Patti Waggin is everywhere!
Group of Patti "The Girl with the Educated Torso" clippings, circa 1953 Collection Jim Linderman
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Showing posts with label Burlesque. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Burlesque. Show all posts
True Burlesque Where is Patti Waggin ?
Patti Waggin is everywhere!
Group of Patti "The Girl with the Educated Torso" clippings, circa 1953 Collection Jim Linderman
Ruby Richards The Black Pearl True Burlesque
The Black Pearl. True Burlesque tells the story of real glamor and talent...yet few know of her.
Today, brought back to life from black and tan burlesque heaven is Ruby Richards. AKA "The Black Pearl" and once called "Sloe-eyed Ruby" by a smut magazine. What? I had to look it up. It means having eyes shaped like almonds. Well, I'm glad that one is gone. She also performed under the name "Curlytop" which which might also be a bit arcane, but they might be referring to her hat, not her hair. See Below. Jet Magazine March 5, 1953.
The Black Pearl name came from her appearance as just that in a giant oyster shell she emerged from in a stage act at the Paris Folies Bergere. Researching Ruby's story, I have seen a few pictures online, but not many…par for the whole course with a woman of color from the golden days. We can triple the search results here! When one of you creates a Wikipedia page for the performer, cite my article. Wiki thinks what we do here is spam. However, because the "authorative" sources were as racist as the rest of the country, we have a problem here. Unless Wiki starts to realize there is history which wasn't reported by the "papers of record" we'll be reliving ignorance all over again, this time on their often wrong encyclopedia.
What CAN be learned, thankfully, comes often from Jet Magazine, lifeblood and bible for the African-American nation within a nation. I've said it before and mean it. Thank God for Jet. Ruby was singing and dancing for years but you won't read much about her except in the race magazines of the 1950s. Jet. Hue...and probably ephemeral smut magazines like the pictures I found here.
Hey Wiki?
Is Man to Man a reputable source? The photos above ran in a magazine alongside an article with "Those Nude Pics of Sheree North" who is the woman who played Kramer's mom on Seinfield decades later. I see Wiki has missed that too...and she was on the COVER. My point is made. There is history in flea markets, and Wiki is missing it.
Ruby was signed to the Latin Quarter by BARBARA WALTER'S FATHER Lou Walters. Good for him, and we can congratulate Barbara for her long career in journalism. Did you know Barbara's dad was a showbiz maven with an eye for female talent and once ran entertainment at the Tropicana Casino in Vegas? Hmm…maybe HE was one of the "most fascinating people" but it's too late to do him at award time…Ms. Walters has left the set.
Ruby was born in the West Indies and moved to France apparently around 1950. Before the Latin Quarter gig, she was a Cotton Club dancer and singer. She was no dummy. She saved her earnings and invested in Harlem real estate. She studied Voice at the French Conservatory of Music. I don't believe anyone has yet made the web connection with Ruby Richards and Ruby dancing…here with Louis Jordan. Enjoy!
In the middle of her career, Ruby is reported to have changed her name to ZI ZI RICHARDE for some reason. I have no idea why…but it could have been to escape her lovely vocal here with Hot Lips Page's I Bongo You! Hot Lips would "bongo" her. She would "bongo" back!
Jim Linderman tells a true story from the Golden Days of Smut daily. See also SECRET HISTORY OF THE BLACK PIN UP
True Burlesque It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like A Burlesque Christmas! BONNIE BELL AND HER BELLS
True Burlesque It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like A Burlesque Christmas! BONNIE BELL AND HER BELLS
BOOKS AND EBOOKS BY THE EDITOR ARE AVAILABLE HERE
Burlesque Bandits. Shoplifting Strippers in Pittsburg and Miami True Burlesque
It was big news in the Pittsburgh Post in 1951 when store dicks Iggy Borkowski and Edward Crowley were called in to arrest two strippers who were stripping a STORE rather than themselves! Burlesque bandits of the shoplifting kind, and they had been doing it for a while. The cops had been watching one of them, (the red head Maria Weber) for six months and she had hit fifteen stores. The blonde Isabella Eckels was snatched at the local Sears and Roebuck. At home, the dancers had more purloined loot waiting.
