378: The Mysterious Frances Day

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[SPEAKER_01]: the perfect day.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Jason Horton.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Rebecca Leib, and this is Ghost Town.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So don't show you a picture of somebody and you just tell me what your perceptions are.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I would say kind of soul-tree vampy little like Lady Gaga is you're not the first person to say that Everyone thinks that this woman looks like Lady Gaga.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I mean very a lot like yeah, yeah, she's not Lady Gaga But if this woman had like a movie right like Lady Gaga would be pretty pissed like this is not Lady Gaga But it is the portrait of a captivating cabaret performer charismatic public figure and bisexual femme fatale

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[SPEAKER_02]: who single-handedly and infamously pushed the limits of both fame and obscurity.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Today on Ghost Town, the wildlife, mysterious disappearance, and surprising death of Francis Day.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Francis Victoria Shank was born in East Orange, New Jersey, a Jersey girl in 1908.

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[SPEAKER_02]: By the age of 16, she was dancing in New York City Speakeysies, dangerous places, venues synonymous with prohibition era rebellion.

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[SPEAKER_02]: These formative years, competing for attention with booze, cigarettes, and all kinds of risk-aandertainment, allowed Shank to cultivate her competence in stage presence, elevating the teenager, yes, teenager, to star status in the underground cabaret scene.

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[SPEAKER_02]: During one of her performances, she caught the attention of an Australian entrepreneur named Beaumont Alexander.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Impressed by her talent and charisma, Alexander thought Shank's potential was being wasted in dirty, dimly lit underground speakeysies, so he whisked her away to London, a place at the time that craved daring new acts and reveled in avant-garde theatre.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Under Alexander's guidance, we'll call it guidance, I guess, but you know, he was rich and twice her age, Shank transformed into a femme fatale with ice-planned hair seductive makeup and a brash yet mysterious confidence that would define her as a performer.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So how risky are we talking?

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[SPEAKER_02]: Well, for a time she was known to perform only in a g-string and an ostrich feather.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Pretty risky for 1920s to be sure, and I would say, maybe even now.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Of course, this is also the time that she decided to drop her last name, Shank.

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[SPEAKER_02]: and, going for more brevity and glamour, became Francis' day.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Surprising nobody, least of all you listeners, I'm sure, Francis' day rose up through the cabaret ranks of the 1920s and early 30s, becoming the toast of London's nightclub scene.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Days beauty, bold nature, and willingness to push boundaries, both as a person and as a cabaret dancer, gave her the reputation as a kind of English provocateur, a temptress, someone kind of dangerous.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Day eventually married Alexander, and despite the influence that Alexander had on her life and career, some say perhaps molding her into the star that she'd become, the demand for day's burgeoning fame and influence as well as her independent nature made the marriage difficult to say the least.

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[SPEAKER_02]: The couple separated after three years and day would never again marry.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I want to specify that Francis Day didn't marry again, not because she didn't find love, because, oh, she did.

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[SPEAKER_02]: The next phase of her life was filled with high-profile romantic entanglements, male and female.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, we are talking about a bisexual cabaret icon who's about to seduce a lot of very important people.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Francis Day had many admirers, slash lovers, slash liaison, slash significant others.

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[SPEAKER_02]: We didn't know who was what to her, but we do know who she was seen and who she was connected to.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Let's start with the King, shall we?

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[SPEAKER_02]: Day had a well-known affair with Edward the Prince of Wales, later King Edward the 8th.

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[SPEAKER_02]: You might remember him from the crown, or, I don't know, history, as the British King with Nazi ties who abdicated the throne in 1936 to marry the twice divorced and very glamorous Wallace Simpson.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So, that makes sense, right?

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[SPEAKER_02]: Edward Known for his charm and love of glamorous women was reportedly captivated by Francis' divacity and beauty.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Their relationship gave day access to many British elite, including Edward's younger brother, George.

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[SPEAKER_02]: You might know him from the crown, or history as well, as he became the king after Edward abdicated, and was the father of Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Known for his own opulent lifestyle and rumored by sexuality, found in Francis a kind of

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[SPEAKER_02]: Their connection will not explicitly romantic like the one she had with his brother, at least as far as I could tell, was actually loving and very close.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Then there was also the brother's cousin, Lord Mount Baton, and Prince Bertiel of Sweden.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Of course, the press had a field day with all of these high up and often related royal figures.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Princess Day's romantic exploits were also not confined to royalty.

