© Mistress, Inc.
Photos all courtesy of the author’s collection unless otherwise noted.
Copyright © 2013 by Leslie Zemeckis
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN: 978-1-62087-691-6
Printed in China
For the beautiful men and women of burlesque who shared their lives with me. I am a better, richer person for it. You have changed my life. This book is dedicated to you.
A rare photo of Lili St. Cyr
Photo courtesy of Pat Carroll
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword by Blaze Starr
Note from the Author
Cast of Characters
Introduction
Chapter 1 Welcome to the Burly Show
Chapter 2 The Reunion
Chapter 3 Six Feet of Spice
Chapter 4 Don’t Tell Mama (or the Kids)
Chapter 5 One Glove at a Time
Chapter 6 Circus Life
Chapter 7 Tiny Kline
Chapter 8 Those Marvelous Minskys
Chapter 9 The Peelers
Chapter 10 It’s a Mad, Mad World
Chapter 11 The Straights
Chapter 12 The Tit Singer
Chapter 13 From A to C
Chapter 14 Backstage
Chapter 15 The Censors
Chapter 16 A Bump . . .
Chapter 17 The Paddy Wagon
Chapter 18 Little Flower
Chapter 19 The High Cost of Stripping
Chapter 20 Family Life
Chapter 21 All You Need Is Love
Chapter 22 Florida
Chapter 23 On the Road Again
Chapter 24 Sugar Sugar
Chapter 25 Theatres
Chapter 26 Legendary Ladies
Chapter 27 Birds of a Feather
Chapter 28 You Gotta Have a Gimmick
Chapter 29 The Swinging G-String
Chapter 30 Stage Door Johnnies
Chapter 31 Money
Chapter 32 Mixing
Chapter 33 Interlude Before Evening
Chapter 34 Men That Made Us Great
Chapter 35 The Exotic Others
Chapter 36 Pasties and More
Chapter 37 The Burly Beat
Chapter 38 The Mob
Chapter 39 Texas Justice
Chapter 40 . . . And a Grind
Chapter 41 The Show Must Go On
Chapter 42 Gossip
Chapter 43 Women Who Changed Burlesque
Chapter 44 A Leap of Faith
Chapter 45 Bye, Bye Burlesque
Chapter 46 Blackout
Chapter 47 A Timeline
Acknowledgements
Source Notes
Foreword
I started in burlesque in the 1940s. For more than thirty years I lived and breathed it. I wrote my biography years ago, but Leslie Zemeckis’s Behind the Burly Q is the only flat-out absolute history of burlesque that is told by the performers themselves: from the straight men and comics, singers, musicians, and, of course, us strippers. I was never ashamed to say I took my clothes off, but not all the girls felt that way. Leslie persuaded many who had been embarrassed and ashamed to talk about their life in burlesque. Behind the Burly Q finally sets the record straight.
First in the film and now in print, Behind the Burly Q captures life in the theatres and clubs and offers an over-the-footlights perspective of not only what a burlesque show was, but also what life was like backstage. The book is filled with funny, sad, and downright tragic stories. With a passion and fearlessness to dig deep, Leslie uncovers the truth. It seems that until Leslie came along, no one cared to ask many of us what it had been like. No one ever asked us what we thought about burlesque. Behind the Burly Q is about our accomplishments, our love lives, and our heartaches. It is truthful, accurate, and fascinating.
From the moment we exchanged photos and I sold Leslie a couple of my handmade dresses, she has been a friend. It is obvious from the intimate details she writes that she has become a friend to many past performers who trusted her with the stories of their lives. Yet she never lets that friendship interfere with the truth. She has done her homework and brings insight and an encyclopedic knowledge to her storytelling. I was proud to share my story with Leslie.
Once I started talking to her, I couldn’t stop. I told her about traveling on the road for years and performing in clubs across the country. I loved it and wouldn’t trade my experiences for anything. Behind the Burly Q brought back those memories for me and the dozens of others whom she interviewed; those recollections are presented in this book with compassion and an eye for detail.
How was I viewed as a stripper? Some thought I was no good. But I knew better. Many of us were just using the assets God gave us. And I don’t mean just body—brains and creativity, too. And the audiences loved us. I always used humor in my act. What else would you call making my boob look like it was blowing out a candle? Burlesque had its place. Like I said in my book, “The men need strippers.... They need to fantasize.” I had them packed into my club, the Two O’Clock Club in Baltimore.
Leslie has a true understanding of the subject and has painstakingly researched burlesque, from its beginnings through its Golden Age in the ‘30s to its demise. I stopped in the ‘70s because it got too rough. Leslie sets right many misconceptions about burlesque and all the performers. We were not hookers or second-rate artists. I had a well-thought-out act in which my couch burst into flames. Where but in a burlesque show could I do something like that? A burlesque show was all that and more, not just a simple strip tease.
