Gigolo’s £5,000 a Year

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 January 1929, Page 9

Gigolo’s £5,000 a Year

Professional Dancing-Partners Make Rich Harvest Annually

rpHE probable incomes earned by “dance hostesses,” “professional dancing partners,” and “dance hosts” or “gigolos,” as the men are colloquially known in London and abroad, have become an object of keen curiosity. It was recently stated at Geneva that a young man had given £8 to each of the professional dance-partners with whom he had danced on the night before his arrest.

Such a sum is exceptional, but not so infrequent as might be supposed.

In the casino towns there is a regular tariff and a regular convention.

If a gigolo approaches a table and asks whether one of the women sitting there would care to dance, he does so, the first time, as a speculation. That is to say, if, when he approaches her again for the next dance (supposing she has accepted his first invitation), she refuses him, he cannot expect a tip. If she accepts, he will be given a 100-franc note at the very least either by her or her escort at the end of the afternoon or evening. £3 TO £8 A DAY. The average sum earned by a gigolo on the Continent may be estimated at about £8 a day for one who has a good “practice,” and about £3 for one who is new to the profession and does not know many people. When I was in Monte Carlo last January (says an English writer), I discussed his earnings with an English gigolo. He told me that his most successful rival —an ex-waiter — earned 200,000 francs between December and March. This is £l,OOO in English money.

He would then go on to Le Touquet for Easter and Whitsun and Deauville and Biarritz in the summer and early autumn. It was estimated that he made £5,000 a year. In London, where there are now about 40 gigolos, there is a different

procedure at nearly every restaurant or dance club that employs them. A man was dismissed from one smart establishment for doing what is quite tolerated in another. This is to exact a percentage of the earnings from the “dance hostesses” for introducing them to unattached men.

At the restaurant where this is allowed I was told by the management that the retaining fees given are nominal, but that the women earn between £2O and £3O a week and the men between £lO and £ls a week, apart from what they receive from the dance hostesses. Here, though there is no hard-and-fast rule, a dance hostess expects at least two guineas for dancing with the same man the whole evening, and is not surprised if she receives £5.