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[SPEAKER_02]: She was connected to future UK Prime Minister Anthony Eden, which I would imagine was kind of opposite to track situation with the buttoned-up conservative public figure.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And then of course there were her romantically Azans with other women, relationships she flaunted as openly as she did with her male conquest.

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[SPEAKER_02]: She was rumored to be connected to actor Toulula Banchead and Marlene Dietrich.

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[SPEAKER_02]: After meeting Francis, even First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt wrote to her quote, I find I am quite unable to resist your extraordinary and impestuous magnetism.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I am suggesting that Francis today seduced one of the most influential and bisexual allegedly women of the 20th century.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Day continued to rise in fame, extending beyond the cabaret stage.

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[SPEAKER_02]: She starred in several successful stage productions, including Jill Darling, Floodlight, and Black Fanities.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Her transition to film was equally as successful with appearances in The Girl From Maxims and O Daddy.

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[SPEAKER_02]: However, as her star kept rising, so did her eccentric and erratic behavior.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, of course it did.

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[SPEAKER_02]: She'd often arrive at performances just moments before they were set to begin, and broke contracts with lynx, and broke contracts with broke contracts with lengthy gratuitous on-course.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, she figured if she liked it and it sold tickets why not?

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[SPEAKER_02]: The theater managers weren't the biggest fans of hers, but hey, day was a mega star, and the audience, of course, loved it.

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[SPEAKER_02]: But by the end of World War II her popularity was faltering, film and TV was on the rise and cabaret was simply not as popular.

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[SPEAKER_02]: In the 1950s she made only four films, but found a new career as a regular panelist on the British version of What's My Line, which ran from July 16th, 1951 until May 13th, 1963.

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[SPEAKER_02]: During these years, she preferred to spend time with her close, theatrical friend, friend in quotes, I suppose, May Fair Eris, Dorothy Hartman, who got grotesquely rich being the major distributor of Buick and Cadillac cars in London.

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[SPEAKER_02]: But by 1965, Francis Day completely disappeared from her intriguing drama-filled public life.

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[SPEAKER_02]: But I would argue this is where her life got really fascinating.

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[SPEAKER_02]: More after this break.

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[SPEAKER_02]: In 1965, the attractive charismatic X-Cabaret star Francis Day had not only withdrawn from public life, but did something even more extreme.

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[SPEAKER_02]: She gave up her identity entirely.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Francis Day changed her name to Sam to Young Johnson, and denied that she was ever the famous Francis Day at all.

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[SPEAKER_02]: She cut off all her fancy friends, moved to Maidenhead, and completely reinvented herself.

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[SPEAKER_02]: For nearly two decades, Francis Day now just Sam to Johnson lived in Loki, middle-class obscurity, her glamorous past hidden from those around her.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So I ask you now, is this how you would spend your later years?

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[SPEAKER_02]: What kind of move is this?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I mean, yeah.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I don't know.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I I like to rock like like to think that I'll like just always want to rock and roll You just want to rock.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I just want to rock, but then also I could easily just be like, well, you could rock or roll.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I can just be like, you know what?

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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm good.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You're just you're like, I'll just like sit back my like lazy boy and just like watch some good TV It's I think it's just I don't people always I mean, I don't know.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I always say like, oh, if I had this or if I could do that and then I get the opportunity like somebody asked me like do something And I'm like oh I Like that sounds like a burden to like oh, you're tired.

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[SPEAKER_02]: You want to just chill

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[SPEAKER_01]: I just want to just chill, but I like to, I like to think of myself as one way, but I know given the chance that I could very easily just be like, you know what, I can just back off.

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[SPEAKER_02]: That's really chill and cool.

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[SPEAKER_02]: If you would have to pry fame from my cold dead hands, any relevance, you think I'm going to give up, I'm hanging out most of my life in a g-string and an ostrich feather and all of a sudden I'm like, no, I don't need that anymore.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I want fans.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I want to have sex with celebrities and I want to enjoy just being a complete and utter monster.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I want to have sex with commoners.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So evolved.

