Oh, The Glamourous Life!

Dear Constant Reader,

Before we get to the book review, I wanted to remind you that we have a Kickstarter campaign to help fund our tour this summer. There are some really fun gifts! I’m waiting for someone to go for the big one… dinner at Stately Babydoll Manor, prepared by Scratch and served by the Boston Babydolls.

Burlesque and the New Bump-n-Grind by Michelle Baldwin (2004).

I believe this was the first book written about the neo-burlesque movement and is certainly still the one most people reach for when they first discover burlesque. Michelle Baldwin (aka Vivienne VaVoom) looks at the origins of the new burlesque while paying tribute to its roots. She starts with a brief history of burlesque and some of the major historical influence on modern burlesque.

The rest of the book is devoted to neo-burlesque. She looks at its history, evolution, and influences. It’s peppered with profiles of industry leaders. Baldwin also explores costumes, styles, philosophy of performing, the audiences. There are photographs throughout, many taken in performance. The list of on-line resources might seem a little dated, as there is so much more out there now. Please note that this is not a book about performing burlesque, for that you need The Burlesque Handbook.

A lot has happened in burlesque since this book was published, but it remains the top book on the subject.

Dear Constant Reader,

For a change, here’s some burlesque fiction.

The Golden G-String by Dusty Summers (2002).

Mercedes, Dallas, and Jesse are all dancers at the Primadonna in Texas. All three of them will be competing in The Golden G-String contest in Las Vegas, hoping for a role in a major motion picture, or at least more fame and fortune. But most of the book is about the choices these women make, in their careers and in their personal lives.

Jesse is only a peripheral character, escaping an abusive relationship early in the story and only making brief appearances until they all arrive in Las Vegas. We primarily follow Mercedes, the heroine, and Dallas, who makes bad decisions. The contest itself, the climax of the story, only takes up a few chapters and the ending feels a little abrupt.

Dusty Summers worked in the industry for years and her insider knowledge shows. The book may be fiction, but the descriptions of clubs, acts, and costumes are clearly grounded in reality. I was particularly taken with a section where Mercedes is booked into a “mixing club”. Her job there is less about dancing and more about drinking with the customers. Veteran dancers Wendy and Suzette teach her how to look like she’s drinking bottle after bottle of champagne without actually swallowing a drop.

Dusty has a nice way with character creation. All of the characters, even the minor ones, have distinct personalities. And she treats her settings similarly well. You’ll have a clear picture of what burlesque was like in a certain era when you read this story.

Dear Constant Reader,

Today’s book has nothing to do with burlesque, but it was written by someone with whom I’ve shared the stage many a time.

Burning the Gaspee: Revolution in Rhode Island by Rory Raven (2012).

Rory Raven is a mentalist. He will read your thoughts, bend your silverware, and generally blow your mind. He’s also a historian, specializing in the state of Rhode Island. His latest book is on an incident during the pre-Revolutionary tensions between Great Britain and the American colonists. You may know of the Boston Tea Party and the “shot heard round the world”, but outside of Rhode Island, the burning of the Gaspee is probably not familiar.

In 1772, under cover of darkness, a group of Rhode Island colonists rowed up to the British schooner Gaspee, angry with the captain’s harassment of colonial ships, which, admittedly, were smuggling goods. The Gaspee had run aground, unsuccessfully chasing a ship suspected of smuggling, and was helpless until the tide came in. The captain was shot, the crew bound and removed from the ship, and the ship itself burned to the waterline.

The book reveals the events leading up to the incident and the aftermath and the colorful characters involved on both sides of the conflict. It’s a short book, completely focused on this one act of colonial rebellion that opened the door to out & out revolution. Personally, I’m quite interested in maritime history, so I enjoyed reading about the smuggling and vice-admiralty courts. There was even an appearance by the Rose — I spent some time on the replica Rose, so I’m quite fond of her in either iteration. (here’s proof — I’m the one in the white hat — but I digress).

If you are interested in local history or the American Revolution, do check it out.

Full disclosure: I received a copy of the book for contributing to the Kickstarter campaign to defray the cost of licensing images.

Dear Constant Reader,

Queen of Burlesque: The Autobiography of Yvette Paris by Yvette Paris (1990).