In addition to stolen clothes, the girls were ruining a refund racket. Swipe it and return it for credit.
A year later, Burlesque dancer Isabelle as arrested AGAIN in MIAMI….this time for swiping the wallet of Daniel Hawk, who fell to the floor in faint. Was Isabelle slipping some mickeys?
No "glamor" in THESE mug shots.
Thank you Pittsburgh Post October 20, 1951
True Burlesque 500 Club in New Orleans. Linda Brigette replaces Lilly Christine in a Glorious Dump
Burlesque Bourbon Style!
The best thing about the Bourbon Street 500 club (other than their STUNNING PRODUCTION VALUES on display here ("Get on the divan, honey") was that Clarence "Frogman" Henry performed there. Jeez…I wouldn't sit on that couch unless someone wiped it off with a towel like the slant board at my gym!
Seriously one…one of the premiere joints in the country, and the dancer had less than 6 feet to twirl in. The 500 club was a dump from the "glory days" of burlesque. They actually thought this shot was classy enough for their promotional postcards! Here's another with Linda given a little more room...but not much.
One of the Prima brothers ran it at one time, but there was, of course, skullduggery in the books.
By 1971, 42 inch bust Sandra Sexton was stripping there for half-filled seats and the glamor which was never really there there ended for good. Just ten years before that, the joint was hot enough for the morals squad to raid the place…but the gate dropped like a loose pastie once real smut became available in the movies. By the 1970s no one cared enough to lift a finger, much less their head.
The stripper is the postcard above is Linda Brigette AKA Georgia Lambert. Her manager gave her the name Brigette hoping Bourbon Street drunks would mistake her name on the marquee as Brigitte Bardot. Bardot she, um… weren't. She wasn't a blonde either…fake. As for the rest of her? I'll leave that up to you. (Actually, I'll figure it out for you…rock hard early implants.) Bourbon Street boulders. Sometimes Linda danced with a monkey, and I don't mean her husband. A REAL monkey.
Linda replaced Lilly "The Cat Girl" Christine when LIlly she died of peritonitis. Brigette clearly was no Lilly Christine either.
You can read all about Linda HERE on a tribute page.
Bambi the Body and the Tomboy Club True Burlesque
True Burlesque tells a shocking true story from the (fake) glamor days of burlesque weekly!
In October 1967, detective Anthony Delano was "outraged and shocked" at the gyrations of one "Vanilla Williams" (Full fake name Princess Victoria Vanilla Williams) an African-American dancer at the super classy Tomboy Club in North Dade, Florida. Now this was in the south in 1967...I'm going to guess detective Delano was outraged at virtually ANYTHING an African-American did back then...but I'll cut him some slack because Vanilla could really shake it. At any rate, Vanilla was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.
In court, the detective was unable to "adequately describe what went on, or came off, at the club" according to the Miami News of October 3, 1967. So in the interests of justice, Judge Carling Stedman decided to go see the show for himself.
Herbert Lane, owner of the Tomboy Club had a problem...Miss Vanilla had moved on...slipping the shackles of southern law, so to speak, the stripper had split. So Herbert put on a ringer. Bambi the Body!
Now Bambi the Body wasn't black, so we can suspect this would be in the club's favor. A slick move by the slick owner. However, Judge Stedman decided to bring his wife with him for the show! Lane is quoted as saying "My God, he's brought his wife...we haven't got a chance." Not only that, Bambi the Body was 38-22-35 and could shake it like a sister! Bambi was smokin' like a southern BBQ! The only photo of Bambi I find is here. I'm sorry, but it was was dark in the club...but you can determine her race. White as the sand on Miami Beach.
Guess what? Case Dismissed! The judge seems to have had a good time!
As for Vanilla, pictures of her are easier to find, as Jet Magazine liked her. Jet ran a photo of Vanilla in their November 2, 1967 issue, and they also ran a picture of her playing with Bullmoose Jackson's chihuahua ten years earlier! If this is starting to read like a Carl Hiaasen novel, that's Florida for you.
Bambi was from Alabama, but she also danced in Canada. I guess as a young girl she wanted to see the world.
