Feuding Fan Dancers

Faith Bacon, Sally Rand, and the Golden Age of the Showgirl

By: Leslie Zemeckis

Narrated by: Christa Lewis

Some women capture our attention like no others. Faith Bacon and Sally Rand were beautiful blondes from humble backgrounds who shot to fame behind a pair of oversize ostrich fans, but with very different outcomes. Sally Rand would go on to perform for the millions who attended the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago, becoming America's sweetheart. Faith Bacon, the Marilyn Monroe of her time - once anointed the "world's most beautiful woman" - would experience the dark side of fame and slip into drug use.

It was the golden age of American entertainment, and Bacon and Rand fought their way through the competitive showgirl scene of New York with grit and perseverance. They played peek-a-boo with their lives, allowing their audiences to see only slivers of themselves. A hint of a breast? A forbidden love affair? They were both towering figures, goddesses, icons. Until the world started to change.

Little is known about who they really were, until now. Feuding Fan Dancers tells the story of two remarkable women during a tumultuous time in entertainment history. Leslie Zemeckis has pieced together their story and - nearly 100 years later - both women come alive again.

©2018 Mistress, Inc. (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Wonderful

Loved listening to this fascinating story about Sally Rand and Faith Bacon. Uplifting and heartbreaking this book would make an incredible movie!

Dazzling Read

Well researched and balanced book covering the life of two nude dancers, one who was able to turn it into a profitable empire, and one who was swept away by the tides of popular opinion. The beginning is a little slow, but once we get to the dancers, it's well paced and an interesting look at not just the dancers but the context of the times they were living in.

The magical allure of showgirls

During the 1920s, America became captivated by the grace and beauty of two youthful dancers, Faith Bacon and Sally Rand, masters of seduction who knew exactly how to titillate their audience by showing just enough of themselves to remain mainstream and most often, within the law. Because a segment of society was outraged by what it considered profane entertainment, these cheeky ladies sometimes found themselves arrested by the police. Such notoriety only increased their desirability in the collective mind. The two fiercely defended their freedom of expression and the tastefulness of their art. As they competed for attention over the years and decades, they each tried to one-up the other by innovating elements of their performance. Indeed, they both claimed to have invented the use of feathered fans as part of their repertoire. The constant fight for center stage, over time, took its toll. This double-biography follows and contrasts the lives of these two celebrities, the way that they struggled for survival and sometimes clashed. It's a well-written, elegantly-narrated and compelling true story.

Good story but very long.

This was an interesting story but was drawn out for so long I had a hard time finishing it.