Georgia Holden True Burlesque Anatomy Award Winner of 1959

YELLOW ARROW POINTS TO ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS

A tragic and true story, but then how many happy stories does one read about those who performed in stag films?  Burlesque dancer, stripper and nude model Georgia Holden, just one more  mysterious dancing marvel seen in stills and a few scratchy stags.   Georgia Holden, AKA Georgianna Michalski AKA Georgia Kingston.

Georgia Holden once danced in the film Singing in the Rain.

One pulp compared Georgia to Marilyn Monroe (in measurements, that is) and declared her  "The Anatomy Award Winner for 1959"  Like Marilyn, Ms. Holden was usually blond, but you can see the ginger above.  You can also see her as a blur of motion squirming to that crazy sax beat in the miniature photo (optimized for iPAD viewing!) Umm…lean in.  

 The best Georgia Holden piece of memorabilia, however, has to be the cover of Men's Digest above, which despite their obsessive "horror vacui" (Latin for "fear of empty space) design technique  still made room for her boobs…and not only that, made sure you saw them with an inset yellow arrow!  

Georgia's layout proved so popular, they made Georgia the cover girl again two issues later, but this time shrunk down to a tiny square, bumped off her pedestal by new bust of the month Anita Ekberg.  Same yellow arrow though.   

TWO MONTHS LATER, MS. HOLDEN RECEIVES LOWER RIGHT HAND ARROW

And a THIRD time, this time challenged by Evelyn West…and so as not to repeat themselves, used a red arrow.  Now since most guys are programmed at birth to find breasts, the all the arrows were unnecessary, but the folks behind this digest were obviously not the brightest bunch of carrots in the patch.  I intend to make fun of them in a future post.

Georgia's Final Arrow is Red and Top Left

The only "news" story I find is a mention that she is dancing in Vegas in 1958, presumably watched over by her "pit boss"  and temporary husband one Leon Kingston .  An issue of "Spree" ran black and white photos of her dancing, and she appears in Candid Magazine, King Magazine and Scamp Magazine all in 1959.

So what is tragic?  Georgia's niece reports  (like the apocryphal story about the women who played Goldfinger's golden secretary in the 1964 James Bond film) Georgia passed away from cancer caused by lead-based gold paint!  Well, I don't know about her that, but Shirley Eaton, the woman who was dipped in gold by Auric Goldfinger,  didn't die…at least not from paint.  Did Georgia? I don't know, but I hope not.  It seems she was at one time painted as a "dancing golden statue" in Hawaii, and it set into motion events leading to her tragic death.  At any rate, she did pass away in 1971.  I am going to guess she was quite a woman. 

Read the tribute to Georgia by her niece HERE on the Strange Cosmos website.  A fairly patient web search which will require you to install all sorts of questionable download software will find some of the stags for you.

Jim Linderman Books and affordable Ebooks for iPad are available from Blurb HERE.

True Burlesque Well Balanced Performer with a Snake

The glamour of Burlesque!  Original photograph collection Jim Linderman

Lily Christine Stands UP True Burlesque

Lilly Christine, the Cat Woman who did so many sit-ups she died (true...see story HERE) and Carrie Finnell, the woman who invented the strip tease (true...see story here) on the same stage. I don't know where the 500 Club is, but I'm THERE.

Actually, I do know where the 500 Club was, and I wish I was there now. Bourbon Street. Lilly had a long run there, not in her stockings. She was house act for a long time. Lilly had a 37C-22-35 figure and worked for it. She performed a voodoo love potion dance and crawled around like a cat. Carrie by this time had put on a few pounds, but she could still shake them...each in a different direction.

Lilly Christine Cardboard Stand Up circa 1955 Collection Victor Minx

Stripper Texas Sheridan "Walks the Streets" True Burlesque

Texas Sheridan poses near an unfortunate sign.  Perhaps that is why her career didn't go too far, though she was a pretty young woman.  Texas, (real name missing in action) had red hair, though for some reason was billed as the YELLOW rose of Texas.  She was also a favorite in Youngstown, Ohio and performed on the same bill as "The King of the Banjo" but seldom, if ever, achieved top billing.  Not much of a legacy.  Oh... and she lived in Houston Texas, not Sheridan, Texas.

 Books and Ebooks by Jim Linderman available HERE

Bubbles Darlene makes Lady Gaga look like a Thrift Store Shopper True Burlesque

"Bubbles Darlene" was an exotic dancer, though she described herself once to Nashville police as a "strip teaser."  Bubbles had the real name of Virginia Lachimia and was a busty platinum blond with considerable talents originally from Minneapolis.  She studied as a ballet dancer, but found burlesque paid more.   In 1955, while performing her act, someone broke into her hotel room and swiped her entire suitcase of risque photographs "including some nudes taken in Cuba" and she was forced to take out a classified ad in the local newspaper offering $500  for their safe return.  (She was out of luck… they were never found.)  Bubbles even claimed once to have danced with a 22 piece orchestra in Cuba, and who would doubt this woman?   She was also arrested in Cuba for walking around Havana in a see-through raincoat. 


