Gay Orlova| "Gay all Over."

Born Galina Orlova, a girl of Russian-French blood, in Petrograd in pre-Soviet Russia. She fled the Bolsheviks as a toddler, with her mother Antonina. They ended up in the intrigue and mystery of Constantinople, Turkey, where the curly blonde learned to dance.

She was still in her teens when she boarded the S.s. Sinaia in rout for America. At 16 she arrived in Providence, Rhode Island and soon made her way to New York city. In the early thirties, with her perfect hourglass shape it didn’t take much to attract the attention of Earl Carroll.
With her looks she could’ve come on stage in ash covered rags and still have been a sensation. Her dancing was just the olive in the martini.

She opened in Murder at the Vanities at the Majestic, her only problem now was: she only had a six-month visa to remain in the United States. That that wasn’t a problem for Galina for too long. She eloped with Ed Finn, a handsome usher from the theater’s orchestra floor.

When Mr. Carroll got wind of the news, he sent Galina a wire:
“You might at least have picked an usher from the first balcony.”

Galina’s marriage lasted some forty-eight hours. Ed Finn got an annulment as a kissless bridegroom. But now, Galina was eligible to stay in America.

Not only had Galina got the attention of the Broadway producers and its connoisseurs, she had even caught the attention of certain underworld figures as well. People like Giuseppe “Joe the Boss” Masseria, Ciro Terranova, and especially the attention on one up-and-coming and perhaps the most important figure in the underworld.

On and around Broadway the gorgeous Russ became known as “Gay all over.”
Unlike the other girls who practically screamed sex, Gay was more subtle, the type known as “beautiful and dumb.” She was about as dumb as a Ph.D. for she spoke at least three languages; Russian, French and English.

Gay never had to join any lonely hearts club, and in the span of a few weeks, a stockbroker was following her everywhere. She was the constant companion on a famous magazine cartoonist.

When Carroll’s show opened up in Palm Island, a favorite playground for Al Capone, between Miami and Miami Beach, at the end of 1934, her stockbroker friend followed her to Florida and even offered a proposal of marriage.

One night during the Palm Island run, Gay met a dark, sinisterly handsome man, he was conservative and quite but looked plenty. Gay had met Charles Luciano.

In the following months, spring came and the tourists headed back up north, Lucky did too.
No too long afterwards, the Broadway starlet was reunited with her heartbeat in New York City.

The relationship was cozy through the summer of 1935 until Arthur “Dutch Shultz” Flegenheimer was murdered. That brought a temporary halt to the relationship. Lucky thought it might be a good idea to leave Manhattan for a little while.

“I haven’t seen him in weeks,” Gay cried as winter approached. “I can’t believe what they’re saying about him. I don’t know why they say such mean things— he’s such a dear!”

Gay went south again, she found Lucky there already before her. She said she was no end surprised and please. She had had no idea that Lucky was. And they picked up right where they had left off.

Later, when Lucky ran into the big trouble with special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey, over the almost completely fabricated prostitution organization. Gay was even more critical of the law.
“I don’t believe any of those charges,” she firmly declared. “Especially that one about compulsory-something-or-other. It just doesn’t sound nice—not like Lucky at all!”
(“Compulsory something-or-other was the prize euphemism for “prostitution.”)

Gay held a press conference to let her objections be known. The conference was held in Dave’s Blue Room, one of Lucky’s old late-night hangouts. “Charlie,” she persisted, was “just like any other fellow,”
“He was nice,” she said.

For Gay, who at the time was looking for a job, must have had some good profits aside. She had shown up at the conference in a Paris gown, a four-thousand dollar silver fox, and dripping with jewels that never came out of the five-and-ten.

Publicity wasn’t one of Gay favorite things. She was at no end put out when Lucky’s trouble with Dewey got her name printed in the newspapers, along with several photographs, which ensconced her beauty by a G-string here and a tassel there.
Sadly, she turned back on her achievements, departed and set out for further adventures in Paris.

The adventures continued throughout the was years. The intriguing Russ got to know her way in and out of the official headquarters in the tragic years. When Hitler and Stalin signed their brotherhood pact in 1939, the French grabbed Gay as a possible Russian spy. She soon won her release.

In 1941, when Hitler’s army overran France, she was picked up by the Nazis. Again, she escaped detention. The voluptuous Gay apparently still had the persuasive charm that had the stockbrokers in the palm of her hand in her Broadway years.

When Lucky was release from prison, after serving nine and a half years of his thirty to fifty year sentence for prostitution, split up between Sing-Sing, Danemorra and Great Meadows prisons, he won his release in 1946 for his assistance in the allied invasion of Sicily, under strict rule that he be immediately deported back to Italy.

Lucky’s deportation gave Gay some moments of anticipated excitement. Because now she wasn’t separated from her love by the ocean. Lucky had not been in Italy three months before Gay sought permission to cross through the Alps to him. Her request was refused.

As of 1954, Gay was still present in Paris still wanting her Lucky. For whom she had given up a Wall Streeter’s hand in marriage. But, the feeling for on another no longer seemed mutual.

Lucky was very well settled in Italy. He had not tried he reach the other side of the border to his one time flame.

Lucky lived the rest of his life in Naples with his beloved girlfriend Igea Lissoni, The blonde hairs and blue eyed ballerina from Milan, whom was twenty some years his junior.

They lived together for eleven years in Naples on Via Tasso.
Igea died on September 28th, 1958 of breast cancer. She was 37. Even in the four years that Lucky out lived Igea, not once did he ever mention the lush “Gay all Over…”

No information has been published publicly as to the date of Gay’s death or weather or not she ever made it across the border to Italy…

Charlie “Lucky” Luciano passed away at 5:26p.m. on January 26th, 1962 at 64 years old from a sudden massive heart attack, at the Capodichino airport in Naples while meeting with a producer about a deal to make a movie on his life.

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Special thanks goes out to Miriam Cihodariu at http://www.Outofthepicture.deviantart.com for giving me the idea for this post.^^