ESSENTIAL BOOKS AND $5.99 EBOOKS BY JIM LINDERMAN AVAILABLE HERE
Forever Yung Barbara Yung Burlesque True Burlesque
Barbara Yung isn't anymore. (Young, that is…she is, I believe, 94 years old (!!!) While she worked some places catering to the Chinese-American market, her first big dancing break came at Peter DeCenzie's El Rey Burlesk in Oakland, a joint which figures most prominently in the story of Tempest Storm, Lilly LaMont and a dozen other ecdysiasts, not to mention filmmaker Russ Meyer.
Like the others, she worked across the country. From her Bay area origins, she "fanned" out (get it?) across the United States, doing it in Texas, New Orleans and just about anywhere a stripper could work. I believe she was from Oakland originally, but as she didn't receive as much press as some of the other dancers on the grind there isn't too much I can add to her story. Which is good…no overt racial cracks in her paper trail. There are no "women of color" really…race is a continuum and there is only one, the human race. But there ARE some women who break ground when they are dancing in footlights and Barbara Yung did and survived.
Ms. Yung worked with Sinatra, but he probably didn't notice…she is credited as one of six "Chinese Dancers" in Pal Joey. (Right below the actors billed as "Chinese Club Owner, Chinese Pianist and Chinese Drummer" but it was a paycheck. In 1953, she helped open the Capitol theater in Portland. She was inducted into the Burlesque Hall of Fame in 2011 and she showed up for the show.
The nicest biography of Ms. Yung is on the Soft Film HERE. Furthermore, the astounding Memories of Fong Wan's Scrapbook HERE has several scarce photographs of the dancer.
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Helene Polka and the Jungle Club of Miami True Burlesque
The Jungle Club in Miami started as a fruit stand. Helene Kayfetz opened the stand around 1945, shortly after the war. She sold fruit, but as a former showgirl herself, it wasn't long before she had put up dancing platforms, changed her name to Helene Polka and put a "humorous" darky on the wall. Not cool, but then the dump probably didn't have air-conditioning.
Soon the dancers Ms. Polka hired were doing TEN shows a day. She was too cheap to hire a band, so "Voodoo beats" came out of hidden speakers while the dancers stripped in a "Voodoo Revue." At any given time, some 30 nearly nude women roamed around the club, so raids and arrests were frequent. One reason the club kept getting busted, according to rumor, was that Helene refused to pay off the cops and pay for "protection." This was reported in 1949.
In August 1949, one "Dick Lowe" (good name!) reported in the Miami News that "The Jungle club has without a doubt the largest single collection of dog faced dancers in all of show business. In one number Helene has the girls do a choral dance wearing absurb (sic) and horrible face masks, and on some of them the masks are a genuine improvement."
Sheesh, and I thought I was rough on the business! The headline of that review should read "Dick Lowe Hits Low."
He goes on to say Helene learned "homelier girls work a whole lot harder on the floor trying to make up for their lack of beauty." Helene wasn't too sure herself! Here she calls them "reasonably beautiful!" Great Boss!
Since someone is selling pictures of them on eBay, here is one so you can judge yourself.
In 1953 Helene put out a nude calendar to promote the business. Ten years later, she was claiming a "heart condition" prevented her from appearing at yet another court case involving the club.
The Jungle Club lasted until 1961 when it dropped the nudes and became the Mermaid Club.
Florida now seems proud of their censorious past. The State Library will SELL you a print of a group of strippers being arrested and hamming it up from the Jungle Club HERE.
I thought libraries were supposed to be free?
Ebooks ($5.99) and Books by the author are available HERE
Tempest Storm's Big Ten Inch Record True Burlesque for the Blind
Sometimes Kermit even faked his bloopers, so he was a deceptive crook. They still do that, but now it is to fill out the "Bonus" version of the DVD.
By extension, Kermit is also responsible for the humorous "clip" shows which used to take your submissions in the mail, but now just take them off You Tube. I don't miss Tosh ever. Daniel Tosh is funny, maybe one of the funniest comics working today. Kermit Schaefer isn't. Working, that is...he croaked.
I digress. The point of this post is to question who would want to LISTEN to burlesque. You go to burlesque to SEE, and if you are lucky, to see Tempest Storm, who is out of place here. But it was a better idea to put her on the record jacket than it was to put out a record of burlesque SOUNDS, that's for sure.
