Leroy Charles Griffith (March 26, 1932 – October 3, 2026) was an American theater and nightclub proprietor, former Broadway and off-Broadway theater producer and director, and former burlesque and adult film producer. In a career spanning 75 years, he owned, leased, or operated more than 70 theaters, cinemas, and nightclubs across the United States, dating from the burlesque era of the 1950s to the 2020s. Earl Wilson, among others, nicknamed him "Burlesque King."
During burlesque's heyday, Griffith was a prolific producer of live stage shows featuring showgirls, strippers, comedians, vaudevillians, and other stars of the era. As burlesque declined in popularity, he made the crossover to exhibiting as well as producing adult films and operating strip clubs, notably past and present Miami-area clubs such as Club Madonna, Deja Vu, and Wonderland.
For decades, his business endeavors in the adult entertainment industry put him at odds with restrictive municipalities. He took legal action, often successfully, to defend his constitutional rights and be able to operate his establishments. His and others' trailblazing victories helped to make the adult entertainment industry more accepted and tolerated in 20th and 21st century American society.
Early years
Griffith was born in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, to Stella Duncan (1909–1961) and Floyd Roy Griffith (1909–1984). His father was a theater manager, police officer, and concession stand operator. The younger Griffith served as a projectionist, cashier, and usher at local theaters in his hometown. He started out selling popcorn at his father's Strand Theater and was a concessions operator at the Jewel Theater, both in Poplar Bluff. Decades later, the senior Griffith relocated to Florida to work for his son's expanding theatrical empire.At 17, Leroy Griffith left for St. Louis and a job working concessions at the Grand Burlesque Theatre for East Coast-based theater concessions magnate Oscar Markovich (1895–1982). At the Grand, Griffith started as a "candy butcher," hawking candy and trinkets to burlesque audiences before and during intermission. "In those days," Griffith recalled in a 1993 interview, "they had probably 30 people in the cast, a chorus line, an orchestra, two comics, a singer, a vaudeville act, and then five exotic dancers. It was a good show." Griffith discovered that any profit to be made was not from the show itself but from the concession stand: "That's where I was. In between acts, the pitchman would sell prize packages, candy, stuff like that. Concessions was where the real money was, just like it is with regular movies today." After working his way up to concessions manager, Griffith began accruing money for higher ambitions.
A June 1955 Billboard magazine column noted that the 23-year-old "Leroy Griffith, concession manager at the Folly [Theater], Kansas City, Mo., is now the owner of the Missouri Coffee Shop with an enlarged dining room and a new air-conditioned system."
Military service In 1955, Griffith was drafted into service with the U.S. Army in Hot Springs, Arkansas. While stationed at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska, he worked with Bob Hope's USO show (featuring Jerry Colonna, Mickey Mantle, and Ginger Rogers, among others) when Hope was on tour there in December 1956.
Career
After an early discharge from the military, Griffith managed his first theater, the Garden in Detroit, Michigan. He was 25.
A 1959 Billboard article described Griffith as one of the "brigade of regulars" employed by the popular King Reid Shows, a carnival that traveled the New England and Canada circuit and which was founded by Vermont showman and state legislator "King" Reid Lefèvre (1904–1968). Griffith managed the carnival's popular "Club 17 Revue," which featured burlesque shows.
Theater and club owner Identifying "legitimate theaters" that were going out of business, Griffith began acquiring them. "These places would go under," he said in a 1993 interview, "and I'd go in and take over and make them successful with an adult policy." He gradually acquired scores of theaters throughout the United States.
Converting such theaters to adult fare proved popular and lucrative. He recounted to the New York Times in 1970 that he built a brand new theater and showed The Sound of Music, but lost money. Upon switching to an adult policy, he reaped $4,000 the first week (equivalent to $32,000 in 2024).
Burlesque producer Griffith told the New York Times that he became interested in burlesque while a concession manager for Harold Minsky's burlesque houses in Chicago. From the late 1950s to the late 1960s, he was one of the nation's leading producers of burlesque entertainment. Entertainment columnist Earl Wilson called him the "new Minsky" and he and other newspapermen often referred to Griffith as "Burlesque King." In 1966, the New York branch manager of the American Guild of Variety Artists, which exercised jurisdiction over burlesque throughout the nation, told the New York Times that Griffith was the largest producer in the field.
Nightly, and during matinees, the curtains went up in Griffith's circuit of theaters throughout the country — from small cities such as Fort Wayne, Indiana, to metropolises like Chicago and New York City — with live shows featuring showgirls, strippers, comedians, vaudevillians, and other performing stars of the era.
Among the countless burlesque performers hired by Griffith were Candy Barr, Virginia Bell, Dixie Evans, Lili St. Cyr, Blaze Starr, and Tempest Storm.
Even as burlesque's popularity faded in the 1960s, one of Griffith's Miami Beach theaters was reported to be thriving as one of the 20 remaining burlesque theaters in the nation. When finally the genre ceased to be a popular and profitable attraction, one of its last remaining producers adapted to changing tastes and times, converting his burlesque houses to adult film theaters and strip clubs.
