Chapter Summaries

CHAPTER SUMMARIES

Chapter 1 The Dream

Dana’s story begins with a description of the first performance of The Dancing Stallions, a magical equestrian extravaganza in separate acts choreographed to moving music, the theme from Star Wars, and an overall inspirational message—Believe in your Dreams and they Will Come True. Alice in Wonderland meets Las Vegas, those in attendance, many children, are typically mesmerized when the magnificent Arabians begin dancing in the arena. Intentionally primarily designed for kids, the idea for The Dancing Stallions was spawned in a child’s mind decades earlier when Dana as a young girl fell in love with horses after her first pony ride. Before the show begins, there are always ponies in the arena so that other children might also experience the unconditional love that for some will only come from animals. Dana goes on to reflect on where the idea for The Dancing Horses came from—when a trainer with circus experience at her Sugar Legacy Arabian Farm taught Dana’s prized Arabian stallion, Baskin-Robbins, to perform a Liberty Dance. Dana cried and at that life-changing moment was determined to share that moving experience with a wide audience. Over the next few years her breeding farm gave way to Animal Gardens in a different location and there Dana built the arena for The Dancing Horses which began presenting daily shows in 2005. During a typical show Dana will be sitting on a stool greeting the children and families who come daily to her Dancing Stallions arena at her Animal Gardens complex just outside of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Her daughter, Danette, will start the show by telling the children Dana’s story and how her love for ponies led to what they were about to watch. What the kids don’t hear about are the Playboy Bunny and Sugar Shack years. When the show begins Dana leaves the arena and goes back to her office where she sees a portrait of her beloved, now deceased stallion, Baskin-Robbins and flashes back to what made The Dancing Horses possible, to the first ever presentation of male exotic dancing on her Sugar Shack stage, the revolutionary entertainment revolution that ended up paying for The Dancing Horses—truly her first love. On March 15, 1976, ELLIOT LANZANNA strutted on to the Sugar Shack stage and became the first male exotic dancer the world had ever seen.

Chapter 2 Childhood Needs

Dana goes back even farther to tell how her childhood shaped her personal and professional development. Abandoned by her mother and father, Dana was raised by her Italian immigrant grandparents. Occasionally, young Dana would be put in a cab and sent to the Loop alone to visit her mother, an alcoholic who masqueraded as an entertainer, in a small apartment full of pets—among them a spider monkey and two Pomeranian puppies in a space no bigger than a bedroom. Dana grew strong, despite the hardships during her childhood, learning how to adapt, survive, and force her life forward.

Chapter 3 Calumet City

Pressed by her grandmother to spend more time with Dana, Dana’s mother takes her to Calumet City where she performs in a burlesque act. Dana sneaks out of the hotel room to see the show from a balcony and isn’t at all sure why the performers are taking off their clothes and why her mom is spending time drinking with a thoroughly unwholesome man. Bored, Dana goes back to the room and falls asleep only to wake up in the morning and have her mother instruct her to tell the man they’ll be riding home with that Dana is her sister, not her child. Lavern Dane, Dana’s mom, did have her maternal moments. With Dana’s First Holy Communion approaching, Lavern took on the responsibility of designing Dana’s dress, which was delivered at the last minute and did need alterations, but was indeed beautiful. Dana was walking proudly down the aisle when Lavern, late as usual, pulled up to the church, cab screeching its tires, making it to the service just in time to see her daughter in the dress. At Saint Mel Holy Ghost church and school Dana was looked down upon for not living with her parents. The V-Ettes rejected her and even the nuns wouldn’t let Dana warm up to them. At least there was Lake Como, the weekend retreat for Dana and her family, a place where she could be at peace with nature and not have to deal with people.

Chapter 4 Coming of Age

Dana is in her teens now and learning about adult life during the summers spent in Lake Como where she falls in love with horses. Dana met Johnny, and Johnny had a white pinto named Cheena. Dana’s infatuation with Johnny eventually fizzled, but not her passion for all things equestrian. While still in high school, Dana’s mother forces her to return home to be her housekeeper and babysitter. Despite the fact that Dana was to become a indentured servant serving her selfish mother’s whims, her grandmother had to support her mother’s wish to finally have Dana live with her. Dana puts up with it for awhile, but when she turns 18, for better or worse Dana sets out to establish her independence.

Chapter 5 For Better, For Worse

Dana finds work, first in a typing pool, then as a car hop at Skip’s Drive-In where she is charmed by a doctor’s son. Inexperienced sexually, a good Catholic girl, Dana unexpectedly becomes pregnant, as confirmed by an uncomfortable visit to a doctor, and, pressure by her family, agrees to marry the father, a boy from a good family, but is quickly disappointed when she is abandoned by her troubled, immature, alcoholic husband. Forced to fend for herself and her children, Dana struggles to find work that pays well enough for her to live independently. Working in a nightclub, Dana meets three businessmen who take to her charming personality and introduce themselves. They worked in administration at the nearby Chicago Playboy Club.