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[SPEAKER_02]: You're so evolved.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what that's like just just regular folk That's just this is common folk salt to the earth's sack just just common folk just a Creamly hot commoners.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, tens common 10 like commoner.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, just like make a bliss 10

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[SPEAKER_00]: Great.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't say make upless.

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[SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm sorry.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think corporate it's like, I listen to her, but what you're saying.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, I give the charity, but not that.

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[SPEAKER_02]: No, okay.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'm glad we know where we stand on this.

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[SPEAKER_02]: It's very important.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So in researching part of this life information of Francis Day,

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[SPEAKER_02]: it was hard to come by like the obscurity part of it.

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[SPEAKER_02]: But I had to know that there's tons of photos of glamour photos of her online out.

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[SPEAKER_02]: This is very weird because I've researched a lot of episodes about people in this time period and it's very hard to come by media, especially like glamour photos of them.

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[SPEAKER_02]: But there are so many photos of her and she's very hot and very captivating.

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[SPEAKER_02]: You can see her charisma like even now decades and decades later.

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[SPEAKER_01]: This is a pretty, a bridge of Bardot.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, oh, yeah, I mean, Betty Pays.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly, this pin-up, these kind of like ice blondes, like hitch cocky and, um, and but even Marilyn Monroe, yeah, kind of came before all of them and helped create that look, that like blonde kind of seductive.

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[SPEAKER_01]: What most Peter's thing is since she's such a pioneer,

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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely and also it's that push and pull of like she was made to be this person But she also like kind of gave no fucks to in a way like the idea of like being queer and out at this time She was very Very brave and also a little bit dangerous and she just did not she's like I I just am who I am and I'm gonna ride it, but then when she was done she was just she was done, you know

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[SPEAKER_02]: It would be weird to see her again all these beautiful photos like we're just walking on the sidewalk in like obscurity it would be very very strange.

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[SPEAKER_02]: On April 29, 1984, day actually passed away of leukemia at 75 years old.

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[SPEAKER_02]: She didn't have at this point many people in her life.

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[SPEAKER_02]: She was living in obscurity and very happily so, so there weren't many people to inform of her death.

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[SPEAKER_02]: But there was one person who needed to know.

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[SPEAKER_02]: After day died, Howard McBrion, a random employee who worked in an office beneath the day's apartment, got some surprising news.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Knowing her only as Samp to Young Johnson, the kindly woman upstairs, McBride was astonished to learn that she had left her house and her entire 162,000-pound estate to him and her handwritten will.

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[SPEAKER_02]: The will also included the following directive.

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[SPEAKER_02]: That there be no notice or information of any kind of my death, except for, and if a death certificate is obligatory.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Any persons, private or press, you shall simply say that I am no longer at this address, gone away, destination unknown, and that is the truth.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Many people have hypothesized on why she did this, why she left her money to a complete stranger, so that she didn't even know that well to begin with.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Any ideas, any?

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's probably someone who was, I'm assuming, very kind or something.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like, it's, people make connections with people and they don't realize, like, how important.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I mean, it was probably probably somewhat of a two-way street, but maybe he didn't realize, like, how much, like, just a regular, just a regular person.

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[SPEAKER_02]: make a hello in the in the stairway over to you know it becomes it becomes part of your day-to-day is seeing that person and that becomes almost like a like a loved one or something like yeah exactly especially when you have no one else and again by design by choice of course Reddit has lots to say on days legacy but to conclude this episode I'll share a couple of opinions posted less than a year ago this conversation is still fairly active

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[SPEAKER_02]: From Leslie's Land Party, I read about her a few years ago and think about her a lot.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I like to imagine she just got sick of the lifestyle and decided to start over as a normal lady in a random mid-sized town under an assumed name.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Anything besides the idea of her living a full, happy life, Bumsie Meat.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Anything besides the idea of her living a full happy life bums me out too much.

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[SPEAKER_02]: From good times in Chino, hard to put my finger on one specific trait, but damn, she is indeed magnetic.

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[SPEAKER_02]: 100% certain I would have been absolutely powerless against her charms.