The customers cheered. They shouted. They screamed.
So, though the three hot-house lovelies sneered and pouted, Granny handed the youngster the prize. And he told her he was going to put her to work at the Strand Roof, at $50 a week. The girl almost fainted.
As an afterthought, N.T.G. asked her name.
She replied: "Ruby Keeler."
She became that almost mythical creation, "The Toast of Broadway."
She was taken under the "wing" of Johnny Irish, a long since forgotten gangster, whose hoodlums saw to it no others romanced her. But Al Jolson, then the king of show business, fell—and hard. Irish, who loved her with a love that passeth understanding, called the singer to his hotel room. Al, fearing he was about to be taken for a ride, was agreeably surprised when the mobster asked what "his intentions are."
In relief, Al blurted out that he wanted to marry the dancer. Big-hearted Irish adopted a noble pose, gave the girl up.
"I'll take my boys to Atlantic City," he said, "and you hop an ocean liner with Ruby. Otherwise maybe some of them will get an idea you're taking her away from me and maybe they won't like it. And heaven help you if you don't marry her."
She married Al Jolson at 17. She hit film stardom. Then she chucked it, still in her twenties, to marry a poor boy, rusticate in Pasadena and have four children.