Today, Bubbles is recognized as one of the classic burlesque dancers, and an often seen photograph of her posing in a hat made of ram's horns makes Lady Gaga look like a thrift store model.


The book here, a bogus "art study" the type of which is told in Proto Porn was confiscated from a bookstore owner in 1957 and while he was charged with other titles, the jury let him off for the Bubbles book.

IN response to one of those tired "best dressed women" puff pieces, Damon Runyun, Jr. once named her one of the "ten best undressed women of America" although she kept on a "fifty dollar g-string" covered in rhinestones.  Her first professional name was Sheri Darlene, but it wasn't long before Harold Minskly dubbed her Bubbles.  At some gigs in Miami, a bubble machine was put in front of the joint she was working to attract business.

By Jim Linderman

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Venus the Body Jean Smyle Goes to Stripper School True Burlesque AND a Missing Book

CLICK TO ENLARGE The Senate Investigates Venus and her Strippers School

Venus, AKA Venus the Body AKA Venus the Body Beautiful AKA Jean Smyle appeared in two films.  Dreamland Capers, in which she played herself as a stripper, and Peek A Boo in which she played herself as a stripper.  Both were little more than crude films of a typical burlesque show from the 1950s.  Venus had a specialty, it was implying the grind on a chair.

Her greatest accomplishment,  certainly, was earning her "SA degree" for strip appeal at the School for Strippers.  Here is Venus in the center learning to perform while not hitting her head in one of the low ceiling joints they would be appearing in.  I found it on the web with no source.  Why would she "take classes" at her own school? 

The expanding sleaze press of the mid 1940s to the late 1950s were desperate for any material which showed pretty women skirting the censor.  A school for strippers was perfect, and the publicity machine churned out several versions of this story.  You can search some up yourself, but you will have to edit out pictures of Venus the tennis player (now THAT is a body) and Venus the razor.  I have one here published in an entirely different magazine, three years from the above…and guess what?  One caption reads "Venus the Body returns for a refresher course."  Um hmm.  Continuing education.  And then AGAIN in a wire story which ran in newspapers across the country, but she is called "faculty member" in that  one.  There was yet another wire story which reported the tuition was $150 for 15 weeks.

Here is  Venus the Body's rear end (really) from one of those little 12 picture "strip" sets in which a model starts out dressed and ends up still dressed, but not quite as much.  The sets were sold for about a buck each to lonely guys.  I am not sure which lesson number this depicts, not having the degree…but I would assign a degree of difficulty of 10.

Venus apparently compiled her strip secrets into a book I can't find.  Checks were to be made out to just plain VENUS on Melrose Avenue, or to VENUS FRANCESCO on Sunset Boulevard.  $2.98. There was a third address on Hollywood Boulevard.  Maybe they had three campus locations!  As you can see here, it was the one on Hollywood which came to the attention of government censors.  Actually, the school, if there really was one, which I doubt, appears here to have been in the basement of the New Follies Theater, a burly joint located on South Main Street in Los Angeles…where both of the films mentioned above were shot.

Lillian Hunt took care of the girls at the New Follies…that is queen mom directing the action above.  She has been called manager, choreographer, producer, operator, director and even legendary, but what she really did was keep them in line and help with their problems.  I would call her a good old fashioned promoter and huckster.   Lillian is also said to have directed at least ten films, including the ones Venus was in, as well as  Kiss Me Baby (1957) The A-B-C's of Love (1954) and Everybody's Girl (1951)

Lillian Hunt also used the name Mrs. DeVoe and she was married at one time to a comic named Leon DeVoe.  Here is Lillian's better half, doped up as a cowboy teaching Venus how to wave a gun, from yet another hard-hitting expose of the school in Uncensored Magazine, August 1954.

If anyone has a copy of the book, I sure would like to see it.

Orlando's Own TONI DAWN! True Burlesque

Toni Dawn of Orlando!  Introducing the new site TRUE BURLESQUE with the best stripper name EVER!  You can't make this stuff up, but you CAN pay the two-drink minimum, Mac.
 
I hate to bring up Labor day, as the end of summer is a drag, but there is ONE good thing about it.  The Labor Day Telethon!  I usually stay up all night mesmerized.  Certainly, the show has been left in apt hands with affable humanitarian Tony Orlando, formerly of Tony Orlando and Dawn.  But did Tony know he had an imposter running around shedding her clothes under his name? 

I give you TONI DAWN of ORLANDO Florida! 

Mr Orlando could certainly have sued the woman, though I find no evidence that he did.  I wonder if she stripped down to a tied yellow ribbon?


Original Newspaper advertisement for Toni Dawn (No Date, circa 1965?)  Collection Victor Minx