Rare original 3.25 x 1.5 “Guest Ticket” for the “William R. Edrington Birthday Party” held at midnight on February 22, 1926, at The Earl Carroll Theatre in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Issued for “M” and “Stage Door,” the ticket is priced for “Beauties 100, No Tax” for “Total A Good Time.” Matted and framed to an overall size of 6 x 5. In fine condition.
On February 22, 1926, theater producer Earl Carroll threw a birthday party for William R. Edrington (one of his chief backers) at his Earl Carroll Theater in New York. The party numbered a guest total of about 300, including a young showgirl named Joyce Hawley, who Carroll paid to disrobe on stage in a bathtub of champagne. After five or 10 minutes, Hawley said she was too cold, left the bath, redressed, and began to dance with the other partygoers. The party—and its bathtub highlight—quickly made headlines thanks to one of the guests, Philip Payne, the editor of the Daily Mirror. Being Prohibition, Federal agents arrested Carroll, who was ultimately found not guilty of the liquor charges—it wasn’t illegal to have alcohol at private parties, it was only illegal to buy it or sell it. He was, however, sentenced to six months in prison for perjury: no one believed Carroll’s tale that the bathtub was full of ginger ale or that Joyce Hawley had not sat in it.
