Joan Arline (1932–2011)—Joanie Connery, a stripper who worked the Schuster circuit. She performed with two white Russian wolfhounds and was an elder in her church.
Beverly Anderson Traube (1930–2007)—Born with rheumatoid arthritis, as a struggling actress she couldn’t be a “waitress or be a typist,” so she covered her crippled hands with long gloves and became a stripper.
Candy Barr (1935–2005)—Juanita Slusher, a Texas native, served prison time for possession of a minor amount of marijuana, basically ending her career as a stripper.
Faith Bacon (1910–1956)—Born Francis Bacon, she was the self-proclaimed originator of the fan dance. Hers was not a happy ending.
Al Baker Livingston, Jr. (1934–2012)—Best known as Al Baker Jr. a convicted mob money launderer. A former burlesque theatre owner and son of comedian Al Baker Sr.
Helen Bingler—A showgirl who worked with Abbott and Costello, who named her “Bingo.”
Nat Bodian (1930–2010)—A journalist who wrote and saw burlesque at the Empire in Newark in the 1930s.
Maria Bradley—A chorus girl and stripper who affirms working in burlesque was the best time of her life.
Sherry Britton (1918?-2008)—Homeless at fourteen and married at fifteen, this gorgeous stripper became one of the hottest acts in Burlesque. Wooed by everyone from Sinatra to Rex Harrison, Gig Young and David Susskind.
Earl Carroll (1893–1948) A theatrical producer most famous for his Broadway shows Earl Carroll’s Vanities.
Candy Cotton—Carol Fox, a stripper who chose her name because of her hair style.
Carmela Rickman (d. 2008)—The Sophia Loren of Burlesque.
Ann Corio (d. 1999)—A stripper famous with the ladies who loved to see her perform at her favorite theatre in Boston, The Old Howard.
Lou Costello (1906–1959)—Funny man to Bud Abbott.
Ricki Covette—Irena Jewell, who topped out at six feet eight inches tall.
Sunny Dare (d. 2008)—Roberta Bauman, known as “Sunny Dare of the Blue Hair,” got stiffed by Sally Rand on the road and had to strip to make enough money to get home.
Dixie Evans (b. 1926)—née Mary Lee Evans. She was the Marilyn Monroe of Burlesque.
Carrie Finnell (d. 1963)—Famous for her breasts, which she could make pop in and out of her gown. She often stripped even though she was an impressive three hundred pounds.
White Fury—Painted herself with buckets of paint and lit her tassels on fire.
Rita Grable—Stripper who married singer and Sinatra contemporary Rudy Vale.
Leroy Griffith—Owner of burlesque theatres who employed Tempest and paid her thousands.
Nils T. Granlund (1890–1957)—Producer who discovered Lili St. Cyr among many others.
Margie Hart (1913–2000)—Supposedly she is the stripper that caused Mayor LaGuardia to close burlesque in New York because she “flashed.”
Mike Iannucci (d. 2007)—Star stripper Ann Corio’s husband, the producer of This Was Burlesque, which ran for decades.
Sally Keith—She is thought to be the first tassel twirler who performed at Boston’s Old Howard in the 1940s and ’50s.
Tiny Kline (1891?-1964)—This Hungarian-born started in the circus. She became Disneyland’s first Tinkerbell.
Mara Gaye (1920–2005)—A former Rockette, she stripped from the ’40s to the ’60s and was an avowed nudist.
Fiorella LaGuardia—Three-time mayor of New York, he kicked burlesque and the name “Minsky” out of New York.
Daisy and Violet Hilton—Siamese twins who found themselves in burlesque when vaudeville died.
Christine Jogenson (1926–1989)—Born as George, Christine underwent one of the first sex change operations. She stripped after getting out of military service.
La Savona—Svelta Goode, a Hungarian-born stripper.
Daphne Lake—Got her start in the carnival.
Jennie Lee (d. 1990)—The “Bazoom Girl” who started collecting stripper memorabilia.
Joe E. Lewis—Singer turned burlesque funny man after the mob sliced his throat and cut out part of his tongue. He was a frequent headliner on the bill with Lili St. Cyr in Las Vegas at the El Rancho.
Eddie Lloyd—A top second banana who performed from the 1920s to the ’50s.
