Betty was born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1916.
Her family was hit hard by the Depression. This was just when she and her sisters had been taking dance lessons and performing vaudeville.
Perhaps by necessity, by her early teens, Betty was already performing professionally. Eventually, all her sisters began dancing burlesque, too.
MINSKY’S
Rowland was very popular as a dancer of the trade and became associated with Minsky’s, the famous New York burlesque club.
When New York’s crackdown on burlesque pushed performers out of the city, Betty moved to Los Angeles in the late 1930s.
That’s where she acquired her famous stage name: “The Ball of Fire.”
She was only about 5’1”, had striking red hair, and a lively, energetic personality onstage.
Betty’s style was playful, graceful and theatrical.
She smiled, but not too much and danced while joking with the audience , as well as, incorporated her ballet training into her routines.
Her costumes were surprisingly elegant. She wore long skirts slit high on the thigh, sparkly cropped tops and long gloves too.
Betty Had A Signature Dance
One of her signature numbers was called ‘Bumps in the Ballet’.
She would parody a classical ballet performance with a few bumps and grinds.
Then came her version of the German Roll, an acrobatic/burlesque movement that became one of her trademarks.
The “German Roll” was an acrobatic dance maneuver. It was a rapid rolling/tumbling movement performed as part of a striptease routine. Betty was training in acrobatics and ballet —- so she used all of her techniques and dancer’s body to create a dramatic, almost circus-like effect.
It’s part of why she was remembered so distinctly – she had unique moves.
The Tease Was The Point
Betty felt that in burlesque – the tease was the point.
In later life, she complained about the transition from classic burlesque into increasingly explicit strip clubs and pornography.
She gained some fame for asking the question, “What’s a lap dance?”
Then She Got Arrested
In 1939 she was fined $250 for lewdness.
During the trial, a policeman actually demonstrated her routine in court—apparently to considerable amusement. That would be something to see. 😉
Then in 1952 she was arrested again.
This time the circumstances were almost comical…
Two plainclothes vice officers went to the burlesque theater where Betty Rowland was performing. The officers were apparently regular visitors and expected to be admitted without paying, but a box-office employee did not recognize them and did not honor that expectation of being let in for free.
So this is what they did — they arrest Betty Rowland and the theater manager and she was sentenced to four months in jail.
A newspaper columnist publicly attacked the severity of the sentence, noting that it seemed absurdly harsh.
Betty ultimately served only about three weeks.
The Old Hollywood Connection
Betty claimed that she had been hired as a technical adviser for the 1941 Samuel Goldwyn film Ball of Fire, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper.
Betty also claimed that costume designer Edith Head had attended her burlesque performances and examined one of Betty’s costumes backstage.
Ultimately, Betty felt the studio had essentially, appropriated her professional identity. She subsequently sued the Samuel Goldwyn Company.
She lost the lawsuit, but the publicity undoubtedly helped cement her reputation.
Betty Became A Centenarian
Betty Rowland continued performing well into the 1950s and reportedly was still appearing onstage in Los Angeles in her 50s.
She eventually owned a Santa Monica bar and remained involved with it for decades.
In 2009, at 93, the Los Angeles Times interviewed her and found her still living in Los Angeles, surrounded by photographs and memorabilia from her career.
Incredibly, Betty was still receiving fan mail from people fascinated by the world of vintage burlesque.
Betty Rowland died in 2022 at the age of 106!
Betty was interviewed extensively late in life and appeared in Leslie Zemeckis’s 2010 documentary Behind the Burly Q.
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