Burlesque provided an opportunity to many girls, like me, to escape poverty. I come from the rural hills of West Virginia. My daddy had black lung. We were lucky to get a new pair of shoes once a year. But burlesque got me out of the hills and I saw things most girls will never see. I met presidents and governors. I made a lot of money and I loved it. I made real good friends with the other performers, like Val Valentine. She’s been my friend for decades. Leslie captures all the friendships and intrigues, the petty jealousies (yes, there were fights), and also the love we had for what we did and each other. There was plenty of romance and danger, too, and Leslie tells it like it was. Relationships were nearly impossible to keep when we were working most weeks of the year.
I have never seen this world so lovingly and authentically recreated as Leslie has made it in Behind the Burly Q. For someone born long after burlesque died, Leslie has brought together history and personal storytelling that covers all aspects of burlesque. This isn’t my story alone; it belongs to many performers with very different stories. As one critic said of Leslie’s film, it is “a veritable who’s who of the grande dames of the burlesque stage.” And what dames we were.
In Behind the Burly Q, Leslie has meticulously and interestingly separated facts from rumor and myth. By choosing to t
ell our stories, in our own words, Leslie has captured a lost American art that I was proud to be a part of.
Blaze Starr
West Virginia, 2013
Note from the Author
The idea for my documentary Behind the Burly Q came in 2006, as these things are wont to do, by sheer happenstance. For several years I had been performing a one-woman burlesque-inspired show. My research began with curiosity: Just what exactly was a burlesque show? Was it just women getting up and taking off their clothes?
This first question led me to several former strippers, eager to relate their varied experiences “taking it off” in theatres and clubs across America during the 1930s through 1960s. Not only did they relate what it was like on stage, but they also shared what their lives were like backstage—the gossip, the camaraderie, the temptations, and the hardships.
I became fascinated by these tales of traveling the ‘wheel” (performers traveled from town to town, playing a set of theatres in rotation, thus the term “wheel”). I dove into books, magazines, and newspaper archives, and I watched numerous documentaries. Some of the films focused on the more famous strippers’ acts, but revealed nothing about how they got into the business and what happened to them when burlesque died. Some documentaries highlighted the rise of many comedians we honor today—Phil Silvers, Red Skelton, Jackie Gleason—but I could find nothing that broke the façade of baggy pants and tassel twirlers.
There were plenty of articles and some old footage of star Lili St. Cyr’s bathtub act. But nothing about who she was, or what happened to her, until author Kelly DiNardo wrote Gilded Lili. I didn’t read anything that provided me with details regarding the struggles these women may have incurred raising kids while on the road for much of the year, leaving younger ones with neighbors or relatives, at best. How did that impact the children? I interviewed sons and daughters; the stories were often heartbreaking.
Where did the men and women in these “naughty”—for surely that’s what they were—shows come from? What did their families think of their chosen profession? Was it even entertainment? Surely the “nice” girls weren’t strippers. Or were they?
The more I spoke with these former burlesquers, the more I felt compelled to chronicle their pasts, and in turn honor a piece of the American entertainment history that, until now, has been severely overlooked and misunderstood.
The performers were surprisingly forthright, generous, and open-hearted. They took me into their homes and presented me with photographs, scrapbooks, and ephemera of a bygone era, much of which has made its way into my collection. Their stories were enthralling, personal, poignant, hilarious, and most importantly, for many of them, never before told.
I became so fervent about preserving this little-documented bit of history that I decided to shoot a film. To begin, I sponsored a “reunion” of more than fifty former burlesque performers in Las Vegas at the Stardust, shortly before it was blown up. Along with my dear friend, co-producer and camera person Sheri Hellard, I spent a long weekend interviewing former performers one-on-one, watching a handful sing and strip. That weekend grew into two years crisscrossing the country interviewing everyone I could find that had worked in a burly show. With more than one hundred hours of interviews, I gathered so many great stories and I knew they wouldn’t all fit into a ninety-minute film.
This book is the history and evolution of burlesque as told through the performers’ voices. Their stories are what is important to capture before it is all gone; how they felt and how they behaved and how they lived.
Here, then, are their memories with all the lapses that result from recalling details from decades ago. Most discrepancies were minor and not worth pointing out. (One performer referred to Lili Christine as the “Cat Woman,” when she was actually billed as “Cat Girl.”) Through four years of filmmaking, I double and tripled checked facts where I could. But these are personal recollections and opinions, and some facts were elusive.
I searched books, articles, and old girlie magazines gathering names of those who had worked in burlesque, matching stories, dates, and places. I was privy to many unpublished writings and spent hours in libraries big and small from New York to Los Angeles and Texas to San Diego.
