An Interview with Shari Angel
by Ian Griggs, U.K. (Copyright
March 1999)
Some of the things Shari told me will, I know, raise a few eyebrows. However, having spoken with her at length many times both before and since this interview, I am satisfied that she is telling the truth as she sees it. Shari has a peculiar habit of lowering her voice at the end of a sentence when she says something which she believes to be true but which she knows will perhaps sound unbelievable. Shari did that on several occasions during this interview.
You may believe or disbelieve Shari Angel's answers to my questions. I have no reason to question anything she told me.
IAN: First of all, Shari, would you just tell me how you started at the Carousel Club and how you first met Jack Ruby.
SHARI: I met Jack when I was 15 years old at the Silver Spur Inn here in Dallas. The Silver Spur, you know. The Roundup. We used to go in there and dance a lot when we were kids and that's how we met. Me and Candy and those others to do the be-bop.
IAN: That's Candy Barr?
SHARI: Uh huh. And I met Jack there. I've known him since I was a kid. My father was a racketeer here in Dallas and they knew me through that. That's why Jack cried when I got sick and he always treated me like I was a little kid.
IAN: You obviously liked Jack. That comes through in what you're saying.
SHARI: Oh yeah, yeah.
IAN: He treated you well?
SHARI: Very well.
IAN: And you were 15 when you began?
SHARI: Yeah - when I was a kid. Me and Jack went into other clubs in other places, and then, you see, I started working for Barney at the Theatre Lounge. He was my manager.
IAN: That's Barney Weinstein?
SHARI: Yes, that's right.
IAN: Right.
SHARI: And he was my manager. Barney. And Abe Weinstein, we worked
for him, he was Barney's brother. And he was kind of a manager-type thing.
They was brothers. And then one night, um, Wally - that's Wally Weston,
my husband - got mad at Abe. It was something after we'd been there nine
years - at the Theatre Lounge. He got my wardrobe, and his, and we went
over to Jack's and we started there. I was Jack's feature and Wally was
his comedian for three years.
SHARI: That's right.
IAN: And he was the emcee comedian. And you worked there at the same time. What about some of the other girls at the Carousel at that time, Shari? I'm interested in people like Kathy Kay.
SHARI: Kathy?
IAN: Kathy Kay. She was English.
SHARI: She was my pal. She spoke a lot of cockney.
IAN: Good!
SHARI: Yes, she was my pal. And she was from England. And she had two children by a soldier, when they moved down here. She divorced her soldier, her husband, and she and her two children stayed here.
IAN: Her soldier husband, was that a man called Kennerd?
SHARI: Uh huh.
IAN: And then she married .......
SHARI: Harry Living .......
(LAUGHTER)
IAN: Oh no!
SHARI: Now the laugh's on me. It was Harry Olsen.
IAN: This is good stuff! Harry Olsen. Now he was a Dallas police officer, wasn't he?
SHARI: Yes.
IAN: Now, I'm interested in Harry Olsen.
SHARI: Well he was married and she was married and they went together and was in love for a long time and everything. And when the assassination happened, they left and got married.
IAN: How did they meet? Did they meet in the Carousel Club?
SHARI: Uh huh.
IAN: They did?
SHARI: Yeah.
IAN: So Harry Olsen was a serving police officer and he visited the Carousel Club.
SHARI: Yeah, that's right.
IAN: Was that usual?
SHARI: He stayed there. He went everywhere we went.
IAN: Really?
SHARI: Like we'd go ice-skating or to the Veterans' Hospital. Jack did all that good work. We'd do shows that Jack put on for the Veterans' Hospital. Uh, Jack Kennedy had a JFK 50-mile hike for all the colleges and schools and Wally was the first one to walk that in Dallas, even passing the newspaper reporters and everything, and Jack would drive along beside him and feed him sandwiches and drinks and everything. But Wally couldn't stop, he said, because his feet would swell up. He had to keep trotting. He couldn't quit trotting. But he made it and we had to get an ambulance for him, but he made it.
IAN: Fifty miles for charity?
SHARI: Fifty miles. He beat the newspapers, radio, all of them.
IAN: I remember seeing a photograph - I think it was inside the Carousel Club - of a poster which was boasting about it. Wally Weston, our emcee, our comedian, has done this hike.
SHARI: It was a photograph of his feet.
IAN: Really. Were you married to him then or was that before?
