Lili St. Cyr's Montreal lovers

Stripper Lili St. Cyr blew Montreal away

   There were two types of Montreal men in the 1940s and '50s: those who wanted to be with Lili St. Cyr and... well.. I guess there was only one type after all.
   The six-time married St. Cyr did not go lonely long in her days around Montreal, indeed she was only unwed between 1953 and 1955 but a select group of well-known Montrealers vied for her heart throughout.
   Thankfully I have the inside story. Before he died, I developed a friendship with Norman Olson, who had a hot gossip column in the 50s. He'd get his stories by strolling right up to gangsters and other powerful people and ask his trademark question: "so who do you hate?"
   Olson later went into PR and did well enough to retire young but he always kept his ear to the ground about local gossip.
   Olson was protegee of the great Al Palmer, who he said was one of the kindness, most encouraging people he had ever met.

Norman Olson was a primo gossip columnist

  Palmer, perhaps the most entertaining journalist Montreal has ever witnessed, had his share of moments with St. Cyr.
   Indeed when she was on her deathbed in 1999, Montreal reporter Alan Hustak got her on the phone. St. Cyr, then elderly and confused, wondered if the Montreal reporter could be her old lover Palmer, who had actually died several decades earlier.
   When Hustak explained that no, he was not Al Palmer, St. Cyr said  “Too bad. He was the best fuck I ever had.”
   Palmer was said to have burned a longtime flame for St. Cyr, and apparently was quite deeply in love with her.
   St. Cyr was frequently seen on the arm of good lookin' Detroit Red Wing tough-guy Jimmy Orlando, who was forced into early retirement because he was no longer welcome in the U.S.A., apparently because he fudged his job history to discourage being re-enlisted in WWII.
   Orlando became an employee of hustlin' Eddie Quinn, best known as a wrestling promoter. Orlando worked doorman at the El Morrocco and was frequently seen escorting St. Cyr around town, leading many to assume that he was her lover. But that was just a ruse, as he was just her beard.

Eddie Quinn, Jimmy Orlando and Al Palmer were all romantically linked to Lili St. Cyr

   Orlando later married Quinn’s daughter and fathered a pair of children, one of whom runs a motorcycle racing school in Colorado.
   The secret and unlikely truth was that St. Cyr was Quinn's mistress and he did his best to keep it hush-hush.
   Indeed he went on some sort of cruise and would sneak into her chambers when his wife dozed off. Quinn, a devout Catholic, was considered one of the most homely men in the city.
   Quinn died at age 59, in 1965. Palmer died aged 58, in 1971. Orlando died in 1992, aged 76. St. Cyr died in 1999, at the age of 80.