Billie Mahoney danced with the best of them — and at 80, this sexy number isn't done yet

Their dad, Francis Henry "Jack" Mahoney, worked as a circulation manager for the Star. Both Billie and her brother were latchkey kids; they tagged along to each other's drum and dance lessons. Billie also started taking baton-twirling lessons. She practiced five hours a day and wore down the grass in front of their house in east Kansas City, at 51st Street and Garfield. She became an expert at twirling two 1-pound batons.

The scrapbook photos from her college years show a curvy, strikingly pretty woman with auburn hair in a Bettie Page cut. Starting at age 14, Billie performed at conventions, local bars, nightclubs and military bases. Her main routine back then was set to a military medley played live — the musicians' union didn't allow recordings. It started with a strut onstage to the Air Force song, with its familiar off we go into the wild-blue yonder riff. She tap-danced to "Anchors Aweigh." "The Marines' Hymn" brought on high kicks, splits and backbends as she twirled two batons. She'd pass the batons under her legs and do the "fingertip trick" — making both batons spin horizontally on her fingers. The routine ended with "You're a Grand Old Flag" and "Stars and Stripes Forever."

"There was constant applause — if not from the tricks, then from the music," she says.

The military-base shows helped her get booked at Kansas City bars in the 1940s. Long before she could drink, she worked the roadhouses and bars that could stay open all night because they were outside city limits. At Mary's Club, a "county" bar at 80th Street and Wornall, Billie did three shows a night starting at 11:15 p.m. and ending around 4 a.m. Mary's was a "big barn of a place," she says, with a huge dance floor that was always packed. She also performed at neighboring Tootie's, which resembled a house with additions. Tootie and his wife lived in a bedroom, which also served as a dressing room. A live chicken usually roosted on the headboard, Billie says, and a big bulldog slept on the bed, which caused some consternation for Billie and her mother because the bed was the only place to lay out costumes. She remembers that legendary Kansas City jazz stars Jay McShann and Myra Taylor also played at Tootie's. Taylor was 10 years older than Billie. "She was slender and cute with red hair," Billie says. "She's still kickin' around."

She also grew up with what she calls "all that racial stuff." Once, in the '40s, she and a few other entertainers met their agent downtown for a gig. They didn't know where they had been booked, so when the agent drove them to a club near 12th Street and Vine — she thinks it might have been called the Mardi Gras — they were shocked. "We're in the black neighborhood? We'd never been in a situation like that," she says. "Anyway, we did our show. It was a wonderful audience, and we were greatly received. And my girlfriend and I thought, boy, this is fun. We were adventurous. But tell our parents? No way. I never, ever told my parents. You just don't do that. That's another world," she says about the segregated neighborhood. The next week, The Call ran a two-page spread on the performance, complete with pictures of Billie. Because her dad worked at the Star, she was terrified that he'd see the pictures. But he didn't.

Organized crime had a big presence during that time. Many of the bars on Route 40 were mob-owned. "They were always good to me. They put me through college," she said. They also taught her not to drink. She was told that the liquor was only for selling to customers. "They didn't drink, the club owners. I had my first drink in New York at 23. I was trained well," she says.

Her stage work helped pay her tuition at the University of Kansas City (now UMKC). Billie's dancing didn't endear her to her college classmates, though. "They thought it was sinful or whatever. They were drunk under the tables at the clubs, and I'm dancing and earning my tuition," she says. The dean of women told Billie that she didn't approve of dancing. The dean cited Salome's dance, which got John the Baptist beheaded.

Years later, Billie won an alumni award. She was the only female recipient in 1973. At the reception at the chancellor's house, one of the deans said, "Well, this is quite an achievement for you."

"I think it's an achievement for the university," Billie responded. He looked at her, and she added, "For the university to recognize dance, I think that's a great achievement." She imitates his response: an outraged, throat-clearing, harrumphing noise.