Fanne Foxe, 'Argentine Firecracker' at center of D.C. sex scandal, dies at 84
Source: Washington Post
Obituaries
Fanne Foxe, 'Argentine Firecracker' at center of D.C. sex scandal, dies at 84
Rep. Wilbur D. Mills (D-Ark.), with Fanne Foxe, an exotic dancer also known as "The Tidal Basin Bombshell," in 1974. (AP Photo/AP)
By Adam Bernstein
Feb. 24, 2021 at 10:47 a.m. EST
At about 2 a.m. Oct. 7, 1974, U.S. Park Police pulled over a silver-blue Lincoln Continental that had been swerving and speeding without headlights on near the Jefferson Memorial in Washington. ... A female passenger in an evening gown ran from the car, climbed the stone parapet along the Tidal Basin and -- acting on what she later described as a frantic impulse -- leaped headfirst into the frigid, inky water. Her splashdown would ripple into one of the capital's most infamous sex scandals.
The woman, 38-year-old Annabel Battistella, was a plumage-shaking striptease dancer with the stage name Fanne Foxe. She was billed as "the Argentine Firecracker," and patrons of the local burlesque circuit were captivated by her elaborate costumes -- complete with five-foot-tall headdresses and tropical-colored ostrich and pheasant feathers -- as well as the artfulness with which she removed them.
On that particular night, after a boozy party at the Silver Slipper club, where she had performed, she got into a loud quarrel with her married lover. Amid the flow of alcohol and epithets, a friend who was driving them had forgotten to turn on the car's headlights, attracting the attention of police, who trailed them from the club on 13th Street NW. ... A TV crew, alerted by radio traffic on the police scanner, soon arrived.
With her plunge into the Tidal Basin, Ms. Battistella (later Annabel Montgomery), who died Feb. 10 at 84, secured her place in the annals of political scandal. Standing near the car -- drunk and bleeding -- was her paramour, 65-year-old Wilbur Mills, the gravelly voiced chairman of the tax-writing U.S. House Ways and Means Committee and a man esteemed as a pillar of Bible Belt rectitude and respectability.
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Special correspondent Andrew Meacham in Largo, Fla., contributed to this report.
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Blast from the past!
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Ex post facto, I see that Eugene has started a thread about this obituary over in GD. Sorry, Eugene. Yes, I searched.
Fanne Foxe, 'Argentine Firecracker' at center of D.C. sex scandal, dies at 84
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