Image of Wally Weston on stage at the Carousel Club

Object number2009.016.0005.0003

Date1962 - 1963

ClassificationsPhotographs

Photographer Joe Hathaway

ObjectNegative (color)

Credit LineJoe Hathaway Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

MediumFilm

Dimensions1 7/16 x 15/16 in. (3.7 x 2.4 cm)

Terms

Collections

Description35mm color negative showing comedian Wally Weston standing on stage at Jack Ruby's Carousel Club, part of the carousel horse visible through the gold curtain behind him. The image offers a wide view of the stage, including details of decoration and construction, and includes a glimpse of the tables and one club guest at the viewer's right. Joe Hathaway, the photographer and donor of this collection, was a young man working at a camera counter in the early 1960s when he met Jack Ruby. Ruby invited him to come to the club and take pictures of the performers to be used in future publicity materials.

Curatorial Commentary

Dallas police officer W.E. "Rusty" Robbins, an occasional visitor to Jack Ruby's Carousel Club, provided this unflattering portrait of its interior in a 2003 Museum oral history: "The place was gaudy. There was... big, heavy, gaudy-looking drapes in some kind of dark color... If you kept it in the dark, you wouldn't know it -- but it was a sleaze.... I had been in there when the lights were up, so I knew more about what it looked like. The kitchen was pretty nasty." - Stephen Fagin, Associate Curator