By the late 1930s and early 1940s, colleges and high schools across the United States had adopted “Sadie Hawkins Day” as a lighthearted social event.
The term “Sadie Hawkins Dance” originates from the American comic strip Li’l Abner, created by cartoonist Al Capp in 1934. In the storyline, which first introduced the concept in 1937, there was a character named Sadie Hawkins, described as “the homeliest gal in the hills.” Her father, desperate to find her a husband, declared a special day—“Sadie Hawkins Day”—on which all the unmarried women of Dogpatch, the fictional setting of the strip, would chase the town’s bachelors.
He was in Broadway shows, movies, television, recorded albums as Casey Adams, directed and produced theatre, and painted oil miniatures.
Max Gordon Showalter, born June 2, 1917, in Caldwell, Kansas, was a gifted performer whose early years foreshadowed a life in the arts. His mother, Elma, was a music teacher who played piano for silent movies, and her son would accompany her to the local theater, where he developed a lifelong passion for performance. After studying at the Pasadena Playhouse in the late 1930s, Showalter made his Broadway debut in Knights of Song and went on to feature in prominent productions such as This Is the Army, Make Mine Manhattan, and The Grass Harp.