Yvette Paris was a Times Square stripper in the bad old days between the death of classic burlesque and the birth of neo-burlesque.

She started as a fill-in stripper, just because she wanted to see if she could. After a little while, performing as The Minx, she decided her gimmick would be old fashioned burlesque: evening gown, gloves, rhinestone and boas to a bump & grind soundtrack. She was a hit. She decided she’d proven she could do it, so she quit after only a few weeks.

Financial necessity brought her back to the stage, as a go-go dancer. It was hard work, often under hostile conditions. Frequently she feared for her safety. It wasn’t all misery– there are some amusing stories, but they are fewer than the scary ones. When she finally quit dancing, she tried modeling, but she wasn’t making enough to keep her husband from working two jobs. She went back to stripping.

This time she was a gold-star stripper with her old-style burlesque act. The owner of the Harmony Burlesque theatre loved it so much he gave her the title “Queen of Burlesque”. Unfortunately, she couldn’t dance burlesque all the time — girls cycled through the clubs to keep the audiences coming back for new material. In the mean time, she worked as a “booth baby” in a peep show. She later found success as a model and a Marilyn Monroe impersonator.

This was to be part of Prometheus Books series of “sexual autobiographies” about people “whose lives are stigmatized by society”. In this vein, she discusses her thoughts on homosexuality, prostitution, porn, drugs, and other controversial topics.

Dear Constant Reader,

I’ve just acquired some new books, so I have to step up the reviewing. At the moment I have more than a dozen books to review — and some of them are the ones that have been in the library the longest!

“Woman to Woman: Ann Corio and the Rehabilitation of American Burlesque.” by Julie N. Vogt, PhD (2010).

I met Julie Uberblonde at the Great Burlesque Exposition of 2010 and we chatted about her doctoral dissertation about Ann Corio. She had some strong opinions about some popularly held beliefs of burlesque history. I was hopeful that she would eventually publish her dissertation as a book for more general audiences. It was a shock to learn that she died this past December. So, it was a little bittersweet to read her dissertation, knowing that there are so few academically researched books on burlesque.

Her main topic is on the creation of Ann Corio’s style of burlesque as a brand and marketing it to women. However, she also uses Ann Corio as a focus to delve into a critical study of burlesque, as a performance art and as a business. Along the way, she provides a review of the existing literature and she dispels some burlesque myths, a number of which Ann Corio appears to have created.

There’s a lot of information and some excellent research, but I’ll be honest — despite the topic, it’s still a doctoral dissertation and parts of it get a bit thick with academese. I’m pretty fluent in academese, so I was able to mine the gold. And there’s a lot of it.

Dr. Vogt’s death was a terrible loss for her family, friends, and students, and also for the study of burlesque.

Dear Constant Reader,

The highlight of the costume exhibit I’m curating at the West End Museum is several costumes worn by Ann Corio in her show This Was Burlesque, courtesy of her niece. In preparation for creating wall text, I’ve been rereading the book that accompanied the show. It seemed like high time to review it. A special thanks to my friends Teresa & Jeff who gave us this autographed copy one New Year’s Eve.

This Was Burlesque by Ann Corio (1968).

Ann Corio was one of the biggest burlesque stars in the Golden Age of Burlesque, especially in Boston. She played the Old Howard frequently and was much beloved of Harvard students. She claimed other colleges referred to her as “Harvard’s baby”, but she was definitely known as “Her Majesty, The Queen”. After her career in burlesque she turned to acting on stage and in B-movies, but just couldn’t forget about burlesque.

In 1962 she and her partner Michael Iannucci opened This Was Burlesque in New York City. A retrospective of comedy, striptease, and chorus girls, it ultimately played all over the country for almost 30 years. It was filmed by HBO in the 70’s, but the VHS tapes are hard to find.

Fortunately, we have Miss Corio’s book. She writes a light history of burlesque as one who was there through most of it. She perpetuates some burlesque myths and creates some new ones, but this is hardly an academic tome. She presented burlesque as cleanly and gently as possible to an audience who wanted something a little naughty, but not too threatening.

The book is illustrated with photographs from her show and as well as historical burlesque performances. There’s a strong emphasis on comics, especially ones who started in burlesque and went on to fame in film and television. She includes a number of scripts for comic sketches.

The book is out of print, but can be found at used book dealers without too much difficulty.