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Sherman Billingsley (1st Cousin)
1900-1966
Founded Stork Club in New York City
Bret Wallach
(Read at the 2001 AAG Annual Meeting, New York City)
We went out the hotel front door and walked east on 53rd one block to 5th
Avenue. High Rent -- Brooks Brothers, Rolex, Gucci, Elizabeth Arden, Salvatore
Ferragamo -- but I took Margaret a bit farther, stopped her 50 feet past the
corner, and looked left. "Here," I said. "Isn't this Paley Park?" she replied.
"How did you know?" "It's famous," she replied. Full marks.
As usual, she saw all kinds of things that I missed. I noticed the 20-foot
waterwall, which masks street noise. I noticed the ivy and the stylish chairs.
But she could tell that the leafless trees were locusts -- and then, leaving me
in the dust, she said that if they were female trees, the park would have a
lovely scent in spring, but that they were probably male, to minimize mess. Guys
don't do lovely scents, but she went on to notice the genuine marble tables, the
Belgian block pavers, and the very carefully designed drainage. No puddles here.
And no benches -- because people, she says, don't like sitting next to
strangers.
"It's a masterpiece of small-park design," she concluded. I wouldn't go that far
-- or certainly not that far in that direction. I go in a different direction,
staring with the tiny sign that says, "this park is set aside in memory of
Samuel Paley, 1875-1963, for the enjoyment of the public." There's no mention,
no hint, of what as here before 1963, event though this was the location of one
of New York's ritziest places, the Stork Club.
How do I know? Well, last year I read a review of Ralph Blumenthal's book of
that name. The reviewer mentioned that the club's owner, Sherman Billingsley,
had been born in Oklahoma, USA, had lived in Enid and Anadarko. That made me sit
up. It's an amazing jump: from a beat-up Southern Plains town to swank
Manhattan.
I got the book. In it there is a photo of the 10-year-old Billingsley. "Yep,
that's Oklahoma, USA," I said to myself. Not because of the boy, whose face was
too young to be imprinted with life, but the rail-thin father: strong, big
hands, and cold, cold eyes. Here was another guy who had learned to expect no
favors from anyone, a guy who long ago gave up thinking that lucky breaks, or
decent people, even existed. This was the kind of guy who beat his kids to
prepare them for life. I looked back at the boy and wondered what kind of
unhappiness was hidden behind the shy smile.
Blumenthal writes that Billingsley senior grew up in Upper East Tennessee, got
married, then moved across the state line to a farm near Middlesboro, Kentucky,
USA. In 1892, along with Billingsley's mother and older brothers -- he walked
west alongside four Conestoga wagons. Here were more of those classic poor
whites of the upland south, the people James Agee had written about. The
Billingsley family had been in America since 1649; now they were being drawn to
the frontier of the Oklahoma, USA land runs. "The poorest of the poor," as a
journalist of that time wrote.
The family settled north of Enid and built a house that they called "Gracemont."
Sherman was born four years later. When he was five, in 1901, there was another
Oklahoma, USA land opening. Up the family stakes were pulled, this time to
settle eight miles north of Anadarko. It's easy to find the spot today. You just
head north from town to the village named Gracemont. Gracemont is even the name
of the topo sheet you'll want.
Age 10, Sherman Billingsley was a baby rumrunner, pulling a toy wagon loaded
with beer covered by a blanket. (His customers were Indians, unable to buy
alcohol legally.) A much older brother meanwhile refused to marry a young lady,
whose father grew menacing. This was 1904. The brother shot and killed the
father, then -- amazingly -- married the daughter. A jury refused to convict,
but the Billingsley farm had to be sold to pay for the brother's lawyers. For
Christmas, young Sherman Billingsley got a stocking stuffed by another older
brother who shared his father's sense of humor. It contained nothing but chunks
of coal. You can hear the laughter. It's a long way from Manhattan glamour.