Chapter 6 Signs of the Times

A look at the history of American civil rights and women’s rights leading up to the ‘60s and setting the stage for why American women were ready for the rebellious and contentious entertainment genre that Dana created. Stepping out on her own, Dana recognizes that women in the workplace represent an exploited underprivileged minority who tend to end up in low-paying service jobs. It was a man’s world, with the “good old boys” controlling the corridors of power around the globe. It was a Mad-Men society and most women knew their place. Dana Montana was not most women. Women, however, were beginning to mobilize politically. Women helped elect Present Kennedy in 1960. In 1959 the publication of three definitive studies helped thrust women’s rights issues into the public eye.  

Chapter 7 Welcome to the Playboy Club

Dana meets a Playboy Club administrator as a cocktail waitress at a nearby Chicago hotel and is recruited to become a Playboy Bunny. Insecure about her looks, at least as compared with the Playboy centerfolds running around the club, Dana is reluctant to show up for her appointment. Once inside the doors, however, Dana begins to fall in love with all things Playboy and is determined to not only make the cut during training, but be the best damned Bunny they ever had. First, she had to run the gauntlet of disapproval from everyone in her family, especially her grandmother. Often working three shifts a day for Playboy, Dana is able to establish her independence, buy her first new car, survive a brief but passionate affair with Playboy Club VIP Benny Dunne, and buy her first horse. At the Playboy Club Dana learns how to run a business based on exploiting sexuality in a classy environment. Innovative and a risk taker, and after nearly being fired for making up her own Camera Bunny rules, Dana rises up in the organization only to be released at 23 for being too old to properly represent the new Bunny Image corporate standard.

Chapter 8 Club J-Mar

While still a Bunny, Dana first buys her first horse, an Arabian stallion named Cass, then, purchases the old, rundown Club J-Mar in Lake Geneva. When let go as a Bunny for no longer representing the ideal Bunny image (Dana was 23 and the corporate plan was to only have younger girls on the floor) Dana now has to make it run profitably. Dana prophetically said to Toni LeMay, the Playboy exec who fired her, “This was deceitful and wrong after all we’ve done for Playboy. Toni, mark my words. When this Playboy Club no longer exists, Dana Montana will be famous for her club!” She renames the former polka bar, The Sugar Shack, and uses the challenge of building up the club to get back together with her derelict husband, Darryl, whose family invested $5,000 toward the purchase price. 

Chapter 9 Opening Night

After many long days and every last penny, the club opens on Memorial Day weekend in 1966, and a crowd appears thanks to a Chicago DJ’s on-air recommendation to check out the former Playboy Bunny, Dana Montana’ new club, The Sugar Shack. For awhile, Dana and Darryl proved to be an effective management team. Dana had the basics of running a business down from the Playboy Club while Darryl was good with the customers and employees. While the Sugar Shack was thriving, her family, her children were suffering from not having their mother around. Money came in all summer, but when the inevitable winter slowdown hit, it was hard on everyone. Darryl went back to Chicago to find work and Dana took a job as a food checker in a grocery store.

Chapter 10 Morganna the Kissing Bandit

Dana knows from the Playboy Club that sex sells, so she starts the Sugar Shack promotions with rock bands and Go-Go Girls before moving to burlesque acts. There was building public pressure to do something about the adult entertainment going on at the Sugar Shack. The club was making more money than ever, but expenses were also high. Although Dana wasn’t breaking any laws, the authorities were determined to shut her down. They started sending in undercover agents. On the night Morganna performed, they were disguised as four Harley riders. Morganna was a publicity junkie and despite being warned by Dana to be careful, got the Sugar Shack on the front page when she touched one of the agents which was against the law, resulting in Dana and the Morganna being arrested. The resulting media coverage of the court case, involving some slick theatrical lawyering, lit up awareness of her club.

Chapter 11 Turn the Tables

Hoping to a chance at a new loving relationship, Dana considered divorcing her husband, but he threatened to demand she sell the Sugar Shack as part of the settlement. Dana struggled to keep the club solvent during the long, slow winters in the summer resort town of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Always looking for a way to make some extra money to pay the bills and put food on the table, Dana set up a regular Sunday night high-stakes poker game. While the cards were flowing, Dana discusses her latest idea to bring in customers all year round with Larry Slade, Liberace’s limo driver and bodyguard, who frequented the Sugar Shack because of his relationship with one Dana’s Sunday night regulars. Dana is aware of how unbalanced the woman’s role is in relationships and in society. As much as anything, her sense of fair play drove her to take a chance on this radical new counterculture form of rebellious entertainment. Larry is persuaded, Dana finds two more dancers, they train for several months and on March 15, 1976 Dana presents male exotic dancing for the first time ever, anywhere, on her Sugar Shack stage when Elliot Lanzanna opened the show that night.