Broadway and off-Broadway producer
Griffith directed and co-produced The Wonderful World of Burlesque, an off-Broadway show that ran for 211 performances at the Mayfair Theater, from April to June 1965.
He also produced Hello Burlesque, a 1965 show featuring showgirl Julie Taylor, "Miss Sex 5th Avenue."
Adult film producer
Griffith produced the sexploitation films Bell, Bare and Beautiful (1963) starring Virginia Bell, Lullaby of Bareland (1964), The Case of the Stripping Wives (1966), Mundo depravados (1967) starring Tempest Storm, and My Third Wife, George (1968). These films were exhibited in nationwide screenings, then later released in video format.
He was one of the first producers ever to hire a bi-racial couple to star in a film when he cast Tempest Storm and Herb Jeffries, "Hollywood's First Black Singing Cowboy," as the stars of his 1967 film Mundo depravados. Storm's 1959 marriage to Jeffries, according to the New York Times, "broke midcentury racial taboos, costing her work". Interracial marriage in the U.S. was not declared legal until a 1967 Supreme Court ruling.
Griffith's theaters and clubs Griffith owned, leased, or operated more than 70 theaters, cinemas, and nightclubs throughout the U.S., mostly concentrated in the Northeast, the Rust Belt, and the South. He also operated theaters in the Pacific Northwest.
Mid-Atlantic U.S.
Griffith's theaters in the Mid-Atlantic region included:
Midwestern U.S.
Griffith's theaters in the Midwest included:
Ohio Griffith was co-operator of Toledo's Town Hall Theater with "Queen of Burlesque" Rose La Rose (1916–1972), a nationally renowned stripper who, having shrewdly saved and invested her earnings, retired in 1958, settled in Toledo, and purchased the Town Hall and, eventually, another local theater. She was one of the rare women on the burlesque circuit to evolve from performer to theater owner in her own right.
Griffith's other Ohio theaters included:
Northeastern U.S.
Griffith's theaters in the Northeast included:
New York City
During the 1960s and 1970s, Griffith operated five theaters in New York City: the Gayety, the Hudson, the Mayfair Burlesque, and the Metropolitan, all in Manhattan; and the Shore on Coney Island in Brooklyn.
His 1960s Broadway and off-Broadway burlesque productions were staged in some of his Manhattan theaters, such as the Hudson and the Mayfair Burlesque.
The Mayfair Burlesque (now Sony Hall) was previously Billy Rose's popular Diamond Horseshoe nightclub, located in the basement level of the Paramount Hotel near Times Square.
Northwestern U.S. Griffith's theaters in the Northwest included:
Southern U.S. Griffith's theaters in the South included:
Florida
In addition to various theaters throughout Miami and Miami Beach, Griffith operated these Florida theaters:
Miami
Griffith's Miami theaters included:
He bought the Boulevard in 1970 for $125,000 and renamed it the Pussycat, creating three different theaters within: the Pussycat, the center theater, was a 900-seat theater that showed adult films; the Kitty Cat featured female performers; and the Tomcat featured male performers. Later rebrandings of the theater-turned-strip club would include the names Wonderland and Gold Rush.
Miami Beach
Griffith's theaters in Miami Beach included:
On a visit to Miami Beach in 1961, Griffith noticed the Paris Theater was for sale. He originally leased it, then bought it, and staged burlesque there, under the name Paris Follies. Featured headliners included Tempest Storm and Blaze Starr. He sold it in 1986, then bought it back after its owners failed with the nightclub Paris Moderne, and later sold it again.
But while he staged burlesque at the Paris in the early '60s, Griffith didn't call it "burlesque"; doing so would have been against local law.
"You couldn't even use the word," he recalled three decades later. "I had one big stage show called 'The Top Stars of Burlesque, with Blaze Starr and all these people. I told the city, 'It's not burlesque. It's the top stars of burlesque. There's no law against the people of burlesque.' The city decided they'd fix me by charging me $1,000 for a special license to do the show. I said fine. I was going to have to pay $1,600 for a regular permit anyway."
In February 1963, Griffith appeared before the Miami Beach city council to plead for live stage burlesque to "liven up a dead town."
Griffith continued to open new venues throughout South Florida, from Broward County in the north to Key West in the south. In addition to bringing in live acts, he began showing movies. He also began producing films and exhibiting them in his theaters nationwide.
As burlesque was petering out across the rest of the country, Griffith added the Gayety on Collins Avenue to his theater chain in July 1964. In 1965, the Gayety was reported to be thriving as one of the 20 remaining burlesque theaters in the nation. Later, as a strip club, its names would include SoBe Showgirls and Deja Vu. Across the street, he also operated the 21st Street Adult Theater (also known as the 21st Street Cinema).
On the city's storied Lincoln Road, he had three theaters: the Beach, the Carib, and the Flamingo. "I used to do [benefit] shows at the Carib, which seated over 2,000 people," Griffith recounted in a 1993 interview, "and donated the theater, staff, advertising, and helped get talent. This all went to the widows and orphans of the firemen and the policemen."