This is Side Door, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX.

I'm Lizzie Peabody.

It's New York City, the early 1940s, and famous gangster Bugsie Seek

walks into a smoke-filled nightclub in Midtown Manhattan.

Fick palm trees, line the walls, white linen on the tables, a band plays on stage.

Bugsie's girlfriend, Virginia Hill, rests a well-manacured hand on his arm.

She's wearing a stunning gown, full length, white, beaded, shimmering in the dim light.

They make the rounds of the club, and of course everyone knows who they are.

When they peek into one of the dressing rooms, a performer says,

That performer was Dioza Costello, and this is her great niece, Maria Foley.

And Virginia dropped it right there in the dressing room, gave it to her,

and sat naked in her fur coat to watch TTT Dioza's performance.

Now, I've complimented many people's clothes in my life, but I have never had someone

strip in front of me and hand me the clothes off their back.

Let alone the glamorous girlfriend of one of the best-known gangsters in New York.

But Dioza Costello was a big deal.

Dioza Costello was a force to be reckoned with.

A star of the New York clubs, she recorded albums, films, had run-ins with gangsters,

and became the first Puerto Rican to perform on Broadway when she appeared in the 1939 production,

Too Many Girls.

She was just being the strong, fearless, extraordinarily talented woman that she was,

and in turn, it opened doors for her people.

...