Thais Giroux ~ The Tragic Burlesque Dancer

Thais Giroux was a beautiful burlesque dancer who took her own life in 1938

She was born Vera Giroux on July 10, 1912 in Butte, Montana, Her father, Ray Giroux, worked in a department store. At the age of four she started taking dance lessons. Thais attended St. Patrick's Parochial elementary school and Girls Central high school. In 1928 she won her schools annual song contest. After graduating she went on tour with the Betta and La Mar dance troupe. Then she started working as a burlesque dancer using the names Thelma Thais and May Leonard. The voluptuous blonde performed in clubs in New York City, Chicago, and Europe. Her specialty was performing an acrobatic dance called "The Snake Nest". She was arrested in June of 1933 for "giving an improper performance" in New Jersey.  Unfortunately her dancing career stalled and she began working at a suburban honkeytonk. Thais was heartbroken when her mother died suddenly in 1936. That same year she started dating John "The Bug" Stoppelli, an ex-convict.

The couple had an on-again off-again romance. By the Spring of 1938 she was unemployed and living at the hotel Lincoln in New York City. She spent weeks searching for a job but didn't get one. On the evening of April 19, 1938 she went out to a nightclub with John. During the early hours of April 20 they returned to her hotel where she told him "I'm sick and tired of it all. Good-bye. So long, it's all over." Then she leaped out of her fifth floor window completely nude. A Catholic priest who was staying at the hotel gave her the last rights on the sidewalk. Thais was taken to a hospital but tragically she died two hours later at 4:20AM. She had committed suicide at the young age of twenty-five. Police found a deed for a cemetery plot in her room. Thais was buried at Mount Hope cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

Thais dying on the street