Breck Wall, who logged thousands of performances in his bawdy revue, Bottoms Up, has died at the age of 75. Wall got his big start as an entertainer in Dallas where he worked occasionally for nightclub owner Jack Ruby and became a close friend. Ruby placed a phone call to Wall the day before he shot Lee Harvey Oswald and Wall later visited him in jail. This led to Wall testifying before the Warren Commission and to some conspiracy theorists concocting elaborate, evidence-free scenarios that suggested the performer was somehow involved in the killing of Oswald and/or John F. Kennedy. (New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison at one point considered Wall a prime suspect and then, as Garrison did with so many of his prime suspects, inexplicably dropped all suspicions.)
In 1964, Wall took his show — a collection of risqué (and low) comedy sketches and scantily-clad showgirls — to Las Vegas. Over the years, Bottoms Up moved from casino to casino, occasionally seeking asylum in Reno or Laughlin for a time or touring. Sometimes, it was an afternoon show — one of the first in Vegas. Sometimes, it went on at 3 AM. Mr. Wall always seemed to find some showroom to take him in and his last Vegas stint ended in 2007.
I saw the show in Laughlin around 1988. It was a stripped-down version with a cast of six or so, playing in a nearly-empty showroom, but Wall and his crew worked hard. There were blackouts and little dance routines, and the main "comedy" (note the quotes) involved Wall prancing about on stage dressed as a Muppet-like aging lady stripper with grotesque, flapping breasts. I didn't like the performance but I admired the effort and the energy. I later spotted Mr. Wall at a bar in the casino and on a whim, went over and introduced myself. He was delighted to meet a "fan" and ecstatic when he found out I was in the entertainment business…whereupon I just sat there for an hour and enjoyed Vegas anecdotes. As you might imagine, he had tons of them and they were all a lot more interesting than the show I'd just seen.
Our conversation was interrupted from time to time by reports from the maître d' of the showroom. Wall and his crew were waiting around to see if there was going to be a second show that night, which was contingent on a certain amount of tickets being sold. Since there'd only been about ten folks in the hall for the first show, I wondered what the magic number was. Whatever it was, they just barely made it so he excused himself to go to prep and I headed back to my room at another hotel. Like I said, I admired the effort and the energy. That's the roughest kind of show business and Breck Wall managed to make a go of it for more than forty years. Here's a little video sampler of one of the last incarnations of his revue…
