Orangevale's Pink Pussy Kat left legacy

Orangevale's Pink Pussy Kat a Go-Go may have been short-lived and lacking in grandeur, but it left its mark on American culture through its challenge of perceived and later instituted indecency standards. Having found no recorded account of the club or the trial, I wrote one based on news stories obtained through The Sacramento Bee and an autobiography written by former exotic performer Susanne Haines Register. Please help me improve on this article. -- Ed Fletcher

Tavern owner Leonard Glancy
 is flanked by dancers
Susanne Haines (left) and Shiela Brendenson  Sacramento Bee August 27, 1969

Orangevale strip club impact outlasts club

The Pink Pussy Kat was a beer bar and strip club noted for its legal wranglings with county and state authorities over indecency standards in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It was located in Orangevale, CA, about 25 miles northeast of Sacramento. 

The bar, which featured beer, food, pool tables and topless (and sometimes bottomless) barmaids is believed to have closed on or around the March 1976 death of owner Leonard Glancy. It was located at 9346 Greenback Lane, in a drab Orangevale shopping plaza.

Sacramento County Sheriff "Big" John Misterly actively sought to reign in the 1960s counterculture movement and tasked detectives with making regular check at the region's adult-themed bars.

On July 27, 1969, dancers Susanne Marie Haines, 22, and Sheila Brandenson,  were arrested after performing fully nude. Owner Leonard Glancy was taken in as well. Topless had been the acceptable practice. Presiding over the trial was Sacramento Superior Court Judge Earl Warren, Jr., who happens to be the son of former California Governor and Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren. Warren still resides in the Sacramento area.

The trial made national headlines after Warren agreed to a defense motion to temporarily move the proceeding to the club and allow the jury to see the offending performance. On Sept. 17, Haines attempted to replicate the dance for which was was arrested. She danced to "Suzy Q," and songs by the Byrds and Jimi Hendrix under dim lights with psychedelic art projected on the walls. On Sept. 22, noted San Francisco topless performer Carol Doda also performed for the jury.

The dancers and Glancy were acquitted Oct. 2, 1969, by the 10-man, two-woman jury, but that was far from the end of the legal fight over nude dancing.

On Oct. 21, Sacramento County enacted an ordinance prohibiting topless and bottomless dancing, and topless waitresses.

Glancy and Haines challenged the constitutionality of the ordinance.

During the legal fight, Glancy turned to various other means to keep his business going, including offering patrons a closed-circuit broadcast of on-site strip performances and putting dancers in see-through panties.

The result of the case, which was combined with other challenges from similar laws, is California’s current practice of not allowing alcohol at fully-nude strip clubs based health code rules.

On May 12, 1970, Glancy was arrested in the shooting of a patron in the parking lot. Glancy claimed it was in defense.

Shortly after her indecency acquittal, Haines left the Pink Pussy Kat. To further her career as striptease performer and capitalize on her notoriety, she began touring gentlemen's clubs across the country as a featured performer. In 1971, she won the title of Miss Nude Cosmos, often known by its more legally dubious name, Miss Nude Universe. During her time on the road, doing a week or more stints at strip clubs, she was arrested more than a dozen times for performing bottomless. By her account, these dances -- and her arrests -- were part publicity stunt, part legitimate act of free expression.

Death records indicate Glancy died in March of 1976.

It’s unclear when the club closed.  

In 1978, Haines, under her married name Susanne Haines Register wrote, “Take It All Off,” an autobiography that followed her path from Mormon schoolgirl to “dope-smoking” dancer and on to her eventual self-described “salvation.”

Dancer's memoir reveals church, closer Sacramento connection

"Take It All Off" by Susanne Haines Register, 1978

"Susanne wrote a memoir."