SHARI: Oh yeah. I was married to Wally. I was at the Colony Club. I was just a young kid.
IAN: That's Weinstein's club. Abe Weinstein's club.
SHARI: Yeah. And he worked for Abe for nine years and Dallas was his. Like Sinatra. Dallas was his home town. And he sang songs like "You're nobody till someone loves you" - he sang that to me all the time. But anyway, Wally was a great guy and the best comedian. He won all the awards here in Dallas. Everything. Until this nightmare happened.
SHARI: Err - Jack Ruby ran over him with a pair of hockey skates on out at Fair Park ice arena. We were all out there ice skating and he broke Harry's leg.
IAN: This was an accident? This wasn't deliberate?
SHARI: Oh no, Jack didn't mean it.
IAN: How long before the assassination was this?
SHARI: Right soon.
IAN: Okay. And it was because of that, obviously, Harry was off duty on the 22nd of November.
SHARI: With a broken leg.
IAN: Now you told me that Harry Olsen was seeing Kathy Kay. How did that go down with Jack Ruby? Did he approve of this or not?
SHARI: Oh yeah, he loved Harry - and we all loved each other.
IAN: How about a policeman dating one of his girls? Was that okay with Jack?
SHARI: Yeah, Jack did nothing.
SHARI: Oh they were also in the Theatre Lounge, the Colony Club .....
IAN: All the clubs?
SHARI: Because they all got a payola, okay. They got paid to look over - a lot of stuff. Like champagne after hours in coffee cups. And it was just normal. You could see 'em right up to the office getting their little pay.
IAN: Are we talking about detectives as well as patrolmen?
SHARI: Oh yes, detectives. Patrolmen didn't usually do it. It was detectives, vice squad and all that. That's when they had all this big-name stuff. They said the vice squad and this and that, and whoever wouldn't lock you up.
IAN: What was Harry Olsen? He was a patrolman, wasn't he?
SHARI: He was a patrolman, yes.
IAN: There are stories about his whereabouts when the President was assassinated. Have you any views on that? Did he have any connection with it at all?
SHARI: Not that I know of.
IAN: Not that you know of?
SHARI: Err, Kathy and I were very close. We were best of friends. And we run around together and she'd come to my house, I'd go to her house and we always went together. We were just like a family. But she and Tammi True fought like cats and dogs.
IAN: Really? Kathy Kay and Tammi True?
SHARI: The loathed each other. If you'd go to the bathroom, they'd be socking it out.
IAN: Yeah?
SHARI: Yeah. She wouldn't take much off her, that English girl.
IAN: What about the two girls who wrote the book "Ruby's Girls"? That's Alice Anderson and Diana Hunter. Did you know them?
SHARI: Yeah, they were champagne girls.
IAN: I'm English. What exactly does that mean Shari? What does a champagne girl actually do?
SHARI: It means like you sell bottles of champagne. Back in 1962 you could sell a bottle for 25 dollars. Cheap bottles you could buy for 5-99. But the guys was so - back then there wasn't all this TV, movies, all this stuff. All they wanted to come and see was this downtown live.
IAN: Right.
IAN: Diana Hunter - didn't she strip sometimes? Wasn't she a part-time stripper?
SHARI: No. After Jack killed Oswald, she and Andrew and Alice from Dallas got into a little conflict. Andrew says he was the manager. He wasn't.
IAN: This is Andy Armstrong?
SHARI: Yeah. Jack had no managers, no bouncers. He did all that himself.
IAN: When you say he had no bouncers, this is where if someone was causing trouble he would hit them out and they're down the stairs?
SHARI: Oh yeah!
IAN: Did that happen very often, Shari?
SHARI: Oh gosh, every night. (LAUGHTER) Then he had to take more people and I had to cook more on Sunday.
IAN: What sort of things would someone have to do in the Carousel Club to have Jack Ruby throw them down the stairs like that?
SHARI: Lots of stuff. But he was a very kind, sweet person. Treated people. Went out to the Veterans' Hospital. Took care of them on Sundays when nobody cared about them. I mean this is stuff that nobody ever gives Jack credit for. I loved Jack. He never one time embarrassed me or abused me. One time I got so sock at the club and the man downstairs come and picked me up and an ambulance took me to the thing. But anyway, Jack cried. He says he remembers Jack crying about me going to hospital. And Jack was right out there. So - I loved Jack. I knew only good things. The bad things was - I seen the Mafia in there so often - maybe once a month - so-and-so that he knew from Chicago. But I got to know them too much and my husband did too, so I shut up and he disappeared.
