Taking a (nude) stand against air raids

Stephen Frears' "Mrs. Henderson Presents," opening in theaters Friday, tells a story that is familiar to London audiences, particularly those of a certain age.

But on these shores, the World War II-era story of the Windmill Theatre is little-known — and guaranteed to raise a few eyebrows.

Naked girls, standing stock-still on stage as bombs fell onto London streets, while all the other theaters closed? It sounds almost too theatrical to be true; rather like the sort of thing a screenwriter might make up for a movie.

But Martin Sherman's screenplay is based in fact. Bob Hoskins, who co-stars in the film as theater manager Vivian Van Damm, said in a Toronto interview that Londoners remember the Windmill fondly.

"It was very famous — the fact that it did stay open during the war. They were incredibly brave: young girls, stark naked, having to stand still in the middle of an air raid. But they did."

Owned by Laura Henderson (played in the film by Judi Dench), the wealthy London widow of a jute merchant, the Windmill stood just off Shaftesbury Avenue on Great Windmill Street, in London's theater district.

Its building had once housed a cinema, but when Henderson purchased it in 1931, it had fallen into disuse.

With Van Damm, she devised a new theatrical format that quickly became a hit: "revuedeville," with performances running back-to-back six times a day, six days a week.

But it wasn't the scheduling that made the Windmill such a hot ticket: it was Henderson's idea to have chorus girls pose nude or nearly nude, in elaborate production numbers.

Vivien Goldsmith, in a recent article in London's Daily Telegraph, described the staging: "The showgirls and boys danced and sang through themed 'numbers,' while a girl posed nude, always taking a demure, statue-like pose and often clasping a token feather, scarf or bit of scenery, so that no hint of pubic hair was exposed." (Goldsmith's mother, Joan Jay, performed at the Windmill for 11 years, and named her daughter after Van Damm.)

The London censors, persuaded by Henderson's insistence that the nude performers were works of art, were agreeable.

Goldsmith noted that the Lord Chamberlain's office would call to alert the theater that its senior official (whose name, which really does seem like a screenwriter made it up, was George Titman) was on his way over.

Frears spoke to a number of the surviving Windmill performers in the course of preparing for the film. "All they ever said was, it was like a family, it was lovely," he said in a Seattle interview. "They would talk about the war, sleeping at the theater. But all they had to say, really, was that it was like a family. How kind everybody was."

Hoskins remembered former Windmill girls telling him that Van Damm liked to make sure the performers all ate properly. "He used to take them out to dinner; at least once a week he would take them out to a very good restaurant and say, 'You're all having steak.' He made sure they ate well."

When the war began, many London theaters closed — but the Windmill, except for a compulsory 12 days in 1939, stayed open for the duration. For safety during the bombing, many of the performers lived at the theater in the underground floors.

The Windmill celebrated the war's end with free performances, attended by thousands of servicemen. But this was the beginning of the end for the Windmill.

Henderson died shortly after the war, leaving the theater to Van Damm. He continued to run it through the '50s, continuing the now-familiar format along with a new emphasis on young British comedians. (Peter Sellers and Benny Hill, among others, honed their early skills there.)

The proliferation of randier strip clubs in Soho made business increasingly difficult, and shortly after Van Damm's death the Windmill closed its doors. Now a lap-dancing club occupies the Windmill's former building.

While the Windmill lore survives, little is now known of Laura Henderson, who died at 80 with no direct descendents. But just this month, Frears met Henderson's great-niece, who came from Australia for the British premiere of "Mrs. Henderson Presents."

They chatted, Frears said, "And as I was going, she said, 'In our sitting room, there's a painting of Laura Henderson naked on a rug.' And I said, 'Judi, we're going to have to go back and reshoot a bit.' "

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com