A lounge lizard is a man who frequents social establishments with the intention of seducing a woman with his flattery and deceptive charm.[1] The term is reported to have arisen around 1915 in New York. A 1931 book described them as men "[in] the habit of lounging in different dance resorts from tea time on, on a chance of picking up a few dollars; or they might be habitués of the place or of an outer room, described as a 'lounge', for the purpose of picking up girls and women. In Europe, he subsequently evolved into what is now known as the gigolo."[2]
Examples
[edit]In the 1919 Charlie Chaplin film Sunnyside the term appears as a title card, describing a group of men reading newspapers in a hotel lobby.
In Buster Keaton's 1924 film Sherlock Jr., Keaton plays a projectionist at a movie theater where the movie showing is Hearts & Pearls or The Lounge Lizard's Lost Love. The movie within a movie has a character who is good looking and well dressed who is romantically involved with a wealthy young woman.
In first story of Agatha Christie’s Parker Pyne Investigates, ‘The Case of the Middle-Aged Wife’, the character of Claude Luttrell is referred to as a “lounge lizard”.[3]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Safire, William. "On Language". New York Times. Retrieved 2012-06-28.
- ^ Irving Lewis Allen (1995). The City in Slang: New York Life and Popular Speech. Oxford University Press. p. 81.
- ^ Christie, Agatha (1934). Parker Pyne Investigates (1st ed.). London: Collins Mystery. pp. 3–28. ISBN 978-0007154821.
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