MARCH 21, 1963: Jailhouse Rock

The Rock, as it’s affectionately known, got started in the incarceration business back in 1934, but this crag poking up out of San Francisco Bay had a much longer history, first as the home of America’s earliest Pacific Coast lighthouse, guiding ships through the bay for over a hundred years, then as the site of a military prison for 75 years. In its thirty years as the nation’s most notorious federal prison, Alcatraz was the iconic slammer, the model for cinematic portrayals.  It’s easy to picture a Pat O’Brien or Roy Best ruling its corridors. 

Although its notable inmates included Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly and Doc Barker, Alcatraz was not necessarily the home to the most violent.  Rather it was the place to which unruly prisoners were sent from other prisons to learn some manners. Kind of the equivalent of being sent to the principal’s office.  1,576 prisoners made the trip to Alcatraz before it closed on March 21, 1963.

On a Showboat to Broadway

“Curtain! Fast music! Light! Ready for the last finale! Great! The show looks good, the show looks good!”

American Broadway impresario, Florenz “Flo” Ziegfeld, Jr. was born March 21, 1867 (died July 22, 1932). The theater bug came to Ziegfeld early; while still in his teens, he was already running variety shows. In 1893, his father, who was the founder of the Chicago Music College, sent him to Europe to find classical musicians and orchestras. Flo returned with the Von Bulow Military Band — and Eugene Sandow, “the world’s strongest man.”

Ziegfeld was particularly noted for his series of theatrical revues, the Ziegfeld Follies, inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris – spectacular extravaganzas, full of beautiful women, talented performers, and the best popular songs of the time – and was known as the “glorifier of the American girl”.