"I have two beautiful dogs, Cinderella and Jasmine," she says in a light
Southern accent. "They look exactly alike, only one is Hungarian and the
other is French. My secretary walks them. ... I'm very much interested
in the protection of animals. I think people treat animals very cruelly, and
to me, when you adopt a dog, it's like adopting a child. My little
Cinderella: she was thrown out of a car by somebody wanting to get rid
of her. I found her in Cincinnati in a blizzard. She almost died and I
saved her life."
By looking beyond the heavy rouge, bright red lipstick, large rhinestone
earrings and fluttering false eyelashes that are part of her act, one can see
that Ann appears considerably younger then her years. _Sugar Babies_,
she points out, is not burlesque in the normal sense. "Burlesque got sleazy
in the 1940s with bumps and grinds and tassel-twirlers, but that's not what
we're selling. We sell, in a sense, glorified, old-fashioned, 1920s-style
vaudeville, with good production numbers. And that's what burlesque was
originally. ... A college professor got this together. The jokes are
authentic. ... Our show is for everybody. It's not dirty at all -- not by
today's standards."
There is a crowd of people waiting to see Ann after nearly every show.
Rooney escapes the fans by dashing out the stage door within minutes of
the final curtain. "He lives way out in New Jersey," explains Ann, who
rents a hotel suite on the Upper West Side. "Mickey is married and he has
10 children. He loves them all very much. ... Mickey and I went to
school together. He's a very nice person and he's a great pro. He may be
a small man, but he's a giant in his own way."
Miss Miller, who likes to dine at the 21 Club, Sardi's and the
Conservatory, believes that _Sugar Babies_ is a hit "because it's timely.
People are desperate to laugh. They're tired of hearing about war and the
food crunch and the oil crunch. They want to be entertained."
She has written her autobiography, _Miller's High Life_, which is
available "only in rate bookstores and in every library in the country. It
isn't out in paperback yet, but there's some talk of it." Asked about a
projected second volume, _Miller on Tap_, she says: "It will be my life;
it will carry on from where the other one left off."
She has no secret for looking so young, except that she is a nonsmoker,
drinks nothing stronger than wine, watches her diet, and avoids anything
strenuous in the daytime, to save her energy for the show.