If the desire to provoke Nazimova numbered among her confused emotions, Jean succeeded, for Nazimova wrote to her friend Edith Luckett (the mother of Nancy Reagan) asking whether she had heard of Jean Acker's marriage. "It was the worst thing she had done on top of all the other worst things she has done," said Nazimova in the letter. "She married a professional 'lounge lizard' — that's how she herself called him only one week before her marriage."
The tags used in the 1910s to describe and deride men who danced for a fee reveal the sneering contempt they commonly aroused. They were "lounge lizards," a term suggesting they didn't really work but instead hung around all day (and all night) looking ornamental. A male dancer's sweat apparently didn't qualify as a mark of legitimate labor; instead, critics were troubled by the scent of his cologne. The term "tango pirates" implied they were predators preying on innocent, or at least gullible, females who were temporarily released from the guardianship of fathers, husbands or fiancés. The 'taxi dancers" were paid for their services for a brief ride, like cab drivers; and women did they paying, which raised eyebrows and hackles. "Gigolo," a word that became common in the 1920s, derived from a French word, gigolette, for a female prostitute who would sometimes solicit at public dances. — Dark Lover: The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino by Emily W. Leider
