From Branson entertainers in need of new costumes or makeup to couples looking for something to spice up date night, the goto business in Branson to purchase such items is celebrating their 60th Anniversary this month.
The Red Garter, located in The Falls Shopping Center, opened their doors in 1963 in Palm Springs, CA., before moving the family-owned business to Branson in 1994. Currently owned and operated by Roz Westley and her son Brett Westley, the store will be celebrating their diamond anniversary on Saturday, Aug. 19.
Brett shared when his grandparents, Sid and Tess, started the business in the 60’s, it was their return to the retail industry and his mother was already in her early 20s.
“They expanded our shop in Palm Springs from one single shop to three shops wide. We mostly catered to pantsuits and the lingerie was mainly like long evening gowns. As the years went by, we got more into the junior line after we expanded a couple of times,” Brett said. “I was born in ‘65 and a lot of the entertainers throughout Hollywood, a lot of the actors and actresses, lived in Palm Springs in the Cacale Valley. As our store got sexier and sexier, more and more of the entertainers would come in and buy what they needed and so forth. People like Frank Sinatra, Sophia Loren, Bob Hope, all of them used to come in.”
Roz said Hope because one of their more frequent visitors to their store in Palm Springs.
“Bob Hope used to come into the store at Palm Springs when he was going on the road,” Roz said. “Bob Hope would buy a lot of the lingerie, because he gave it out to the women that were going with him.”
Due to their unique relationship, Brett said his mother was able to joke around with Hope and they’d poke fun at each other.
“It was an inside joke between the two of them, she’d go, ‘Is this all for (your wife) Dolores, Bob?’ And he’d say, ‘Oh yeah.’ Yeah right. He was going to be gone for two or three weeks on the USO to Vietnam or wherever or whatever Timbuktu area they were going to go to.”
Additional patrons of the store and eventual friends of the family also included Carl Perkins and even the King of Rock ’N’ Roll.
“One of the major entertainers that came in the store, the old store that my mom was totally in love with, was Elvis Presley. He came in, back in the ‘60s. Of course everybody just stopped and dropped everything and they didn’t know what to do,” Brett said with a laugh.”
Roz added they even found themselves at one point being invited to visit Presley outside of the store.
Elvis invited us to his home. ‘Stop by the house,’ he said. Behind the steps was waterfalls and you could hear the water running (at the house),” Roz said. “He said, ‘Stop by the house tonight.’ And well, we weren’t going to turn Elvis down.”
Though they’ve had many celebrity customers over the last six decades, Brett shared his mother would never share specifics about what they purchased from them at the store.
“They would just come in and get whatever they needed. One thing is, Mom never talked about what they would buy. Over the years there’s been so many people and we’ve kept everything quiet and discreet. A lot of people have asked Mom to write a book, even recently. Mom says, ‘There’s no way I’d be able to write a book.’ One day Mom asked me after someone asked her recently to write one, ‘What would we name it?’ I said, ‘Since you’d be talking about everybody after they’ve passed, we could call it ‘The Red Garter Obituaries: Written by the Legend of Branson.’ Mom said, ‘Oh God no.’”
Brett shared at the height of their business in California, they had nine sales girls working and he would even come in and help after school.
“My dad finally came into the business after he got out of commercial aviation. My mom and dad became a part of the store too with my grandparents,” Brett said. “It was the four of them. Then I slowly came in later on and then I left for a long while.”
The move to the Show Me state in 1994 came as a result of a two week family vacation to Branson after Brett’s father passed away in 1993.
“Some friends of ours worked for the Welk Resort for Larry Welk. They said, ‘Roz, why don’t you come on out and see what’s going on.’ They came out and my grandmother took one look around and obviously my grandmother was already trying to figure out what to do. Things were not safe in Palm Springs anymore,” Brett said. “My grandmother saw this shopping center and it was all retail and it was busier than all get out and she said, ‘Let’s pull in there, maybe they…
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