especially large thighs, so they were referred to as the "Ham Sisters" by my cattily observant husband because we wore flesh-colored net hose, and their thighs in those hose made one think of the meat counter at Easter.

I, on the contrary, was steadily losing weight. We danced incredibly hard, typically six hours of daily rehearsal learning the next show, then two shows per night for the current star, seven days per week. After opening night, we got the next week off from rehearsal. But heavy exercise wasn't why I was losing weight. The real reason was that I had finally realized that my darling husband was gay and I didn't have a clue as to what I should do about it.

There never had been a divorce in my family -- it wasn't done. In the 1950s, we didn't do divorce and we didn't do gay. Who knew? I really didn't know exactly what gay meant. I thought it had something to do with boys playing dirty games like writing names in the snow or "you show me yours," etc. So, I stopped eating.

I loved him. He was the big brother/best friend I'd always wanted. And when he got around to it, he was wonderfully sexy and dang good in bed, just not very often. Gradually, over the year we'd been married, he explained about attraction to the same sex and sexual identification. I had finally gotten it, that gay wasn't something you get over.

My gorgeous, tall, blond, German husband fancied himself as the chef of the house, and he was trying hard to help me by having dinner ready, but my stomach rebelled in 103-degree summer heat and the weight just fell off.

One Saturday night, the line captain, a nice person when sober, handed me my paycheck and said sternly, "Come with me." In my lucky pink, very short robe, net stockings and high heels, she marched me down the back stairs to the Sahara's kitchen and with the dishwashers, busboys and waiters watching, made me climb up on a counter and sit on the meat scale. At 5-foot-7-inches, I weighed 117 pounds. She said, "I've made a note of that. If you lose any more weight, we'll have to let you go. You are making the other girls look fat."

The other girls, nearly all friends now, kindly started feeding me beer instead of my standard Kelso water after the show and banana cream pie between shows in the Sahara's coffee shop. On rehearsal break, we sometimes ventured across the street to Foxey's cafe.

So, I didn't lose any more weight then or, indeed, ever again. Unfortunately, I always had that line captain to blame for my lost modeling career.

From the vantage point of time, I know now that self-confidence, determination and good legs are the most important elements of success in the very, very physical business of dancing. It's an incredibly shallow world, based entirely on physical appearance. No one ever asked me if I could even read and write. In fact, Sammy Davis Jr. could do neither, as he so eloquently explained in his biography "Yes, I Can."

Betty Bunch is a former dancer who appeared in several Las Vegas production shows throughout the 1950s and '60s. Today, she works with the national Elderhostel Association. Contact her at betbun7@earthlink.net.