Instant Fad

A two-toned Cadillac purred to a stop on a sleazy block of Manhattan's West 45th Street. Out climbed a distinguished-looking, grey-haired man. He negotiated the litter-strewn sidewalk, threaded his way through a scattering of post-teen wenches in black leather jackets and boys with duck-tailed haircuts. For a moment, he stared dubiously at a hole-in-the-wall honky-tonk called the Peppermint Lounge, then rushed back to the waiting limousine burbling, "This is the place!" Quickly, two men and three women got out and gingerly followed their scout past the long, noisy bar into the back room. Through the low-level light, furred over by cigarette smoke, they could make out a few guitar-slapping, foot-waggling singers, all yelling unintelligible words against the driving, torrential blast of rock 'n' roll music. On the dance floor, a tight tangle of people shuddered and shook through a series of hip-tossing, pelvis-thrusting, arm-swinging gyrations that go by the name of "The Twist."

Everything Moves. The Peppermint Lounge is the latest shrine for Manhattan's pleasure-sated cafe society. Scattered in the swarm of habitues, like rhinestones in a bowl of raisins, the interlopers watch with delighted approval as the dancers squirm and wrench.

Launched by Pop Singer Chubby Checkers in Philadelphia over a year ago and taken up by teen-aged faddists across the country, The Twist at first was an innocent enough dance; it has since been largely discarded in favor of such refinements as "The Roach" and "The Fly." But the youngsters at the Peppermint have revived The Twist and parodied it into a replica of some ancient tribal puberty rite. The dancers scarcely ever touch each other or move their feet. Everything else, however, moves. The upper body sways forward and backward and the hips and shoulders twirl erotically, while the arms thrust in, out, up and down with the pistonlike motions of a baffled bird keeper fighting off a flock of attacking blue jays.

The Peppermint Lounge and its Twist might well have remained just another flesh spa for the midtown beatnik crowd had it not been for the sharp eye of New York Journal-American Society Editor "Cholly Knickerbocker" (Igor Cassini), who somehow spotted a few members of the smart set slumming there one night. No sooner did Cholly break the news in his gossip column than the Peppermint Lounge became an instant fad. The Duke and Duchess of Bedford showed up. So did Porfirio and Odile Rubirosa, and Bill Zeckendorf Jr. and Judy Garland and the Bruno Pagliais (Merle Oberon), and Billy Rose, and Tennessee Williams, and William Inge. The word shot quickly over the mink-line to the Stork's Cub Room, El Morocco and the Harwyn Club. Inside of just a few weeks, virtually everybody who is anybody in cafe society had snapped up the Peppermint like a brand-new charity.

Out of Cocoons. Last week for example, Elsa Maxwell materialized on the dance floor and performed something that somebody identified as something rather resembling The Twist. Author Norman Mailer, neither naked nor dead, but soaked in perspiration, danced dazedly with Lady Jeanne Campbell, granddaughter of British Press Lord Beaverbrook. Mrs. Robert Sarnoff, wife of the NBC board chairman, cut up a little, while Artist Rene Bouche, in shirtsleeves, watched from his table. Britain's Marquess and Marchioness of Tavistock shared in the general joy that erupted from such lyrics as Oh, We're Going Up, Yeah, Yeah, and We're Coming Down, and The Closest to the Bone, the Sweetest the Meat. Even Greta Garbo hauled herself out of her myth-lined cocoon and appeared, lank-haired and bone-pale, to snap her fingers and smile.

Now and then, the aristocrats got up to try The Twist; a few bashful ones tested it first at tableside. But mostly they just watched. A vacant-faced girl in black pants, long black hair and black glasses, writhed hysterically to the raucous fast beat of the music. A sweet-faced, sweet-suited miss (Vassar? Smith?) unbuttoned her jacket, rolled her eyes at her clean-cut boyfriend (Yale? Princeton?). A lad in a double-breasted, pinstriped suit pummeled the air; a mascara-splotched hoyden tried to shake loose from a dress that was tighter than wallpaper; a Negro exhibited his ball-bearing hips. Bang-bang, whomp-whomp, hi-de-hi and ugh-ugh, they grimaced and they groveled, they ground and they groaned in the dim light till they were spent.

And the slummers slipped off to their sedate apartments overlooking the river on the East Side.

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