I recently got into a discussion about the old
Burlesque theatres (there were two) in Newark, NJ, my hometown, and had occasion to do a
Google search on “Stinky and Shorty,” two burlesque comedians whom I remember
seeing at the old Empire Theatre there.
Once in a while, we cut the last class from high school so we could
catch the four o’clock show at the “burl” and see the comedians and the
strippers.
Some advertising posters from the old Empire Theater on Washington Street in Newark (In those days, running a burlesque theater did not require you to know how to spell).
While on the internet looking for Stinky and Shorty, I came across this piece which is something I think you would not normally be reading, so I’m including it in this posting of the blog. Perhaps some of you might recognize some of the names of the burlesque headliners I have highlighted. Most teen age boys were warned not to go to the “burlesque show” because they might see something there that they shouldn’t be seeing! That, as the joke goes, was of course “their fathers.” That, I never did.
Jack Lippman
The History of Burlesque
"For too long these burlesque girls have been held down
on the low rung of the entertainment ladder . . . but no more" declared Dixie Evans, the former Marilyn Monroe of
Burlesque. Dixie and I have set out to change the perception of how old-time
burlesque is viewed. "It has been left out of the history books."
Dixie had been the quintessential beauty that "fell" into a career
taking it off. I was privileged enough to interview the octogenarian. She
wasn't the oldest. There was 97 year-old Mimi Reed
- I should have been a stripper. I would have made a hell of a lot of money;
90 year-old Betty Rowland aka the Ball of
Fire who sued Samuel Goldwyn Studios, and 88 year-old Sherry
Britton, a stripper who was made an Honorary Brigadier General by FDR.
These were just three former burly girls who knew all too
well the slights leveled at them because they shook their pasties for a living.
"We'd get humiliated at Saks," Dixie said. "They meant to put
you down."
The Golden Age of burlesque was the '30s and
'40s. It was a big, gaudy, humorous show, a cousin to vaudeville "with a
little more spice," which meant stripping.
I shot a documentary on the subject; sponsored a reunion of
former performers; wrote a book, and collected mounds of memorabilia. I've
become an "expert" on a field I assumed was a strip show with second
rate performers grinding in seedy theatres for men with popcorn buckets over
their laps (well, that was true).
It was a huge industry in America. Picture this: thousands
of artists laboring 4 times a day, 6 days a week, month after month for years -
to packed houses. Performers enjoyed long careers on the circuit, earned a
decent living, raised families and were content to be someone in burlesque.
While Broadway shows became too expensive to produce during
the Great Depression burlesque thrived, for pennies one could fall into a
burlesque show and forget one's troubles and laugh.
Most names are forgotten today, like Stinky & Shorty, Peanut Bohn and Kitty West. And it was
more than just strippers. There were the straight men, like Robert
Alda, who supported the comics. Alda was known officially as the
"tit singer" presumably because he sang while the girls wore very
little. There were the famous comedy teams like Weber
and Fields, Abbott and Costello.
There was "Cheese n' Crackers" Hagan who got his name because instead of swearing he said '"cheese and crackers." There were the novelty acts such as harmonica players and hand-balancers like Renny von Muchow, one-half of a team of hunks that worked steadily for 25 years.
There were the chorus girls and talking women, who performed
with the comedians. And of course there were the strippers, many who peeled
creatively such as Blaze Starr who rigged
smoke to come out of the chaise she disrobed from. Some ecdysiasts worked with
animals, oyster shells, swings, or like Lili St.
Cyr a see-through bathtub (pictured below). Many had accidents including falling off the
stage.
Lili St. Cyr and Blaze Starr
The removing of just how many clothes depended on venue and
performer, but was still tame by today's standards. Some of the "bad"
girls of burlesque like Rose La Rose tried
to get away with flashing pubic hair or - more hilariously - fake pubic hair. Beverly Arlynne sewed a piece of fox fur on a
g-string and flashed for the farmers in the audience.
Few planned a career in burlesque. Showgirl Helen "Bingo" Bingler got into burlesque
to escape a wicked stepmother who knocked her front teeth out with a broom
handle. Sherry Britton lived for a year on
the streets of New York before seeking refuge in burlesque. Her mostly absent
father showed up and complained. "My daughter in burlesque?"
She could only stare. "Where were you? What was I supposed to do?" Sunny Dare was stiffed on a show and "had to
strip to earn enough money to get home." Candy
Barr escaped white slavery to get into burlesque, only to end up
enmeshed with Mickey Cohen and Jack Ruby.
Most, but not all of the women, came from tough backgrounds.
They were escaping poverty and abuse. With scant opportunities to improve their
circumstances burlesque gave these women a chance to transform their lives.
What started out as a "family entertainment" became a rite of passage for high school boys sneaking into theatres. Soldiers filled the seats and wrote fan mail from the battlefield. Women attended and were served tea by the strippers.
Most of the strippers I interviewed said it was a time they
looked back on with fondness not regret. Tee Tee
Red claimed "that was the good days." Tempest
Storm was still shaking her "booty" in her 80s.
There was great camaraderie backstage. Blaze Starr remembered how Val Valentine brought her soup when she was ill. Beverly Arlynne's hands were crippled by
rheumatoid arthritis. She never removed her gloves, except one performance,
running late she failed to get them on. A man in the audience complained and
she was fired without pay. Don Rickles, on
the bill that night, bought her a plane ticket home.
