Oh, The Glamourous Life!

Dear Constant Reader,

The Wild and Wayward Tales of Tammi True by Nancy Myers & David Hopkins (2015).

Nancy Powell (now Myers) danced under the name of Tammi True in the Dallas area in the 1960s. She got her start when she was hired by a band to go-go dance, but the club that booked them wanted a stripper instead. After her successful debut, she performed in many of the area clubs, like the Theater Lounge and the Skyliner Ballroom.

Her infamy came when she was called to testify before the Warren Commission because she had worked at Jack Ruby’s Carousel. Before the newspapers published her personal information, she had successfully been keeping her burlesque career a secret from her neighbors. Although she continued performing after that, she retired before the decade was over.

The book isn’t very long and about one-third is about her burlesque years. The writing came out of interviews with Ms. Myers for a magazine article and it shows. My biggest quibble with the book is that the authors can’t seem to decide how to present her story. It’s predominantly a verbatim transcription of Tammi’s reminiscences, but there are sections in Q/A format and some third-person passages. I also wish that the section of photographs had been captioned.

I didn’t find her story particularly wild or wayward (especially compared to some I’ve heard from Legends), but my perceptions are probably a bit skewed compared to someone with no grounding in burlesque history. That’s not to dismiss her story; everything we can learn first-hand about burlesque back in the day is valuable.

Dear Constant Reader,

I have a backlog of books to review and I’ve even started reviews for most of them, but I never seem to find the time to finish writing said reviews. It’s a failing. Of course, this is the newest book in the Manor collection…

The Night They Raided Minsky’s: a Fanciful Expedition to the Lost Atlantis of Show Business by Rowland Barber (1960).

It is an undisputed fact that a burlesque show at a Minsky’s theatre was raided in the 1920’s. The rest of the details chronicled in this novel are up for debate. Many of the characters are based on actual people, some more accurately than others.

Our story climaxes on April 20, 1925 with the police raid of the evening burlesque show at the Minsky’s National Winter Garden. The novel traces the stories of the principal players in the drama while counting down to the raid itself. We meet Louis Minsky, the hardworking patriarch who hates burlesque, and his showman son and world class troublemaker, Billy. Then there’s Mlle. Fifi from Paris, the former Betty Buzby of Philadelphia, whose father, who hates her love of dancing, has finally caught up with her. Plus, of course, all the family members, chorus girls, comedians, and hangers-on directly and indirectly involved with the show.

The story is fast-paced and heads inevitably toward the raid, like a pushcart rolling downhill. On the way there, the reader is given a tour of the Lower East Side of the day, complete with dialect. I particularly liked the scenes of overheard conversation at the theatre as the chorus girls gossip and the comedians rehearse in their respective dressing rooms. Post-raid, the story runs out of steam as the author crams the remaining history of Billy Minsky and his brothers into a meager few pages.

Quite entertaining and well captures the time and place, if not the reality, of the heyday of Minsky burlesque. Now I’ll have to watch the movie and see how it compares.

Dear Constant Reader,

Showgirl Confidential: My Life Onstage, Backstage, And On The Road by Pleasant Gehman (2013).

Some of you might not recognize the author’s name, but if I called her Princess Farhana of Hollywood…

In this memoir, The Princess, that is, Pleasant aka Plez, shares many of her adventures as a member of an all-girl punk band, a jet-setting bellydancer, one of the original performers of the ground-breaking Velvet Hammer Burlesque, and all-around rebel and troublemaker.

Except for the first chapter, where she describes her formative years (and sets the scene for things to come), there is no order, chronological or otherwise to the tales that follow. And it doesn’t really matter. They skip around — a post-9/11 road trip that turns into a nightmare is followed by touring with her band in the mid-eighties. But it doesn’t matter. It’s one joyful chaos of storytelling.

And she’s a fine storyteller. She plunges into her crazy life with exuberance, frequently jetlagged or hungover (or both), and spares none of the details, no matter how embarrassing or outrageous. She’s like your wacky best friend recounting her adventures which you can relive from the safety of your couch (and be sorry or glad you weren’t along for the ride).

There’s plenty of sex (Them), drugs (The Austin Diet Plan), and rock ‘n roll (The Screaming Sirens), but also international incidents, psychic phenomena, romantic disasters (and I do mean *disasters*), and more. But what about the burlesque?

There are only two chapters about her time with The Velvet Hammer, one on the whip acts (yes, plural) in which she performed (with a guest appearance by the great Tura Satana) and one which is a humorous (but oh so accurate) schedule for a show day.

Like many small press books, it has some formatting issues, mostly extraneous hard returns that break up the flow of a paragraph. Occasionally a word (or even part of a sentence) is missing, but think of it as quirky charm.

And if you buy it directly from the Princess, she’ll sign it !