IAN: Where were you when Jack shot Oswald? Do you remember that?
SHARI: I was laying in my bed at home, in Maryland Apartments, watching - looking at it on TV.
IAN: You actually saw it happen on TV?
SHARI: I knew when I saw the back of his head that it was Jack. It happened right fast but I mean I knew it was Jack.
SHARI: Lee Harvey Oswald.
IAN: Now, had you ever seen that gentleman in the club at all?
SHARI: Oh yeah.
IAN: You'd seen Lee Oswald in the Carousel Club?
SHARI: My husband hit him for calling him a Communist. He served in World War Two. He didn't like that very much.
IAN: Oswald called Wally a Communist?
SHARI: Yeah.
IAN: Then what did Wally do?
SHARI: He hit him. Knocked him out. (LAUGHTER)
IAN: And then what? Did Jack intervene and take over?
SHARI: Yeah. He got rid of Oswald. I don't know what he did with him but he disappeared.
IAN: He threw him out?
SHARI: I don't know if he threw him out or told him to go home or what.
IAN: And what was Jack's reaction then to Wally? After Wally had done that?
SHARI: Oh he loved Wally. Didn't hit him of anything. Wally was Jack's whole life. Wally was such a great, great comedian. Getting Wally Weston in his club was the greatest thing he ever did. And me too, because I was Barney and Abe's little darling.
IAN: Right. Now you were known as - you did a Gypsy Rose Lee act, didn't you?
SHARI: Yeah. Dallas's answer to Gypsy Rose Lee.
IAN: I read, I think it was in "Ruby's Girls", in the book, that Diana the Huntress once fired an arrow from the stage .......
SHARI: And she hit the big gold sign - and Jack fired her. (LAUGHTER) That was his pride, that big gold horse.
IAN: It was a big horse on the wall, wasn't it?
SHARI: Yeah, it was gold. And she reached that. I wasn't there because she never got to dance when I was there. Anyway, she pulled back and hit that and put a hole in there. Jack couldn't stand her.
IAN: Really?
SHARI: Oh he threatened to kill her worse than he did most drunks who came up there.
IAN: So he fired her for that, but then he re-hired her, did he?
SHARI: Yeah.
IAN: And she came back?
SHARI: Yeah.
IAN: Did you ever know Geneva White?
SHARI: No. I knew of her. I knew her husband. I went off sick just a little bit before - err - so they brought Jada in to take my place. I had peritonitis. And, err, while I was off, Geneva's supposed to have come to work. But I don't remember her because I wasn't there.
IAN: I see. But you knew her husband.
SHARI: Oh yeah.
IAN: He used to come to the club, did he?
SHARI: Yeah.
IAN: What, regularly?
SHARI: Oh yeah.
IAN: Did he know Jack Ruby?
SHARI: Oh yeah.
IAN: Now what about Oswald? How often did you see Lee Oswald in the club?
SHARI: I've only seen him about three or four times in the club. 'Cos I took off sick, remember?
IAN: But you saw him with Jack?
SHARI: Oh, I saw my husband drop him on his behind. But Wally was a featherweight or a lightweight or something, a fighter growing up in Wisconsin.
IAN: So he could handle himself. He knew what to do.
SHARI: He was getting on but he sure did. He was tall and thin but he could bounce 'em.
IAN: Shari, the other girls. We've spoken about Kathy Kay and Tammi True. What about Little Lynn?
SHARI: Little Lynn I didn't know too well because that was when I was getting sick. I thought she was pregnant when she first started . I may be wrong. But the way I'm thinking was that real young little girl was pregnant. And, err, I was so sick but Wally would take me up there some nights. And, um, I heard that she was assassinate. So I don't know. I heard that vibe from everything that was done. Jack sent her 25 dollars and all that and that's what I heard. Whether she is alive or not, I do not know.
SHARI: No, she's alive.
IAN: I've had people tell me she may be living in California, Do you think that's true?
SHARI: I think she's in California. She's not dead.
IAN: What about Olsen?
SHARI: They're divorced.
IAN: Oh I see. Any idea where he may be?
SHARI: No.
