Tex Guinan was a bootlegger (she operated fabulous speakeasy's but didn't make the booze) She was an oversized personality, the press loved her. Her clubs catered to the very rich and the very famous, balanced by her act as an uncouth, slightly foul mouthed hostess.

Guinan was one of four siblings born in Waco Texas to Irish immigrants Michael and Bessie (née Duffy) Guinan, who had emigrated separately as adults, meeting and marrying in Colorado, where they initially operated a wholesale grocery business. Moving to Texas, they ran a horse and cattle ranch.

During the Great Depression, she took her show on the road. She attempted to move to Europe, but Scotland Yard threatened to board her ship if she tried to land in England, where she was on their list of "barred aliens". The show was banned from France under labor technicalities. Guinan had a contract with a Paris club, but French employment laws dissuaded non-citizens from working in France. She turned this to her advantage by launching the satirical revue Too Hot for Paris upon her return to the States.

While on the road with Too Hot for Paris, she contracted amoebic dysentery in Chicago, Illinois, during the epidemic outbreak at the Congress Hotel during the run of the Chicago World's Fair. The epidemic was traced to tainted water. She fell ill in Vancouver, British Columbia, and died there on November 5, 1933, age 49, exactly one month before Prohibition was repealed; 7,500 people attended her funeral. Bandleader Paul Whiteman was a pallbearer along with two of her former lawyers and writer Heywood Broun.