Gypsy Rose Lee (1911?-1970)—Born Ellen June Hovick, her name is synonymous with burlesque.
Lorraine Lee—Lorraine Gluck used to dance for Bonnie and Clyde and Pretty Boy Floyd and “earned a quarter.” She was married to comedian Dick Richards.
Pinky Lee (1907–1933)—The “original” Pee Wee Herman, before the comedian with his own children’s television show in the 1950s.
April March (b. 1935)—Stripper born Velma FernWorden. She was known as the First Lady of Burlesque because of her resemblance to Jacqueline Kennedy.
Lady Midnight—Born Benita Kirkland, her father was famed comic Monkey Kirkland. She got her first job stripping at her father’s club.
Tony Midnight—Drag performer and costumer.
Dardy Minsky (b. 1926)—Performed as Dardy Orlando, Lili St. Cyr’s sister, once married to famed burlesque impresario Harold Minsky.
Harold Minksy (1915–1977)—The youngest and most famous of the famous burlesque family, Harold produced burlesque shows in all the major burlesque cities in America.
Terry Mixon (d. 2008)—Born Gaby Olah, she had a problem with drinking that she blamed on lonely nights in the theatre.
Renny von Muchow—An acrobatic performer, he was part of Renny and Rudy, a novelty act that played for twenty-five years.
Vicki O’Day—born Westlin, she was lucky to live after a run in with the mob.
Taffy O’Neill—Born Idella Holmes, she performed at night and took her young son, stricken with polio, for treatment every day.
John Perilli—Drummer in the mid-1950s who worked with Irv Benson, Joe Dorita, Lili St. Cyr, and Rose la Rose at the Empire and the Adams theatre.
Sheila Rae (d. 2010)—Stripper.
Rags Ragland (1905–1946)—John Lee Morgan Beauregard, a loveable alcoholic, former boxer, and comedian.
Sally Rand (1904–1979)—Known for her fan dance and her “bubble” dance. Sally worked into her seventies.
Tee Tee Red—Protege of Zorita.
Mimi Reed (d. 2007)—A straight woman who was ninety-seven years old when I interviewed her. She told me her biggest regret was “not being a stripper. I would have made a fortune.”
Billy Rose (1896–1966)—Producer, married burlesque performer Fannie Brice.
Lily Ann Rose (b. 1933)—She started stripping when she was fourteen in Boston. Her mother and aunt both worked burlesque.
Rose La Rose (1919–1972)—Considered the “bad girl” of burlesque, Rose was a stripper who ended up owning her own theatres in Ohio, where she mentored many young girls.
Betty Rowland (b. 1916)—She was one of three sisters, who all went into burlesque in the 1930s. Dian Rowland died of a heart condition when she was in her twenties. Her other sister, Roz Elle, married a Belgian millionaire, the Baron d’Empain. Betty has never talked in-depth about Roz Elle, whose home was overtaken by the Nazis, who shot and ate her beloved pet dogs during WWII.
Jack Ruby (1911–1967)—Jacob Rubenstein owned the Carousel Club in Dallas. Strippers in his club were rumored to be prostitutes. He is best remembered for shooting Lee Harvey Oswald, the man believed to be John F. Kennedy’s assassin.
Sequin—Donaelle Tamburello was a stripper who married a pianist and was the vocal coach to Tony Bennett and Judy Garland.
Lili St. Cyr (1917–1999)—The highest-grossing stripper of the 1950s.
Georgia Sothern—Born as Hazel Anderson, she started stripping at fourteen. Known as a “fast strip,” she would fling her body around the stage.
Blaze Starr (b. 1932)—née Fannie Belle Fleming, she was raised dirt poor but became one of the biggest acts in burlesque.
Lee Stewart (d. 2007)—Straight man from Kentucky.
Tempest Storm (b. 1928)—Still stripping i
nto her late seventies, Annie Blanche Banks achieved star stripper status in the 1950s. Gang raped as a teenager, she speaks about her affairs with Kennedy and Elvis, among others.
Joni Taylor—Joni DiRando, talking woman and chorus girl. By the time she was sixteen, she was supporting three children.
Lydia Thompson—In 1868, she brought a bevy of beauties to America and scandalized New Yorkers with her female cast all dressed in tights.