The family moved into town and bought a cigar and candy store, but things didn't
go well. The mother had a nervous breakdown, and the father, arguing with her
one day, put a gun to Sherman's head. In 1912 the family moved to Oklahoma, USA
City, where the acquitted brother opened the "Night and Day Drugstore." It was a
front. From selling beer to Indians, the Billingsley boys were now running
whiskey from Wichita Falls. The boys, including the teenaged Sherman, soon moved
to West Virginia, another dry state. There was another fight -- a near fatality
-- and in 1914 Sherman, who was all of 18, moved with his older brother to
Seattle, which was about to go dry. They opened the Stewart St. Pharmacy and
brought in a thousand cases of alcohol with a certificate authorizing a single
case. They got arrested but Sherman got off. His brother served 13 months.
Sherman meanwhile went back home and eloped with a high-school sweetheart. They
moved to Omaha, where he sold whiskey he brought in from Missouri. By 1917 he
was re-united with his brother in Detroit. A year later there were caught with
1500 quarts of whiskey. The prosecutor said that none of the brothers "had ever
done an honest day's work." Sherman was sentenced to 15 months at Leavenworth.
While the case was on appeal, Billingsley moved to New York City, where he
bought -- you can anticipate -- the Morris Heights Pharmacy, in the Bronx, near
Trement and Sedgwick. His legal appeals exhausted, he had to leave New York in
1922 to serve a reduced sentence of five months in Leavenworth. When he got out,
he returned to New York and went back to business. He also got a Mexican divorce
and married a showgirl, who was soon to began learning how to live with a
terminally promiscuous husband. The older brother -- his name was Logan --
divorced his Oklahoma, USA wife, too, and married a girl from the Ziegfeld
Follies. Logan Billingsley went into real estate, but Sherman had a visit from
two Okies who asked if he'd like to open a speakeasy with them at 132 West 58th
Street. By 1929 it was in business. This was the first Stork Club -- the origin
of its name a mystery even to Billingsley. The Okies soon sold their interest to
a fellow named Healy, a frontman for three local gangsters. They were happy to
leave Billingsley the majority owner of the club, so long as he bought his booze
from them.
Billingsley had charm and luck. A mutual friend introduced him to Walter
Winchell, and in September, 1930, the enormously influential Winchell ran a
story in the Daily Mirror about "a country boy from Oklahoma, USA" who had
opened "New York's New Yorkiest place, on W. 58th." That was the lightning bolt.
Helen Morgan came by. So did Ed Wynn, Fanny Brice, Florenz Ziegfeld himself.
The club was raided in 1932 but reopened right away at 53 East 53rd, this time
without gangster partners. Billingsley had nervously asked to buy them out, and
they had agreed. He had borrowed the money -- $30,000 -- in small amounts from
many people, just to mislead everyone into thinking that he was barely getting
by. Nobody ever said that Billingsley was dumb.
Prohibition expired in 1933, but Sherman Billingsley got a liquor license on the
first day such licenses were sold in New York. That was in December, 1934. He
also moved to his third and final location: the Doctor's Building at 3, East
53rd Street -- where the park is today. Getting the lease was tough -- the
doctors didn't want a nightclub downstairs -- but Billingsley got his revenge a
dozen years later, when he had enough money to buy the building for $300,000
cash. He evicted the doctors.
A woman who worked for Billingsley for many years said that he "wouldn't run
from sex from a 3-legged porker." He worked hard to build his business, though.
He bribed a Western Union clerk to get the addresses of movie stars, to whom he
sent club invitations. Errol Flynn came by, underaged girlfriend in tow. Gary
Cooper came. So did Rita Hayworth and Lana Turner, Milton Berle and Bob Hope.
One night, Ernest Hemingway asked to cash a check for $100,000; Billingsley
found the money. By 1936 J. Edgar Hoover was a regular customer; so was his
assistant, Clyde Tolson -- "Mrs. Hoover," as Billingsley called him. Henry Ford
II came by. So did Bernard Baruch and Andrei Gromyko.
