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Article: The M'Toto room.(cocktail lounge in Sarasota, Florida)
- Article from:
- Sarasota Magazine
- Article date:
- March 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Clubhouse Publishing, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The legendary lounge in the heart of the John Ringling Towers hosted as colorful a cast of characters as ever bent an elbow.
Mademoiselle Toto, in whose honor the M'Toto Room Lounge was named, was not a Sarasota native. Like practically everyone else in town, she was a transplant, first from the French Congo and then Havana. But unlike practically everyone else, she was an ape.
Mademoiselle Toto, who had been raised from a three-month-old, nine-pound infant to a 350-pound teen-ager, was acquired and brought to Sarasota by
John Ringling North in 1941. She was chosen to become the bride of circus star Gargantua the Great, as fierce an ape as ever ...