Career
With Henderson as owner and van Damm as manager, they turned the theatre into a British institution, famed for its pioneering tableaux vivants of motionless female nudity, and for having "never closed" during the Blitz. Laura Henderson was the well-traveled socialite wife of a jute merchant, Robert Henderson. Her husband died in 1919, leaving her a wealthy widow.
In 1931, she bought the Palais de Luxe building and hired architect Howard Jones to remodel the interior to create a tiny, one-tier theatre, renamed the Windmill.
The Windmill Theatre opened on 22 June 1931 as a playhouse, but it was not profitable and soon returned to showing films. Henderson then hired Vivian Van Damm, and they produced Revudeville, a programme of continuous variety with 18 entertainment acts.
This also was a commercial failure, so they added the dimension of nudity to emulate the Folies Bergère and the Moulin Rouge in Paris. The key element was Van Damm"s exploitation of a legal loophole (or zone of tolerance) that nude statues could not be banned on moral grounds, and this led to the legendary "Windmill Girls" who appeared completely nude but stood completely still, so as to emulate nude statuary.
The theatre stayed open during World World War II depsite demands from the government for her to shut it down.
On her death in 1944, Laura Henderson bequeathed the Windmill to "My Dear Bop", Vivian Van Damm. In his 1952 autobiography, Van Damm described her as "a great strain on one"s nerves, patience and tact". The film was later adapted into a stage musical.