It took a bit of detective work to track down former performers. A few I pursued for close to half a year, writing letters, emailing, calling, and sending cards. Please talk to me. I wrote about myself, told them about my kids. I used names of other performers I had already interviewed. After the first few interviews, things got easier. One performer would let someone else know I was OK, the real thing. They would then introduce me to a dozen more performers. I assured them I didn’t want to exploit their past; I simply wanted to let them voice their stories.
Calls started pouring in from across the country. Sheri and I traveled from Florida to New York, to a decimated post-Katrina Mississippi, up to the San Francisco area, to the projects in New Jersey, and all points in between—for much of it, I was heavily pregnant.
I was warmly embraced by this community of forgotten performers and I was showered with memorabilia, trust, and ultimately their love. I was privileged to interview musicians, comedians, costumers, historians, authors, strippers, and families of those that had passed on. Old trunks were opened, glossy photos handed over. (All photographs included in the book are from my collection, unless otherwise noted.)
But strippers were only one element of the show I was seeking. I wanted to know about the straight men, the novelty acts, the emcees, and, of course, the comedians.
Listening to their recollections, I could smell the cigarette smoke and stale food backstage. I could feel the women’s nerves and anxieties as they relived what it was like to strip for the first time. They told me about the fights and the feuds, the Stage Door Johnnies and the Mafia, and the ups and downs of working show after show with never a day off.
The resulting documentary, Behind the Burly Q, focused mainly on the women, as very few of the men were still alive. Their struggles touched me deeply. They had seen amazing things in the span of their lives. Some were barely hanging on, like Kitty West in Bay St. Louis, who had been completely wiped out in Katrina and living in a FEMA trailer when we filmed her.
As I continued my interviews, the “revival” of burlesque through neo-burlesque troupes was expanding in cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Boston. Some troupes had been in place for years, only now a wider audience had taken hold. Housewives were flocking to pole-dancing classes. Suddenly people wanted to know who these legendary strippers were.
“They knew me. They really knew me,” explained ninety-seven-year-old Mimi Reed about her fame. She sat in her garden, grieving after the death of her partner of sixty years. I fell in love with Mimi. She had been a stunningly beautiful acrobatic dancer. I was fortunate to spend time with her throughout the last few months of her life. Ultimately I attended her memorial and the memorials of several others.
Sadly, many of the performers have since passed away, making mine their last and oftentimes only recorded history of their life in burlesque. I became pen pals with many, like Lee Stuart—straight man, singer, devoted family man. We exchanged emails up until his death. In one of his last emails, he wrote me: “I am getting in poor health with a new pacemaker and all the ailments that go along with a person my age. I find myself living in the past and missing old friends who have passed on to the big Burlesque stage wherever it may be. I am sure they are getting lots of laughs.” I am sure Mr. Stuart is, too.
Eventually I amassed a large and varied collection of memorabilia. The collection includes dresses from Betty Rowland, Sherry Britton, and Blaze Starr (all three huge stars of burlesque in three different eras; the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s, respectively). I have been given boxes of photos, old comedy scripts, pasties, gloves, tiaras, and a purse. I have a cigarette holder of Blaze Starr’s, a trunk Gypsy used to travel with, a lace parasol Rose La Rose used. I am in possession of props, personal affects, magazines, G-strings, and furs
. Some of my collection, along with clips from the documentary, was part of a successful burlesque exhibit at The Museum of Sex in New York City in 2011.
At times, this project threatened to overwhelm me—so many details, so much information, dates and names and facts. But I kept returning to what the men and women had to say themselves. I kept returning to their voices. What they had to say about their experience in burlesque was history that hadn’t yet been exposed. I wanted their voices to narrate the book.
Behind the Burly Q received rave reviews and was critics’ pick, with a dazzling premiere at MoMA in New York hosted by Sharon Stone, Robert Zemeckis, and Alan Alda. But accolades from the press weren’t the most important thing to me—it was the performers themselves who saw the film and who thanked me for telling their stories.
Burlesque thrived in its day and even though its time has passed, its influence is everywhere—in television, film, and music today. We owe much to the art form.
I hope in some small way to change the many misconceptions of burlesque and of the performers themselves—men and women who spent their careers marginalized, dismissed, and stigmatized.
The spirit of these performers is best summed up by Kitty West, who told me, “I’m seventy-seven, and... I can still kick ass.” Yes, you can, Kitty. This is for you and those who were courageous enough to share their extraordinary lives with me. You all are an inspiration. I love you all.
Cast of Characters
The following is a list of performers mentioned in the book. Those names in bold I personally interviewed. Some dates are approximate, as records were often inaccurate or missing and the performers themselves often lied about their ages.
Bud Abbott (1895–1974)—Arguably the most famous straight man in burlesque.
Robert Alda (1914–1986)—A handsome"tit singer” and a straight man.
Alexandra the Great"48"—Gerri Weise, named for her breast size by her mentor Rose La Rose.
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