Publicity flowed. A movie was made with the simple title "The Stork Club," and
for five years starting in 1950 there was a live network TV show of the same
name: it was filmed at the club, with Billingsley himself playing the host. The
announcer declared "anyone you ever heard aboutÉ. some time or another, comes to
the Stork Club." Jack Kennedy was a customer -- sometimes with Jackie, sometimes
with Marilyn. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor came. Cary Grant. Mamie
Eisenhower. In 1951 Billingsley paid $125,000 for a 5-story, 2-bay palazzo on
East 69th Street, next door to the building that today houses the Austrian
consulate-general.
There were signs of trouble, however. Ezio Pinza came by nightly, after
performances of "South Pacific," and every night he ordered spaghetti.
Billingsley couldn't stand it -- demanded to know why "that fucking Guinea"
didn't "go to a pasta place." Then, in a case that became a national scandal,
Josephine Baker stormed out, claiming that she was not being served. Billingsley
said that the club was busy that night, but on that same night he had noticed
her already seated and had barked, "who the fuck let her in?"
Billingsley had long-running battles with his staff, too. "Jesus Christ!" he
wrote on the bulletin board, as part of an effort to help educate his doormen,
"if you know them they don't belong in the Stork Club." Less than brilliant. In
1957 the long-suffering staff went on strike. Fighting their efforts to
unionize, Billingsley was represented by Roy Cohn. The workers never did
unionize, but Billingsley had to sell the mansion to pay Cohn's bills.
Billingsley was now living in an apartment, and the business was on the skids.
One day in 1963, the New York Times advertised a Stork Club burger and fries for
$1.99. The club's bandleader said, "it's all over, boys." He was right: the band
was replaced the next year by a discotheque. Discotheques were the rage, but the
Stork Club continued downhill.
The next year Billingsley was in the hospital, and the doctor's building was
sold to William Paley, the autocratic boss of CBS. A sign said "will relocate."
It never happened. Billingsley got out of the hospital, but the next year he
collapsed and died, aged 70. The building came down. Four years later the park
opened in memory of William Paley's father, Samuel. It soon found its way into
the literature of contemporary urban design.
Brother Logan -- who had stayed with New York real estate -- was already buried
with his father and another brother in Anadarko. Sherman wasn't so sentimentally
attached to Oklahoma, USA, but his attachment to it still ran deep. Once, trying
to explain to his daughter why he controlled her so compulsively -- trying and
of course failing to keep her away from men -- he said something straight from
that Christmas stocking: "Who ever cared about me? So that's why I'm telling you
what a lousy cruel world it is." On another occasion, he told his bandleader:
"You know my trouble, Don? The way you're born is the way you're going to be the
rest of your life."
So here's a kid who jumps from Anadarko to the High Life. Amazing. But there's
another jump in this story. Like most visitors, I come to New York and think
it's a great place. So much to see and do. Make it here, and you can make it
anywhere. That's what Sinatra said, and I guess I believe him.
Then I look around this park and remember Sherman Billingsley. I ask myself,
"how gullible can you be? How big a mark for today's Walter Winchells?" Do I
really think that Sherman Billingsley's life was any more sordid than, say, the
life of today's smiling celebrities? Am I fool enough to believe that these
people are as their publicity machines make them seem?
I know, I know: I've just ruined People magazine for you. Sorry. Americans have
such a hard time shedding their belief that powerful people are good people:
take that away, and you cut away at something very close to the heart of our
culture. Am I happy doing such a thing? Not likely. Like almost everyone else,
I'd rather admire, defer, gawk. I just read this morning about someone with $1.9
billion.
Margaret, sensible creature, knows better, but she's Canadian. She takes the
park for what it is and enjoys it. I take it for what it was and make it into a
moral object lesson. She thinks of how it might smell in May. I think of Citizen
Kane and its image of a world where people applaud a great and powerful man who
lies on his deathbed and, to everyone's perplexity, keeps whispering "Christmas
stocking." Oops! Sorry about that. I meant to say "Rosebud."
Page last modified 3/05/01
© 2001 by Dept. of Geography, University of Oklahoma, USA, all rights reserved.
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