Mike Todd (1909–1958)—Theatre impresario and boyfriend of Gypsy Rose Lee. He produced Star and Garters, starring many burlesque talents.
Noel Toy (1909–1958) née Ngun Yee. The female Sally Rand and one of the only ethnic “exotics” to make it big in burlesque.
Val Valentine—Carole Licata, often billed as “Cupid’s Cutie.”
Abe Weinstein (1907–2000)—Owned the famous Colony Club in Dallas. He was punched by Jack Ruby the night Kennedy was shot.
Kitty West (1930)—Born Abbie Jewel Slauson, a New Orleans favorite in the 1950s, she was known as Evangeline the Oyster Girl. Her home and most of her possessions were wiped out in Hurricane Katrina.
Zorita (1915–2001)—Began working stag shows before she came up with the gimmick of dancing with snakes.
Introduction
Although its origins derive from France, Britain, and Greece, burlesque became a wildly popular American art form that thrived in the early to middle part of the twentieth century. When exactly it died, if ever, is a hotly contested point among connoisseurs. Burlesque has been a stigmatized, much maligned piece of theatrical history that has largely and deliberately been left out of the history books.
Aristophanes is widely credited as being the first burlesque writer, scribbling out parodies in 5 BC. However, this is clearly not burlesque as we think of it today, with strippers, pasties, drum rolls, and baggy-pant comedians with putty noses.
A “burlesque” of the 1800s was a play that made fun of popular “legitimate” plays of the time. There were no chorus lines, comedians, or exotic dancers. In 1931, author Bernard Sobel wrote that a particularly poor 1811 performance of Hamlet “originated what was to be called legitimate burlesque.” From 1840 on, the term burlesque was applied to a wide range of comic plays that entertained the lower and middle classes in Great Britain.
In America, burlesque evolved from the European tradition into grand productions performed by scantily clad women—burlesque was still poking fun at the upper classes, at sex, and at what people were willing to do in the pursuit of obtaining it. It appealed to the masses of working-class people who packed theatres every week to see troops like The British Blondes, a bevy of beauties dressed in tights that shocked New Yorkers with the sight of their exposed limbs.
In 1969, former minstrel-show performer M. B. Leavitt took Lydia’s Blondes and fused their show with the style of the minstrel shows popular at the time, consisting of gags, song, and dance performed mainly by white performers in black face. This new show followed a three-act formula that was to become the signature burlesque show we know today—an opening with a lavish song-and-dance number, a second act of variety performers, a third-act skit or send-up of a popular play, and, finally, a grand finale by the entire company. (Leavitt’s Rentz-Santly Burlesque Company was composed of women only, quite a deviation from the predominantly male minstrel casts.)
By the 1920s, the striptease was introduced to offer audiences something that vaudeville, radio, and film did not. The striptease let burlesque escape the same fate as vaudeville.
During the Great Depression, a man could pay a single dime and fall into a big, raucous, sexy show and forget he had no work and was unlikely to find any. Former stripper Dixie Evans, known as the Marilyn Monroe of Burlesque, said that “people in that era were so depressed and there was no hope. The masses were just out of work and out of money, but for those few small pennies, it was worth it to see one of these great shows. [They were] mostly for the American public that had nothing.”
The shows grew increasingly daring until 1937 when, fueled by public outrage, New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia banned burlesque in his city. Burlesque’s respond was to slip across the river to New Jersey.
Eventually, comedians and musicians were expunged from shows as the strippers took over. By the 1960s, however, hardcore porn was widely available and burlesque was done. The best of the comedians went into radio, film, and television.
But what happened to the strippers and the thousands of performers who had worked in burlesque their entire lives?
On stage at the burlesque show
“There’s a burlesque theatre where the gang loves to go
To see Queenie the cutie of the burlesque show...”
“Strip Polka” by Johnny Mercer
On stage
CHAPTER ONE
Welcome to the Burly Show
“Audiences—it was always full. Always.”
—Mimi Reed
“They were there to have fun.”
—Maria Bradley on burlesque audiences
Chorus girls on the burlesque stage
It’s been called a variety of names: a girlie show, burly show, tab show, vaudeville, medicine show, strip show, etc. But what was it? Its performers, numbering in the thousands, are now forgotten, anonymous men and women who lived, breathed, and died for it. At its height in the 1930s, there were fourteen shows running on Broadway simultaneously. Some considered it an art form—to others it was second-rate entertainment. It was a burlesque show.
