Legend: Betty Rowland

Betty Rowland: Featured Legend of Red Hots Burlesque

It must be Monday, because we have another legend at Red Hots Burlesque to love…

BETTY ROWLAND

Nothing heats up summer like the original “Ball of Fire” Betty Rowland. This pint-sized burlesque legend got her name from her mop of red hair that she would flip and toss during her numbers. Unbeknownst to their parents, Betty and her sister Rose-Zell became burlesque dancers a few years after their father lost his job the Great Depression. She was an original Minsky’s girl, performing in New York City until Mayor LaGuardia cracked down on the burlesque houses, citing them as immoral. She moved to Los Angeles in 1938, where she continued bumping and grinding, even getting arrested and serving jail time for three weeks after a club owner wouldn’t let two police officers in for free. Described as a class act, Rowland never smoked or drank, and often received up to twenty fan letters a day during her dancing days. While Betty Rowland had the most prolific of burlesque and film careers of her siblings, her younger sister Diana Rowland also had a brief burlesque career in her 20s, but passed away young from complications of scarlet fever. (Another sister never made it to the stage.)