From waitress to Hollywood pinup, Swiss-born fan dancer Syra’s rise to fame personifies a rags-to-riches story of Hollywood’s Golden Age in the 1940s.

Today, the 88-year-old Naples resident enjoys a quiet life in the same home she and her husband built when they moved to Southwest Florida in the 1960s, but old photographs provide a glimpse into her glamorous life as a Hollywood starlet.

Born and raised Lena Marti, Syra grew up in the village of Goldau, in central Switzerland. She was eight when her father, a former military man, became sick. The family of four boys and four girls had to move frequently, often into homes without water or electricity.

“We had to get water from the lake, Lake Lucerne,” she recalled, “Mother always told us, ‘Never drink water, always take coffee or tea,’ because it was boiled on our wood-burning stove.”

Syra’s first job was working for a farm family with three children. Her family worked hard to make ends meet. At 16, she was working in a restaurant when she was discovered by a talent scout and Swiss stage actor named Billy Frick, who would later become her husband.

“My husband was a beautiful dancer, and he taught me,” she said. “My husband taught me to speak English. Every day, he would bring home the comics from the newspaper and read them to me.”

During her first stage performance, Syra forgot her steps. “So, I stood there and smiled,” she recalled. “My husband always said, ‘If you ever forget, just smile.’ The owners of the club had words with my husband, ‘Why did you bring her here? She can’t dance.’ But my husband said, ‘The audience doesn’t understand about dancing. Besides, it’s very nice just to look at her.’”

After that, Syra rehearsed every day, all day, for weeks on end and she got better. “I taught myself to dance in toe shoes, sitting in a chair. They gave me a contract for a year. I guess I was the only fan dancer on toe that I know of,” she said.

While the dance steps took some effort, using the fans came naturally to Syra. “The fans were easy,” she recalled. “They were heavy; they gave you muscles. And, they were very expensive – handmade in New York, from ostrich feathers. You can use them for a long time and they will stay beautiful.”

Show business provided Syra with a way out of poverty, but the profession had its demands. “While I was in show business, my husband did all the writing, even to my parents,” she remembered of those early years. “I had to sleep. One day, my mother wrote to him, ‘At least have her sign the letters, so I know she’s alive.’”

She remembered the first time her mother saw her dance on stage at a club in Zurich, which was an hour’s train ride from Goldau. “She was so happy, I’d never seen her so happy,” she recalled. “I think it was the happiest day of her life.”

In January 1948, Syra arrived in the United States, where she had contracts with MGM and Twentieth Century Fox.

“The United States was even more fun than Europe – more glamorous, and more people to meet,” she said. “Max Factor always did my hair and makeup. He was delightful to work with. He always did his best to take care of me.”

She preferred working in nightclubs to movie life. “Dancing, music, talking, happiness – you would be on stage for the early show, then have dinner with someone every night, always with champagne,” said Syra. “Then, it was back on stage for the next show.”

Like many of Hollywood’s starlets, the natural brunette bleached her long locks. “You make more money if you are blonde. Gentlemen really do prefer blondes,” she explained. “My husband made me the star of L.A.’s Follies Theatre. One evening while I was playing there, I got a telegram from Dean Martin, saying he and Frank Sinatra would be waiting for me in the restaurant after the show. They were friends; they were both Italian. But I did not answer the telegram, because I did not speak English. I didn’t go, and I never met them.”

Syra says she enjoyed the adjustment to fortune and fame. “In Hollywood, you had dinner with so many people... they just handed you champagne, cigarettes.”

But, unlike most of Hollywood’s elite, Syra shunned smoking. “One evening, someone handed me a cigarette and lit it for me. His friend, who was watching, said I wasn’t doing it right – I wasn’t holding it properly. He was right. So, I never did it again. This is a picture of the only cigarette I ever smoked,” said Syra, tossing it aside. “Robert Mitchum was very nice. Did you know, he’s just holding that cigarette – he wouldn’t smoke around me,” she added, pointing to another photo.

She recalled working in the Alps with Gregory Peck. “He was always extremely nice. When they said they were taking a picture, he always looked at me and not at the camera. I liked him best of all,” she said.

Seated outside her home, Syra traveled down memory lane, commenting on a stack of black and white glossies. A photo of her smiling with Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe fell on top of the stack of photos featuring Robert Mitchum, Robert Young and Gregory Peck. Syra put her foot on them, so they wouldn’t blow away.

“I can’t believe it was me,” Syra said with a smile. “I was famous for 40 years. I am 88 years old. I have friends I met then; we have been friends for 47 years. We all grow older, but it isn’t the end of the world. The end of the world will never come.”

To read more about Syra’s life, look for her forthcoming biography, “Syra: Swiss Fan Dancer,” in bookstores soon.

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