‘Toot Toot Tootsie (Goodbye)’

Joey Dee’s Starliter club was directly across the street from the backstage door of the 45th Street theatre where I was appearing nightly in the Broadway musical, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying. I would see that club every night when leaving the theatre and wondered what it was like in there. I finally got up the nerve to go over.

It’s a night I will never forget. I met my lifelong friend, Connie “Tootsie” Rodriguez Esposito.

That night, I went straight over to the Starliter after the show. I was not aware then, but in 1964 Joey Dee toured with various “Starliters” including Gene Cornish, Felix Cavaliere, and Eddie Brigati who eventually became the band known as The Young Rascals. I was actually singing with them when I met Tony Roman. Other group members included Jimi Hendrix, who toured with the group in late 1965; Charles Neville, later of the Neville Brothers; and early on, Joe Pesci played guitar with the band.

I walked into that club as if I had been going into clubs all my life. Of course, this was actually the first one I had gone to in New York. I was a little uncomfortable alone, but I tried not to let it show. I sat at the bar and was going to order a drink, when a young woman with a striking resemblance to Sophia Loren came up and introduced herself as Tootsie. She was the manager of the club, and Joey Dee’s mistress (I would find that out later).

She took my arm and told me to follow her. We went to the back of the club where she sat me down and asked me what I wanted to drink. She told me not to walk around or talk to any of the men there. And she made sure they didn’t talk to me. I found out later that Joey Dee’s was a famous hangout for guys in the mob, and Tootsie knew them all on a first-name basis.

Tootsie and I became best friends, and she was like a mom to me, always looking out for me and making sure I stayed out of trouble. She was exactly ten years older than me, making her 28 at the time. She had a suite at the Shelton Towers Hotel, and I had my own bedroom there. After the show every night I would go to the club and wait for her until she finished working.

I have vivid memories of well-dressed men coming to the suite with lots of clothes, jewellery, and fur coats. It took me a while before I realized that all that stuff didn’t actually fall off of a truck.

We had only been at the Shelton Towers Hotel for about a month when Tootsie found out she was pregnant. She couldn’t have the baby, as the father was a married man that she was seeing.

Growing up in Jackson, Mississippi, deep in the Bible Belt, “abortion” was a word one seldom heard. It was not legal in those days, so Tootsie had to have it done by a non-medical person which was extremely risky. I was really scared that she would die in that hotel room during the procedure. I felt helpless as I watched her suffering and in pain.

Another close call

After two years in New York, my show went on the road for six months. I didn’t see Tootsie during that time, and I found out after I returned to the city that I had almost lost her.

She had fallen for a very jealous guy. One night, in an attempt to scare her, he pulled a gun on her, pointing it to her head. The .38 calibre accidentally discharged, the bullet miraculously missing her brain and exiting the other side of her skull. She survived, after weeks in the hospital.

We remained friends until she passed. She came to visit me several times, and once I interviewed her on tape and she told me all about her life. Someday I will write her story.

I miss you, Tootsie.