Oh, The Glamourous Life!

Dear Constant Reader,

If you could only read one book on this history of burlesque, this is the one I’d recommend.

Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show by Rachel Shteir (2004).

Ms. Shteir looks at the entire history of burlesque in America and its foreign influences. She begins with the earliest days — minstrel shows, travesties and tableaux vivants — and the introduction of the striptease. She continues through the golden age, the decline, and finally the introduction of the topless (and more) club. There’s a little bit about the burlesque revival at the end.

The endnotes are extensive and reveal an academic bibliography. The book may originally have been her Ph.D. dissertation, but it’s quite readable. Illustrations sprinkled throughout.

UPDATE: Use with caution. There is unreliable information in this book.

Dear Constant Reader,

It’s Wednesday and that means a book review!

Candy Barr: The Small-Town Texas Runaway Who Became a Darling of the Mob and the Queen of Las Vegas Burlesque by Ted Schwarz (2008).

Candy Barr’s story is not a pretty one. Born Juanita Slusher in rural Texas, she suffered abuse from a young age. As a teenager, she ran away to Dallas, hoping only for a job and the chance to dance. Instead she found herself forced into prostitution and porn. Bright, beautiful, and a talented dancer, she managed not to be crushed by her horrible situation and escaped to become a headlining burlesque dancer. There were a few shining years as a star in Las Vegas and Los Angeles before forces beyond her control again tried to bring her low. She seemed destined never to have a quiet life.

Because Candy/Juanita was alive while the book was being written (she died in 2005), it is full of quotes and memories direct from the source. The author does tend to play the martyr card a little too much. He often portrays the dancer as a naive innocent, caught up in a vast conspiracy to destroy her. The chronology is occasionally hard to follow as the author sometimes jumps ahead or back to provide a better flow to the story.

Her story is one of survival against terrible odds rather than one of glamour and glitter. The descriptions of her dancing will make you wish you were one of the lucky ones in the audience.

Dear Constant Reader,

Today’s book has a lot of information on one of my favorite topics — costumes!

Pretty Things: The Last Generation of American Burlesque Queens by Liz Goldwyn (2006).

After making her documentary, also called Pretty Things, Ms. Goldwyn returned to her original focus, burlesque costumes, with this book. There’s lots of fabulous information about two prolific costumers with photos, sketches, pages from their account books, &c. Some of the sketches even still have fabric and trim samples attached. It’s marvelous inspiration.

The book also discusses burlesque in general and certain performers in specific, liberally illustrated with photographs and scrapbook pages. The biographies of Betty Rowland, Dian Rowland, June St. Claire, Lois de Fee, and Zorita are livened with first-hand stories from interviews conducted with some of the remaining “last generation”. I was a little surprised that despite numerous quotations from Sherry Britton, she didn’t rate a chapter of her own.

Ms. Goldwyn clearly loves her subject and her sources, but she’s not a dazzling writer. There are the occasional clunkers like the dancer who was “riding a horse wearing a white feather bikini”. Even if you skipped the text and just looked at the illustrations, this book would be worth it.

Dear Constant Reader,

Today’s review is about one of the other aspects of burlesque.

The Best Burlesque Sketches by Ralph G. Allen (1995).

Lest you think burlesque is all about the stripteasers, this book will introduce you to one of the other major talents in a burlesque show — the comic. It’s a collection of routines that were compiled for the Broadway show Sugar Babies. Many of the sketches are classics, like “The Gazeeka Box” or “Crazy House”. Some are just corny and some are racier than you might expect — the ending to “Meet Me Round the Corner” had to be toned down for the show!

Before my burlesque days, I spent quite some time performing commedia dell’arte in its earliest form. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s 16th century Italian improvisational comedic theatre. Scratch, who is a recognized authority, teaches a fantastic class on the subject, but I digress. I can clearly see the roots of commedia in these sketches — the stock characters, the vulgarity, the room for improvisation, the physical gags.

Most of the sketches require several men, a challenge if you are part of a troupe that’s mostly women. And much of the humor is dated. Some jokes can be modernized, but some would just have to be presented as a period piece and hope for the best. Even if you don’t plan on doing comedy, it’s worth reading to appreciate the entirety of a burlesque show and the atmosphere in which the dancers were performing.

Dear Constant Reader,

I appear to be on a bit of an ebook kick. I guess it’s because Amazon just makes it so easy to buy them! Today you’re getting 3 reviews in one.

Queens of Burlesque: Ann Arbor, Ann Corio, Gypsy Rose Lee, Lili St. Cyr and Sally Rand.
Dames of Burlesque: Blaze Starr, Tura Satana, Ricki Covette and Other Ecdysiasts.
Dolls of Burlesque: Irma The Body, Dorian Dennis, Connie Vaughn and More Vintage Strip Tease Artists.
all by Kevin I. Slaughter (2011).

These three little ebooks contain selections of burlesque publicity photos from the collection of “an unnamed friend of Underworld Amusements”. Some of the photos, after being shown full size, are repeated, enlarged and cropped. In a couple of cases, I was a little surprised as to what the editor thought should be the focus of the cropped photo.

Queens of Burlesque is the best organized of the lot, being divided into sections by dancer. As promised, there are pictures of Ann “Boom Boom” Arbor, Ann Corio, Gypsy Rose Lee, Lili St. Cyr and Sally Rand, each under her own chapter heading. In Dames and Dolls, the pictures are unidentified, unless the dancer’s name appears on her photo. However, these collections also have vintage cartoons and advertisements scattered amongst the photographs.

Although I have yet to check against the other photograph collections in my library, I think at least a few of the photos are unique to these books, and that makes them worthwhile.