Merriam-Webster gives us this definition: “theatrical entertainment of a broadly humorous often earthy character consisting of short turns, comic skits, and sometimes [emphasis added] striptease acts.” Burlesque has been around at least as far back as the Byzantine era. The Greek-born Theodora, who later became Empress of the Roman Empire, began on the stage as a dancer and comedienne “who delights the audience by letting herself be cuffed and slapped on the cheeks, and makes them guffaw by raising her skirts.” She was known for disrobing on stage before her audience and reclining naked but for a girdle encircling her nether regions. She was quite controversial in her time. It was rumored she worked in a brothel or two. (The same charges are often made against our modern exotic dancers. Like the “skirt raising” actresses of bygone days, strippers have long been equated with prostitutes.)
Stripper Val Valentine
Theodora was, perhaps predictably, also the victim of rumors about her voracious appetite for sexual intercourse. In my interviews I found that burlesquers were also frequendy accused by the public of being sexually deviant. Was it the nature of the women’s costumes—or lack thereof—or the erotic nature of the tease itself?
Former stripper Val Valentine told me, “Everyone thought we were preoccupied with sex. Most of the time when you were on stage, you were thinking, ‘Oh, I hope there’s a good restaurant in town.’”
Burlesque, as we remember it, was truly an American art form, even though it borrowed much from France’s dance halls and Italy’s Commedia dell’arte in the sixteenth century. In Paris, beautiful women danced the can-can—flinging their ruffled skirts over their heads, causing a sensation at the Moulin Rouge and other cabarets of the 1830s. The rumor was the girls didn’t wear underwear, but there is no evidence of this.
On the London stage, popular shows and operas were “burlesqued,” meaning they were mocked or made fun of. This form of entertainment was brought to America in 1866s with The Black Crook, a musical variety show consisting of skits, funny songs, and risqué situations with the women wearing skin-colored tights. It was a huge hit and had a record-breaking run on Broadway. It was a five-and-a-half-hour show and was purported to have brought in around $750,000 during its run. Audiences, both men and women, middle and upper class, loved the one hundred dancers, scantily dressed, parading across the stage. Burlesque had arrived.
Next, in 1868, came actress Lydia Thompson from England with her British Blondes, who introduced New Yorkers to tights and stockings as they sang, danced, exp
osed themselves, and cross-dressed. The show included parodies of current events, risqué jokes, song and dance, and variety acts. They featured beautiful performers galore and many shows sold out. New York was hooked.
Lydia’s planned six-month tour of America turned into a six-year run. Before Lydia Thompson, there “were no big American stars” in burlesque, according to Rachel Shteir, author of Striptease.
Founded in 1870, Madame Rente’s Female Minstrels performed in pink tights to sold out crowds. M. B. Leavitt wrote “decency” into all his ads to get around the stigma swirling around burlesque. The shows became must-see events.
Twenty years later, in 1893, a Syrian dancer Farida Mazar Spyropoulos with the stage name of Fatima (who would later claim to be the original Little Egypt), introduced the hoochee-coochee dance at the Chicago World’s Fair. The hoochee-coochee was something like a belly dance, only America hadn’t yet coined that specific term. Fatima performed again in Chicago at the Century of Progress International Exposition in 1933, at the age of sixty-two. (This reminds me of the burlesquers I’d interviewed. Most didn’t want to give up performing, no matter their age. In fact, one seventy-something who did a strip at the reunion asked me for the tape because she wanted to shop it around for a job.)
The first Little Egypt might have been Fatima, but because several dancers used the moniker, there has been great confusion as to who danced where and when. Fatima would eventually file suit against MGM for using “her” name in the film The Great Ziegfeld. (Ashea Wabe, another “original” Little Egypt, died by gas asphyxiation in 1908.) In any event, Little Egypt’s dance became synonymous with exotic dancing, prestriptease. Clothes weren’t removed during the performance at this point.
Another early star was Broadway impresario Flo Ziegfeld’s future common-law wife, Anna Held, who in 1905 molted to a number entitled “I’d Like to See a Little More of You.” Because of her association with Ziegfeld, she would become “legitimized” despite her scandalous displays of leg.
Behind the Burly Q Page 2