Manhattan Strip Clubs: Theatre pioneer went to Hollywood and back; His career ran the gamut from the …
In 1951, at 22 a stage veteran, he co-founded Totem Theatre with Stuart Baker as an outdoor summer stock company in West Vancouver’s Ambleside Park. The Gold Dust Twins, as they became known, soon had a permanent venue in a downtown union hall at Dunsmuir and Beatty streets, where they produced plays ranging from Charley’s Aunt to No Exit.
Arngrim was a natural promoter — he knew it mattered that Totem Theatre patrons could have a drink at the Beatty Street theatre’s adjoining Press Club and that a stunt involving a stripper’s horse arriving in the theatre as a ticketed patron would get everybody talking. Arngrim once rented an elephant to promote a production of The Man Who Came To Dinner, but the effort ran into difficulty when the elephant’s owner insisted that it do tricks, while Arngrim, who left town before he’d paid for the elephant’s services, wanted the animal to simply stand outside the theatre.
See the full article from “Kelowna.com”