Chapter 12 Naughty Night Life

For three years Dana can’t seem to get any publicity about what she’s doing. The women who show up enjoy the presentation, but after persistently reaching out to Rick Kogan of the Chicago Sun-Times, first with a letter, then a follow-up call, Rick shows up one night with two lady friends, experiences the show, and a few weeks later publishes an article in the Sun-Times about the Sugar Shack expressing that the experience was basically fun for the ladies who attend and not at all what you would think a strip club would be like—with dark lighting and people cowering so as not to be seen. With the publicity, which went all over the country because the article was syndicated, the phones started ringing for interviews and appearances and didn’t stop for months. The club was packed for five shows a night with busloads of women driving in from all over the Midwest. Dana and her dancers were on all the national talk shows, first the Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder, followed by a Time magazine feature, Hugh Downs 20/20,  then, Phil Donahue. The money started rolling in by the barrel as did applicants to become stars in this revolutionary new form of entertainment. Among them, Paul Smorank. Dana created male exotic dancing and set the standards for the performers and it wasn’t about raw sex. Training the men to create a romantic fantasy without pulling their dicks out wasn’t easy, but Dana knew what the women really came to the Sugar Shack for—a little harmless seduction without the risk of anyone getting hurt.

Chapter 13 Who’ll Save Dana Montana

Dana is now rich and famous, but her personal life is in a shambles. Dana finally reaches out for some companionship, but several new relationships fail. Paul Smorank becomes stage name, Paul Czar, like a Russian ruler. Dana invites Paul to live at her ranch to save money and he agrees. The days pass while Dana and Paul grow close. Feelings were stirring, but Dana considered herself to be unattractive after years of avoiding her derelict husband sexually. And, while still married, Dana’s Catholic conscience wouldn’t allow her to have an affair. There were problems at the club for Paul, now that he was seeing Dana. The other dancers accused him of being favored and the pressure got to Paul. About to quit and leave for Chicago, Dana calmed him down. The next day she introduced Paul to her world of horses. He took to riding and Dana finally had someone to share her first love with. Paul was young and fun-loving, turning everything they did into recess on the playground. Being courted began to transform Dana. She started losing weight, having her hair done, dressing in more attractive clothes—actually feeling some passion and personal pride again. Knowing there was one serious roadblock to her happiness with Paul, Dana speaks to her husband about divorce. The next day, Dana flies to Los Angeles with Paul for a little business and hopefully lots of pleasure. They stop into a club presenting males exotic dancing their way after seeing what Dana was doing at the Sugar Shack. They called themselves, Chippendales. It wasn’t what Dana offered, but they were effective in their own way—a more uniform group approach with a different set of fantasies being offered. Then, it was on to San Francisco, where Dana hoped to actually realize the ultimate fulfillment of a Sugar Shack fantasy—have the dancer fall in love with you, sweep you off your feet, and ravish you in a firestorm of passion. All did not go as Dana had hoped that night, but on another trip a few weeks later, to Puerto Rico, and armed with some Quaaludes, her passion for Paul is finally consummated. Dana’s festering conscience eases when her divorce from Darryl comes through. At a Christmas party, Dana gives Paul an expensive coat and that triggers a family rebellion when Dana’s son accuses Paul of being a gigolo. Dana hopes to heal the damage with the gift of a Corvette.

Chapter 14 A Time of Transition

The Corvette, if anything, hurt their relationship. When Dana’s beloved grandmother dies, Paul refuses to attend the funeral. When a handsome stranger offers her both a drink and a compliment, Dana takes a chance and engages with him. Michael helps Dana finally get over Paul. Finally, a dispute over salary ends Dana’s relationship with Paul. Michael filled the void with understanding, tenderness and the romantic attention a Don Juan. When several Playboy Bunnies came to the club, Dana had her first exposure to a popular white powder. Her marriage had been a disaster, she was gaining weight, and so Dana turns to cocaine to treat the symptoms instead of the cause. Yes, she lost weight. Yes, she finally got over Paul, but without realizing it, Dana was becoming an addict. Her ex loses a restaurant Dana bought for him, but she buys it back, planning to make it successful.

