Twilight Rumba

15 1/2″ Vinyl 2000 “Twilight Rumba” Gene.   The storyline for this Gene is as follows:

“She’d just finished her final set of songs when she found her way blocked by a handsome stranger who was an executive with GCR records. They fell in love and she was soon one of the biggest stars in the industry. Now five years later, she was singing to a packed house, but she wished he were in the audience instead of his important meeting. But when she stepped on the stage , the theatre was dark and empty, except for a pattern of twinkling stars between palm trees. The orchestra swung into a familar rumba and she heard: ‘Your fans will have to wait. Tonight belongs to us. May I have this dance? Happy fifth anniversary, darling,‘ he whispered.” The doll is wearing a circa 1948 hair style.                

 Gene is wearing the 1999 “Farewell Golden Moon” outfit designed by artist Tim Kennedy and  came with the following story:”

 ‘Farewell golden moon, for my love has gone away…’

Gene travelled through England and France the summer of 1944 entertaining the troops on the perilous Foxhole circuit of the USO Camp Shows.

‘I wish on every star for him to come home…’

They travelled like gypsies from camp to camp, making do with what rough comforts they had. They performed on makeshift stages in the middle of cow fields or on supplt trucks. They sang boogie-woggie tunes, danced, got laughs with hilarious comedy sketches…but nothing touched them like Gene’s “Farewell Golden Moon.”

‘The night is too long without my love beside me…’

Whenever Gene sang the heart-aching ballard of a lonely woman who yearns for her love to come home, the GIs saw in her their own special girl waiting at home, praying for his safe return. In that twilight realm between civilization and war, Gene shown incadescent with memories, hope, and the golden promise of love and devotion.

‘So farewell golden moon, til his arms are around me again.'”

I purchased the doll and outfit from the Ashton Drake Doll Catalog in 2000.