Kermit released his novelty records on Jubilee, an early label which dropped race records on white kids (thank GAWD, white music SUCKED) but also some dreck, and when they went broke, and mobster Moe Levy bought them out.
Burlesque Show is a fairly scarce record. I mean, even with Tempest casting a double shadow over the imaginary first three rows, what the hell are you supposed to get out of playing this record? No boners here. The record inside is MINT but I still haven't played it.
Burlesque Show 10" record. Jubilee Records (also known as Jay-Gee Record Company) Circa 1959 Collection Victor Minx
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"No, No, NO! JUST BLAZE STARR, NOT the BOZOS!" Press Photograph from the Morgue True Burlesque
A rare, heavily edited and cropped press photograph of the world's greatest stripper, Blaze Starr.
Press photographs are usually kept in a file known as "the morgue" but Blaze is alive and kicking still. God Bless Her. Note how many times the paper used the photo.
Original Press Photograph of Blaze Starr 1969 well-used and cropped. Collection Jim Linderman
Free Excerpt from the new book Private Photographs of a Burlesque Queen True Burlesque
Lynne O'Neill was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1918, studied in Evanston, Illinois but apparently lived most of her life on Long Island in New York. In later years, she kept a post office box in Manhattan for fan mail, but was also known to provide her Lynbrook, NY address in correspondence to those who appeared harmless.
A tireless stripper with a pair of long legs, Lynne O'Neill was a dancer, a business woman and a marketer. The original Garter Girl… so proclaimed by her own mother. Who else could claim the title? There were plenty of hoofers working the boards, but few had Lynne's gams or gumption, and fewer less had a business selling garters in the lobby during shows.
Lynne looked like a star but she really wasn't. Most of her work was in New York City. Acting as her own press agent, she didn't make the trades too often. A few mentions, name only, in Billboard magazine during the 1940s maybe, but compared to more traveled peelers of the day like Tempest Storm and Blaze Starr, mentions of Ms. O"Neill are scarce indeed. Magazines seldom ran her photographs.
Each night after her appearances in New York City, she traveled 28 miles back to her home on Long Island. According to Bette Frary in The Official Metropolitan Gotham Life Guide "Fans travel across the river to applaud her." Gotham Life was a freebie listing of entertainments available to conventioneers and visitors to the city, and randy drunken male conventioneers were her trade.
Burlesque revivalists refer to the glory days of burlesque. There were no glory days. Lynne danced late shifts in smoke and hormone-filled dumps, was stiffed by crooked promoters, sleazy club-owners with mob connections…and then walked in the dark to the Long Island Railroad after arousing an audience of drinkers.
Lynne survived by hard work, a good gimmick and a better slogan. She even wrote a column on her experiences as a stripper for Man to Man magazine. In one issue, she remembers through rose-colored glasses working what she calls "Midnight Shambles" in Baltimore with her mother handling her wardrobe.
Lynne did have at least one photograph appear in Abe Goodman's "joke" books under the Humorama imprint in the late 1950s. Her greatest "hit" may have been on the cover of a horrible concept record called "Treasure Chest" which consisted of "88 Spicy Tales told by Captain Kidd" produced by Joe Davis. Davis operated a budget record label out of West 49th Street, where he released some of the few authentic blues recordings which made it out Manhattan and a number of Jazz recording artists. He also put out some five "party records" with lame risqué jokes. The scarce records was released with two covers, but Lynne was credited on one. Needless to say, it did not chart.
In Show Magazine of December 1955, she appears with the headline "Burlesque - Is It Bouncing Back?"
Lynne also appeared, remarkably, on the cover of Leonard Burtman's Striparama magazine, holding a saxophone (!) in full color. There, despite Burtman's reputation, she was in good company, as others appearing in spreads include Evelyn West and Zorita, both strippers with far more fame than Lynne.
The March 1953 issue of Gala features her, and again three years later under the headline "Who's New in Burley-Q?" In 1957 she appeared in Scamp magazine.
Lynne made at least one "legit" film and dances topless in the color film "Miami Strip" early in her career.