Chapter 15 Ride the White Stallion

Knowing her ex wasn’t up to running the restaurant, Dana advertises for manager. Paul Dibrito, a Chicago high school teacher, answers the ad and agrees to work over the summer. Still heavy into her addiction, Dana sends Michael to Florida to score cocaine by the pound. When fall came, Peter decides to try dancing at the Sugar Shack and leaves teaching. Peter recognizes that the drugs are hurting Dana, confronts her, and wanting to grow closer to him, Dana ends her addiction, but has to endure and survive a home invasion robbery at gun point. Giving up the cocaine, Dana, revived physically and emotionally, forms a stable relationship with Peter and together they find a plot of land, persuade the owner to sell, arrange the financing, and build her Sugar Legacy Arabian Farm.

Chapter 16 Not Guilty

Many of Dana’s dreams are being realized. At the Sugar Shack, Dana is about to introduce to the world her two premier dancers—Cochise (Robert Manning) and D.J. Adonis (Darryl Vincenti), Dana’s son. Handsome, with an impressive physique, Robert was part Native American. Darryl, while off at college, entered a male stripper contest and won. Realizing he was really good at performing, he mended some fences with Dana and returned to fine tune his act at the Sugar Shack. Dana continues to refine how her dancers make the women in the audience feel. She decides against copying the more macho Chippendales take in favor of a “she felt loved for a moment” approach. After D.J.’s first performance as the Rock Warrior, Dana reveals to the audience that he was her son! The money is rolling in, Dana is paying her bills and her taxes, but organizing all the related paperwork was never her priority. After an anonymous tip to the IRS, Dana is charged with tax evasion by someone who wanted to hurt her. It took a slick lawyer, and a little of that Dana Montana charm, but she won a not-guilty verdict. Dana explains how she chooses and trains the men she presents on her Sugar Shack stage.

Chapter 17 The Stone Park Sugar Shack

Dana always hoped to some day legitimize her radical Sugar Shack entertainment offering by presenting it in the heart of Chicago. Making that happen, Dana buys a club, the Manor Banquet Hall, in Stone Park, a suburb of Chicago. Outside, it didn’t look like much, but inside it rivaled any main lounge in Las Vegas. Stone Park was nestled in Chicago’s West Side. The mayor and town board were going to be a hard sell, given the type of entertainment I was going to offer. The building was badly in need of renovation and the demanding task requires Dana to set up an apartment. Finances were stretched thin, contractors bumping into each other, as the date of the grand opening grew near. The first show at the Stone Park Sugar Shack would be a private one put on for the Stone Park city fathers. Despite some tense moments and terse remarks, my seasoned performer, my son D.J., won over the ladies in attendance and even the men got into the spirit and tipped D.J. at the end of his performance. The Stone Park Sugar Shack opens as planed to enthusiastic crowds of women who make the club a success.

Chapter 18 The Dancing Horses

In the ‘90s, as other clubs around the Midwest and all over the country began to present the same form of entertainment, the Sugar Shack crowds declined and Dana’s creative energies shifted from prancing male strippers to dancing stallions of the equestrian variety. During this period, the Sugar Legacy Arabian Farm was operating. One of Dana’s trainers, someone with a background in the circus, trains Dana’s prize stallion, Baskin-Robbins, to perform a Liberty Dance to music. The spectacle brings Dana to tears and sparks the idea for a show featuring such dancing horses. With the decline in Sugar Shack revenues, the Sugar Legacy Arabian Farm is dissolved. A few years later Dana sets up Animal Gardens, a family-friendly petting zoo, and builds the arena for The Dancing Horses, a Las Vegas style horse show which she is still presenting to this day. This chapter includes a description of the 15 acts of the show presented in 2013.

Q&A with D.J. Adonis

Dana’s son, Darryl Jr. AKA D.J. Adonis, was one of the stars of the male exotic dancer entertainment genre. Before his untimely passing, he was interviewed for an article pitched to Playgirl. His candid answers tell a lot about who he was at his core and how he’d hoped to shape the moral evolution of the male exotic professional world. D.J. got his start in the entertainment business when at 15 he was parking cars for endless lines of cars and busses that made their way to the Sugar Shack, day after day, for 10 glorious years. In his early 20s he took the stage at the Sugar Shack as the Rock Warrior. After D.J. retired as an active performer, he took over managing the Sugar Shack and so was in a position to guide the attitudes of the current performers. He continued to stress strong themes, individual character development, staging and costumes as opposed to the Chippendales approach. He taught the other men not to take their stage persona home with them, that it was important not to try and live the fantasy. Though he had worked in the business, he wouldn’t want the woman in his life to be an adult performer. As a club owner, he always stressed the importance of having the men and women on staff act like gentlemen and ladies. D.J. was preparing for a comeback in order to realize a goal of having one last publicized performance of the Rock Warrior before retiring when he unexpectedly died. 

Photo Gallery

This section has 14 pages of pictures featuring images of the early male exotic dancers along with pictures from The Dancing Horses.