She was arrested four times in a single day during the fair due to perceived indecent exposure after a fan dance performance and while riding a white horse down the streets of Chicago, where the nudity was only an illusion, and again after being bodypainted by Max Factor, Sr. She would play peek-a-boo with her body by manipulating her fans in front and behind her, like a winged bird as she swooped and twirled on the stage, usually to "Clair de Lune". Her most famous appearance was at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, which was entitled Century of Progress. She was selected as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1927.Īfter the introduction of sound films, she became a dancer, known for the fan dance, which she popularized starting at the Paramount Club, at 15 E.
DeMille gave her the name Sally Rand, inspired by a Rand McNally atlas. Careerĭuring the 1920s, she acted on stage and appeared in silent films.
She also performed in summer stock and traveling theater, including working with a then-unknown Humphrey Bogart. For a short time as she worked her way to the west coast, she was employed as an acrobat in the Ringling Brothers Circus. After studying ballet and drama in Kansas City, the teenage Helen decided her future lay in Hollywood. An early supporter of her talent was Goodman Ace, drama critic for the Kansas City Journal who saw her performing in a Kansas City nightclub and wrote glowing reviews. Helen got her start on the stage quite early, working as a chorus girl at Kansas City's Empress Theater when she was only 13. The family moved to Jackson County, Missouri while she was still in grade school. Army colonel, while her mother, Nettie (Grove) Beck, was a school teacher and part-time newspaper correspondent. Her father, William Beck, was a West Point graduate and retired U.S. Hattie Helen Gould Beck was born in the village of Elkton, Hickory County, Missouri.
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