Dear Constant Reader,

I have another book for you!

Striptease Artists of the 1950s by Bunny Yeager (2008).

Yes, it’s yet another collection of vintage photographs of burlesque performers. But this one is special. Unlike collections like Burlesque Exotic Dancers of the 50s & 60s, The Queens of Burlesque: Vintage Photographs of the 1940s and 1950s, or The Bare Truth: Stars of Burlesque From the ’40s and ’50s it’s not a selection of promotional photos, but one photographer’s work. And that photographer happens to be Bunny Yeager, pin-up model and discoverer of Bettie Page. She shot the iconic Playboy photo of Bettie trimming a Christmas tree wearing nothing but a Santa hat, as well as my favorite, the jungle series.

There are selections of cheesecake photos, like Evelyn West at the beach and Jennie Lee at home (including one of her balanced on the outside of a staircase that makes me a little nervous) and some candids, like on the set of Blaze Starr Goes Nudist. At the very end, there’s a little section on neo-burlesque with photos of Kitten de Ville and Michelle L’amour (taken right after she won Miss Exotic World and was still known as “Toots”).

The most wonderful thing about this book is that some of the photo series were taken during burlesque shows. She captured all of Dixie Evans doing her “Prince and the Showgirl” act. There are action shots of Lilly Christine, the sultry Cat Girl, and some of performers I hadn’t known of before. These images are historical gold.

I’m sad to report that between the time I received this book and wrote this review, Bunny Yeager died. In memoriam, Michelle L’amour shares a little about her shoot with Ms. Yeager and some of the more classic pin-up photos that didn’t make it into the book.

Dear Constant Reader,

How about a new book review?

Wild Things: Burlesque Beauties And The Pets They Love by Tony Marsico (2013).

This book of photographs appeared in the library at Stately Babydoll Manor because Scratch backed the author’s Kickstarter campaign. It’s a paperback collection of photos of burlesque dancers, in costume or pin-up attire, with a whole variety of pets. There are the expected cats & dogs, but also arachnids, reptiles, birds, fish, and animals you’d be more likely to find in the barnyard than the boudoir. I believe most of the models are from the L.A area (although I recognized a Seattle gal).

Each photograph is labeled with the name of the performer (the graphic looks like one of those old Dymo label tapes) and captioned with a brief quote about her pet. The photographer played with the color saturation and format of each photo, so some look vintage, others slightly surreal. The backgrounds are as varied as the pets — indoors, outdoor, in the model’s home (usually with lovely vintage accouterments), on cars, at recognizable L.A. landmarks. The paper is matte, rather than the usual gloss, which I think works with the way the photos are presented.

If Mr. Marsico ever wants to travel to the East Coast, I know a burlesque producer with a very handsome white cat…

Dear Constant Reader,

I have a new book for you! It has absolutely nothing to do with burlesque other than the author and I have played on a couple of the same bills. You may know him as Rory Raven, mentalist and author of several books on unusual aspects of Rhode Island history (like Haunted Providence: Strange Tales from the Smallest State and Wicked Conduct: The Minister, the Mill Girl and the Murder that Captivated Old Rhode Island). This is his debut novel under his nom de plume for fiction.

Gallows Hill by Rory O’Brien (2014).

I am passionately fond of detective novels, so I was planning to read this at some point. Then a copy turned up at Stately Babydoll Manor, courtesy of the author, so I dove in.

On his first day back on the job Salem police detective Andrew Lennox did not expect to find a hanged man on Gallows Hill, on which the accused witches supposedly met their fate*. Add to this a very cold case and he’s got his hands full. Not to mention that his personal life is kind of a mess right now. As he and his partner, Sargent Michelle Ouellette, discover closely guarded secrets, the reasons behind the murders begin to emerge. And murderers aren’t the only ones keeping secrets. Obviously I don’t want to get much deeper into the plot.

It’s less of a whodunit and more of a “how-do-we-prove-they-dunit”, as the perpetrators become apparent, but the evidence does not. Unlike a lot of crime fiction I’ve read, the reasons for and details of the murders are actually believable. The two murders being investigated have nice parallels despite being completely unrelated cases.

I enjoyed the rich details of the setting. The author knows Salem very well and is clearly delighted in the mix of several centuries of history and tourist kitsch. You’ll learn quite a bit about the local history, but the facts are important to the story and never too pedantic.

I’m looking forward to further adventures of Detective Lennox and his Quebecois-cursing, cufflink-wearing partner. There are plenty of hooks for further character development, so it seems likely that we will see them again.

For more of Rory O’Brien’s work, you can read the serial Summerland. It’s not finished yet, but there are about 20 chapters to enjoy. [EDIT: That site is now dead, but the book was completed and published.]

*It was most likely elsewhere, but you’ll discover that when you read the book.