That's was the new fact staring at me via a facebook message.
It would have been nice to know that three years ago when I started this screenplay.
"Take It All Off," by Susanne Haines Register, was released by Beta Books of San Diego in 1978.
The book covers her early life, the Sacramento indecency trial, her reign as Miss Nude Universe and more than a year traveling the country as a headlining exotic dancer.
For the uninitiated,  my screenplay "Pink" focuses on Susanne's 1969 arrest and trial. The case became national news when the trial judge decided that for the jury to determine whether the dance violated community standards they'd have to see it.
News clips and the accounts of the reporters that covered it form the bulk of my research. When the script started it was a 15-minute short film I expected to produce for a few thousand dollars. But when I embarked on expanding it, it never occurred to be to exhaustively research the story before leaping into the feature length version.
Reading the news clips gave me the rough outline of what happened, but not much of a sense of the person. The Bee and other news outlets covered the story, but kept their toe in the shallow end. I knew a little more about details about the Sheriff Misterly and trial Judge Earl Warren Jr., who happens to be son of the former Supreme Court Justice, but as the story went through revisions it was clear Susanne was the star.
Why did she get arrested seven times for performing bottomless? I didn't know for sure so I filled in the blanks. I gave her voice.
The book -- somehow invisible to google searches -- provides tantalizing new details. Susanne was born Susanne Tropper (March 13, 1947) to Frank Julius Tropper and Alice May (Simpson) Tropper. Family tragedy forced her to harden fast as she split time growing up between Sacramento's suburbs (Fair Oaks and Roseville) and Provo, UT. After a tumultuous childhood, she won Miss Placer County at age 16 before finding her way to the stage of Orangevale's Pink Pussy Kat.
While the book is lacking in literary grace, it's a flashlight into the shadowy '70s strip club circuit. Susanne represented the highest ideals of the craft in fighting for free expression, but also saw the lows exotic dance.
My task now is to see how the new facts fit into my pre-existing world.

Screenwriter revisits hometown 'Pow Wow' roots, reconnects with past

Orangevale Pow Wow Days stage area 2015

Orangevale is one of those "where" places.
Any mention of it -- to most anyone -- must quickly be followed by "where" it's near.
"Between Folsom and Roseville," is where I tell people.
In northeast Sacramento County, it's where the sidewalks end.
It's my hometown and the setting of the feature film script, I'm working to turn into a major motion picture.
The arrest and trial of the dancers at the "Pink Pussy Kat a Go-Go" became a national story and helped set the rules for exotic dance.
Few people know about this. I'm trying to change that. It would be/will be an amazing gift from my home community.
You can only really be from one place (military brats excepted).
I'm from Orangevale.
I left after high school and while I live in Sacramento now, my interaction with the community is

little beyond visiting my parents.
Being one of a handful of black kids in a community I affectionately call the Idaho of California, was at times a challenge. The late 1990s were certainly better racially than ever, but the late 1990s in Orangevale was not the same as the 1990s in more diverse communities.
I made the most of it. I was student body president (CRHS 1993) so some would say I thrived. But I wouldn't say I fit in. By the time I attended high school at Casa Roble the spittoons were gone, but vail of homogeneous isolation permeated. I often felt treated as the exception to a generally accepted rule about black people.
When faced with the sheer amount of bad country music produced in the 1990s one can either give in and say you like it or fight it.  Hating country was my buttress, protecting my few black points.
Committed to the fight against country, as soon as I had a choice in the matter, I avoided "Pow Wow Days," the longstanding community parade and carnival.
Orangevale doesn't have much. It's an unincorporated spec of Sacramento County that's hard to get to by highway thus maintaining some level of rural charm, but it doesn't have that gold rush era downtown of Folsom or the size, organization and ambition of
Roseville.
Since 1963, the community has been experiencing some level of Pow Wow. As a child, I marched in it was a Boy Scout.
As adult man, sans child, who has experienced Mardi Gras (several times), it's real easy to go curmudgeon on regular old small town parades. They don't throw beads, alcohol must be smuggled and there is little chance of boobie exposure, but there is something that is uniquely community socializing and unifying about parades.
So that extent, there is something unique and great about Orangevale's "Pow Wow Days."
I made a return visit Friday night and Saturday afternoon to tell people about "Pink" and the "Pink Pussy Kat a Go-Go."
From a visitors perspective, the event seemed healthy. It's 32 acres, snuggled between other parks and schools, is an ideal venue for an outdoor concert. There were kids galore on the carnival rides, plenty of vendors, a radio station sponsor, and a healthy beer garden. (Though they could step it up with more food variety and serving local beers.)
Loosely based an actual incident, some of the ladies from the Pink Pussy Kat cause a stir at Pow Wow Days in my script. So the visit could also be considered field research.
Another bonus: Saturday I ran into my childhood friend Billy Blackburn. That night, his band Blackburn Bullet bested seven competitors to win the "battle of the bands" hosted by radio station 101.9 the wolf. Billy's already talking about writing a song for the movie.
I was buoyed by the feedback I got from people young and old towards the Pink Pussy Kat story.
Young people were excited to hear about the historic trial. With old people, you could see the sparkle in their eye as they accessed those dusty files. I didn't find the motherload treasure trove of Pink Pussy Kat photos, but I'll keep looking.
 I see a few Rotary Club breakfasts and VFW Hall visits in my future as I continue my search.
Orangevale, here I come again.

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