The name Jack Cione is synonymous with the bad old days of burlesque, strip tease and topless waitresses. The former owner of Forbidden City, Dunes and a dozen other nightclubs all over O'ahu, Cione has always been an entrepreneur with an edge.

Just months away from 80, Cione took his skills as a director, producer and choreographer to a new venue: Arcadia retirement residence. With Cione as ringleader, residents put on "Skool Daze," a musical comedy. The actors were mostly in their 70s and 80s; the eldest was 89.

When Cione moved into the residence near Punahou School two years ago, a buzz went through the building. Arcadia is known for a certain air of restraint; it houses many of the Islands' most prominent retired businessmen, judges, doctors and attorneys.

And then there's Jack Cione. It took only a few weeks for the charming rascal with the twinkle in his eye to win over residents.

Mind you, Arcadia offered plenty of activity. Residents are friendly; they dress up for dinner, host a regular poker match, bridge teams and numerous activities and outings. Holidays are celebrated in style.

Yet Cione felt the place was, well, a bit boring. So he decided to do something about it.

"He's a rascal, but he's learned to be a good rascal. He's brought pure joy to us at times," said Arcadia CEO Emmet White.

AUDITIONS NOT REQUIRED

At the Dunes, where Cione served up topless waitresses, topless fashion shows and even topless shoeshine girls, the entrepreneur recalls an executive secretary who came to the club for lunch every week with her boss.

One day in 1971, with great impatience, the woman asked Cione, "Why don't you put some naked men on the stage for me?" Cione said, "Well sure, but can you get me 50 ladies to attend?" Two weeks later, she offered him a guarantee of 75 women for a Monday lunch.

"Oh boy," Cione said with a wicked grin and roll of the eyes. "Four hundred women turned up for lunch on Monday and I had no naked men."

Where was he going to find a group of guys willing to go the full monty? "I remembered I had five surfers living in my beach house in Hale'iwa and they were two months behind in rent, so I made them an offer they couldn't refuse."

The casting call for "Skool Daze," set in a fictional first-grade classroom in a Catholic girls' school, had rather different requirements.

Ethie Mendonca, Arcadia's director of programs and wellness, said the staff was "skeptical to begin with, knowing who he is. Then we put up a sign-up sheet, and residents started signing up." In the end, 40 people auditioned and the show was cast with 24 residents and staff members. One of them was Ann Simpson, who happens to be actress Sigourney Weaver's mother-in-law. Simpson had been directed by Cione once before: in 1959, in a Junior League Follies production at The Royal Hawaiian.

"I cast them for personality and character," Cione explained. "Only three had ever been on a stage before." Some couldn't remember their lines, but Cione worked around that. "Remember, they're 6 years old," he said, grinning. "Does it really matter?"

"Casting director Ethie Mendonca asked me, 'Can you comb your hair and stomp your foot three times?' That was the first I heard about a big show being planned for Arcadia residents who would enjoy being on the stage," wrote Arcadia resident Katherine Bolman in Arcadia's newsletter.

Although she is battling some painful complications of illness, Bolman joined the cast and was featured in the song "My Dog Named Sex." She wrote that her "Skool Daze" experience was a "miracle."

"In its own way, it brought me back to life," Bolman said.

A LIFE IN ENTERTAINMENT

Cione was just 14, an Illinois kid, when he formed his first band, The Jolly Jack. During World War II he entertained the troops with the USO. After the war he worked for Arthur Murray in New York, then became dance director for the Fred Astaire Dance Company. This segued into ownership of a chain of 16 dance studios in Arizona. He also produced a show at the El Rancho in Las Vegas, where he hosted entertainers such as Eydie Gorme.

Cione and his wife of 50 years, Maydelle, came to Hawai'i on their honeymoon and never left. "I found a nightclub that needed a show — Forbidden City," at Ward Avenue and Ala Moana, Cione said.

The club had been a traditional Japanese one with kimono-clad hostesses. "I taught those nine hostesses to become showgirls and waitresses," Cione said.

His show at Forbidden City often featured major stars such as Judy Garland, Wayne Newton and Sophie Tucker. Eventually he and his partner, Francis Tom, operated 12 nightclubs.

Always an innovator, Cione tried out burlesque, discotheques, topless go-go dancers in cages, twist bars, Broadway musicals and even Las Vegas-style Polynesian revues. His show "What Do You Say to a Naked Waiter" began in Waikiki and subsequently played to sell-out crowds in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Like his early endeavors, "Skool Daze" was no breeze. Only a few of the cast members could consistently remember their lines, for one thing. However, Cione is a patient man. He ran the play like any of his productions, with repeated rehearsals.

Before a performance, Cione pulled his cast into a circle. "Dear Lord, please help us remember our lines, our entrances and our exits," he prayed. "Give us the energy we need. Get rid of the negative and give us only the positive."

As he walked away, someone called out, "Break a leg!"

"Oh, no, no," said Cione. "We eliminated that phrase for this show!"

Every performance of "Skool Daze" was sold out. From the opening moments, when performers were outside at "recess" throwing balls and sticking their tongues out to fog up the windows, the audience loved it. Even the whoopee cushion and well-worn jokes ("My uncle went over the hill with the baby sitter") were somehow new again when delivered by the enthusiastic seniors.

Cione even convinced the conservative BMW-driving, Reyn's reverse-print-shirt-wearing CEO of Arcadia, Emmet White, to appear in the closing scene as Carmen Miranda, complete with coconut bra, makeup and a 3-foot-high Las Vegas-style headdress.

"Well, it adds a human element to see a 60-year-old making a fool of himself," White said. "I saw a lot of joy in (residents') faces when I came out, and it was worth it ... I think."

Although he retired from nightclubs 20 years ago, Cione has never been without plenty to do. He produced the "Mardi Gras Follies," a Las Vegas-style revue, on O'ahu ever since, most recently in March at Hawai'i Theatre.

"He has been very good for Arcadia," Mendonca said. "He's bringing in a lot of changes. ... Residents fought him at first and said, 'Oh, no, we don't want that, it's too much,' but once they tried it, they liked it."

Reach Paula Rath at paularath@aol.com.