{"id":64136,"date":"2023-01-31T20:57:04","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T20:57:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=64136"},"modified":"2023-02-13T22:06:57","modified_gmt":"2023-02-13T22:06:57","slug":"a-woman-you-should-know-rita-rio-the-sweetheart-of-swing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=64136","title":{"rendered":"A Woman You Should Know \u2014 Rita Rio the Sweetheart of Swing"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Woman You Should Know \u2014 Rita Rio the Sweetheart of Swing<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Medium<\/a>
\n2018-03-12<\/p>\n

Leslie Zemeckis<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
Rita Rio and her all-girl band<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What started as a publicity stunt surprisingly led to a fulfilling career as \u201cthe outstanding orchestra leader\u201d of a popular all-girl band.<\/p>\n

She was born Eunice Westmoreland<\/a> in Miami, Florida<\/a> in 1914. She would use many names during a diverse career as a showgirl, musician, orchestra leader and actress. Both her parents were of African American heritage and she was gorgeous.<\/p>\n

Moving to Philadelphia<\/a> her father ran a restaurant where as a young girl Eunice began entertaining the customers. As a teenager she became Una Villon and danced as a chorus girl in nightclubs, including Nil\u2019s T. Granlund\u2019s<\/a> Paradise Restaurant, one of the premier entertainment venues in Manhattan<\/a>. Granlund, nicknamed N.T.G. was a friend of movie star Jean Harlow<\/a>, whose career he helped advance. He would be responsible for hiring innumerable chorus girls who would dance onto fame and fortune. The Paradise would feature the likes of fan dancer Sally Rand<\/a> and silent movie star Lina Basquette<\/a>. N.T.G.\u2019s partner, or benefactor, was Charlie Sherman who would later be found buried under quick lime at an abandoned barn, on property formerly owned by a mobster associated with a New York<\/a> gang, the Amberg mob. Sherman had last been seen leaving the Paradise…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She was born Eunice Westmoreland in Miami, Florida in 1914. She would use many names during a diverse career as a showgirl, musician, orchestra leader and actress. Both her parents were of African American heritage and she was gorgeous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,1245,8,6462,20,25],"tags":[30845,30844,33735,18537],"class_list":["post-64136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-biography","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","category-women","tag-dona-drake","tag-eunice-westmoreland","tag-leslie-zemeckis","tag-medium"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64136"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64173,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64136\/revisions\/64173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}