Dec 29th, 2009
Indianapolis Strip Clubs: Tropicana turns 70, feathers, dancing gals and all
The Tropicana club was started by Italian-Brazilian show-biz producer Victor de Correa and two casino operators, but it became famous about a decade later when it fell under the sway of American mobsters Santo Trafficante Jr. and Meyer Lansky, who along with their frontmen drew big-name talent and hired the voluptuous cabaret girls known the world over as “Goddesses of the Flesh.”
Among the stars who played the main stage, under a lush canopy of trees: Celia Cruz, Paul Robeson, Liberace, Orfelia Fox, Carmen Miranda and Yma Sumac. Many nights the audience was just as famous. Marlon Brando, Sammy Davis, Jr., Greta Garbo and other Hollywood stars came to the Tropicana, making it the ideal place to see and be seen.
There was even a Cubana airlines plane with live music and a wet bar to take patrons from Miami for the show and return them early the next day.
Shortly after Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, the Tropicana and other famous Cuban hotels and casinos were nationalized, and many of the gaming houses, brothels and strip clubs never reopened.