IAN: After the assassination and after Jack Ruby killed Oswald, Shari, what happened to the club then? I mean Ruby was obviously out of the scene then. Did the club carry on under somebody else?
SHARI: No, it carried on a few days but nobody important worked there.
IAN: And what happened to it then? Did it ever reopen?
SHARI: It became a police gymnasium.
IAN: So it didn't operate again as a club?
SHARI: It did for a few days but Andrew, Diana the Huntress and Alice from Dallas tried to keep it open but they couldn't.
IAN: So then it became a police gymnasium and that was that. Where did you go to work when the Carousel had closed?
SHARI: Over at the Theatre Lounge with Wally. He come in town 'cos he'd been out of town. People knew this move was coming, but not against Kennedy. We knew that something was going real big so Jack got Wally to go to Oklahoma for the weekend to work. And when Wally came back in town he took my wardrobe back to the Theatre Lounge for me and my manager stood there by me all the way through the questions and everything. He was there on the Sunday night. He never came to town on Sunday nights unless something was wrong. And FBI Joe Brown - which I considered a good friend of mine - but he died.
IAN: Was there anything in Jack Ruby's behaviour that, you know, between Kennedy being killed and .......
SHARI: I tell you, Jack cried, because he loved Jack Kennedy. He and Wally and us campaigned for Jack Kennedy. We voted for Jack Kennedy.
SHARI: He loved the Kennedys. But, um, we don't know. Wally talked - I was with him on his dying day but Wally talked to him right after it happened 'cos he was ... only two of us could usually visit him.
IAN: Did you visit Ruby when he was dying of cancer?
SHARI: I visited him all the time in jail. They called me to come down there and calm him down and stuff. But anyway, I loved Jack. I'm sorry but that's how I feel.
IAN: I know, that shows.
SHARI: I mean if somebody mistreats me, it shows in my eyes. Like he wasn't no molester, he wasn't no queer. Excuse me but that's what they tried to say.
IAN: I've read the Warren Commission questions and that was asked of a lot of people but he was a straight guy.
SHARI: Far as I knew.
IAN: Did he ever date any of the girls?
SHARI: No. He had a girlfriend he's had for years but he never brought her around any of us. She was an older woman. I can't think of her name. He had her for years and years.
IAN: So he was natural as far as sex goes? He wasn't queer.
SHARI: He never did around me. Now I remember one time - Tawny Angel, this girl named Tawny Angel, went to his door, she told me he dropped his pants and she was at the door and reached - you know, pardon me - all that. Whether that was true or not, I do not know. That is the only thing I've ever heard bad about Jack himself. And I don't believe her, she's an alcoholic. (LAUGHTER) Jack didn't even drink. We never knew Jack going out and having a drink. Jack did not drink liquor, he did not smoke, he did not take dope.
SHARI (LOWERING HER VOICE ALMOST TO A WHISPER): 'Cos he was told to.
IAN: You honestly believe that? It was a Mafia hit? It wasn't this thing about saving Jackie?
SHARI: Lyndon Johnson had it done.
IAN: Johnson?
SHARI: I'll always believe that with all my heart and soul. Did you notice the motorcade? Jack Kennedy did not have one security guard riding on his car. Johnson's was filled with 'em. I'll never believe anything else and I have seen Jack Ruby and President Lyndon Baines Johnson together in this same hotel where we are right now.
IAN: In the Adolphus Hotel, here in Commerce Street?
SHARI: Yeah - me and Madeleine Brown saw them.
IAN: When was that, Shari?
SHARI: Err, that was before the assassination.
IAN: So you're saying that before the assassination, here in the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, you saw Jack Ruby with the Vice President .......
SHARI: H L Hunt, W O Bankston, all these people. A lawyer, I forgot his name. And Lyndon - and Madeleine was with me.
IAN: Madeleine Brown.
SHARI: She was still in love with him, with Lyndon. She told me to come over here. I didn't know what was going on over here.
IAN: About when was this, Shari? How long before the assassination?
SHARI: Probably about three or four months before the assassination.
IAN: So the story that was put out that Jack Ruby shot Oswald to save Jackie the pain of a court job - that's nonsense. Is that what you believe?
SHARI: Yes, but he loved Jackie, he really did.
IAN: Shari, it's been a delight talking to you. I'm grateful for your time and all I can say is thanks.
SHARI: You're quite welcome.
IAN: Shari Angel, thank you very much.