Many of the commercial and amateur photographs of Ms. O'Neill were shot in her basement studio, where she ran a mini-industry selling garters, fan club memberships and more.
Professionally trained and THEN some, her resume lists no less than fifteen ballet and dance schools.
After Ms. O"Neill passed away in 2010, her effects were auctioned off. Along with the 50 photographs shown here, which the dancer stored in a dresser drawer, were neat piles of correspondence to and from her fans, many who requested garters, souvenirs, autographs and favors. The care and respect with which the performer saved these materials indicates how much she appreciated the fans. There is a website devoted to the performer called "Lynne O'Neill: The Original Garter Girl" with her resume, correspondence and more.
Photographs and artifacts above from the author's collection.
The new book "PRIVATE PHOTOGRAPHS OF A BURLESQUE QUEEN: LYNNE O'NEILL THE ORIGINAL GARTER GIRL" is available from Blurb.com in paperback ($22.19) and in Ebook ($5.99) HERE. Orders and a free preview is available HERE
Jim Linderman is a collector, artist, popular culture historian and writer. He maintains the art blogs "Dull Tool Dim Bulb" and "Vintage Sleaze" on a daily basis.
Lili St. Cyr Shows her BUST True Burlesque And Men My Fuel
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Russ Meyer Tempest Storm El Rey Theatre and "A Full Set" True Burlesque
Original advertisement for El Rey photograph stills by Russ Meyer 1952.
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Crazy, Man, Crazy! True Burlesque of Chela
The World's Fastest Stripper (!) True Burlesque of Georgia Sothern Ecydysiast and Suspected Falsie Wearer?
Georgia Sothern. If you look her up, Google will force Georgia SOUTHERN on you, so click through. Thanks Google, but I know what I'm looking for.
Georgia Sothern was really Hazel Anderson. Plucking information from relatives who have contributed to information on the web, it appears she was once married to a fellow who ran a nightclub across from Madison Square Garden, and later to a "wealthy NY lawyer" with whom she lived happily ever after. I am going to guess husband number one is Harry Finkelstein, who Georgia caught in a hotel room with fellow stripper Sally Rand once. Harry claimed he was there to give the bubble dancer "medicine" but it was inappropriate enough for Georgia to have them both arrested. Of course the press ate it up. I believe Harry eventually married Sally!
There was a rumor Errol Flynn seduced her, but she denied it. If so, Georgia is virtually the only woman (or man) in the business not to sleep with Errol Flynn.
According to the Associated Press, Georgia once clocked Joann Collier after she accused her of wearing falsies. Georgia said "in my trade, the wearing of falsies is impossible" but Joann later claimed she meant "in her evening dress."
Later she joined the carnival. THAT'S a glamorous life too!
Before long, Hazel had learned the business as hired her OWN strippers which toured under the name "Sothern's Red-Headed Revue". Other than her crazy, "chicken on amphetamine feed" dance shown here, her biggest claim to fame is providing the term "Ecdysiast" to refer to exotic dancers. It used to mean "animals which molt" but now it means dames who strip. Georgia was also called "dervish" and "cyclonic" among other things. Oh…and the "bing bang bong girl." Oh…also the "sizzling tornado."
She later wrote an autobiography full of lurid details of her life in burlesque.
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True Burlesque Silver Slipper Style Howard Hughes Toe Camera and the Giant Surveillance Shoe Sign True Burlesque
The Silver Slipper was a fake frontier town designed to steal your money in the casino. I didn't even bother to see if it had mob connections. Legit casinos are criminal enough.
This story really isn't about the outstanding Silver Slipper burlesque shown here…it is about nutty billionaire Howard Hughes. Hughes lived near the Vegas casino, and every time the huge rotating silver slipper sign aimed it's toe at Howard's window, he believed there was a camera hidden in the shoe spying 0n him. So he BOUGHT THE CASINO and had the sign torn down.
Later revelations about Hughes and J. Edgar Hoover's files today leads me to believe he might just not be as crazy as we thought. Hoover's boys had over 2,000 pages of documents on Howard Hughes, and had him under surveillance for decades, mostly, apparently, as Hoover was interested in his sex life.
Maybe there was a camera in that shoe after all.
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