Comedians tended to marry the talking women. Lou Costello met his wife who was a pony (the
short one in the chorus) in a show. There were high jinks and fun. "We
used to get little bottles of 7-Up and fill them up with gin." (Maria Bradley) Comedian Rags Ragland was in a
bar-fight defending a stripper. He knocked a guy on the head then returned to
finish the show.
The biggest grind of a show wasn't what the strippers were
doing, it was the relentless amount of travel, multiple shows in a different
city every week, catching trains, throwing wardrobe, sleeping in g-strings.
Not that the performers were all saints, but as former
stripper Vicki O'Day noted "there were fewer stripper prostitutes than
secretary prostitutes."
Burlesque as it was is no longer. Neo-burlesque
troops have exploded around the world keeping alive a tradition of
entertainment that has informed everything from The Carol Burnett Show
to Saturday Night Live, Katy Perry to Lady Gaga. Burlesque was a
wonderful, important part of our American entertainment culture, a heritage
that we - and those who toiled in its ranks - can finally be proud of.
Leslie Zemeckis is the author of the
new book Behind the Burly Q: The Story of Burlesque in America.
What's Behind Attacks on Wendy Davis?
Democratic
Texas State Senator Wendy Davis is running for governor of the Lone Star State,
a position the G.O.P. has had a lock on for twenty years. You may recall her recent filibuster in the
Texas State Senate opposing abortion legislation which would reduce a woman’s
right to choose what she felt would be best for her. Consequently, the right wing is out to get
her.
Davis campaigning
Davis’
biographical material tells a dramatic story of a single mom, raising her baby in a trailer
park, before going on to complete her education at a community college, at Texas Christian University and finally, at Harvard
Law School. As is unfortunately
occasionally the case with politicians, Davis embellished her story a bit,
omitting a few details and confusing whether she was 19 or 21 when her marital
problems first arose. Wendy and her
first husband were divorced when she was 21, and her stay in the trailer (her
parents’ domicile) was relatively brief, once the settlement was finalized. A second marriage, which enabled her to go on
to Harvard Law and introduced her to politics, also ended in divorce. The point
is, to quote Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi riposte, “What does it really matter?” It wouldn’t if she were a man.
If
Wendy were a man, would thrice-divorced Rush Limbaugh and his ilk be tearing into her as if the
inaccuracies in her biography were indicative of a deep character flaw which
inexplicably didn’t prevent her from being elected to the Fort Worth City
Council and ultimately, to the Texas State Senate. Of course not! For the right wing to attack
Senator Davis about glossing over this troublesome part of her life, when she
was barely out of her teens, is sexist and ignores a noteworthy career in the
legal profession and in elected offices.
Davis’
opponent, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, seized on the report to question
Davis' credibility calling her story a “fanciful narrative.” A spokesman
for him added that "It's disappointing that a candidate would so
cavalierly deceive voters about the most basic aspects of their life, while
providing inaccurate testimony in the process.
If voters can't trust what Sen. Davis says, how can they trust her to
lead? Texans deserve candidates who are open and honest with the
truth." Senator Davis, of
course, quickly admitted the errors and recognized that from now on, her “language should be tighter.”
If
all the weaponry the Republicans can draw upon with which to attack her is her second
ex-husband’s correction of her age at the time of her first divorce, a part of a Dallas Morning News feature this past weekend, perhaps
Ms. Davis has a chance after all! Realistically
though, in a state where the voters actually elected Ted Cruz to the United
States Senate, it is highly unlikely that Ms. Davis will defeat her
opponent. Texans, Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn notwithstanding, are peculiar people. Nevertheless, she is an
excellent candidate and you never really know how an election will turn out
until the votes are counted.
Jack Lippman
Sid's Corner
This is not Sid, but these are Philippine workers in a call center such as Comcast has there.
INTERACTING WITH COMCAST
Sid
Bolotin
Each time I’m forced to contact Comcast because I’m having
trouble with my service, I cringe with dreaded anticipation of the frustration
lying ahead based on prior encounters with their phone reps. I know there could
be a wait time of up to thirty minutes which many times can be assuaged by
their call-back feature so I don’t lose my place in the queue. I also shiver at
the thought of the upcoming tour that will put me in touch with reps around the
world…Colombia, the Philippines, India, Mississippi, or the Carolinas…never to
a local rep here in southeast Florida. Furthermore, I know that it will be a
crapshoot as to the rep’s English-speaking capabilities, his/her technical
expertise, and a willingness to trouble-shoot versus just scheduling a tech to
come to my house.
And, of course I’ll have to endure the syrupy, sweet, robot
voice that assures me that Comcast wants me to have a great experience and asks
me to participate in a short survey when I finish with their rep… along with the
seemingly endless assurances that my call is important and will be answered as
soon as the busy reps finish helping other customers.
One recent Saturday morning my initial phone call was
answered by a robot announcing that there was an area outage that would be
fixed in about three hours, and that I’d be contacted when done. Two hours
later, when I discovered that my phone was now working but not my TV or my Internet,
I called in and began my tiptoe thru the tulips. I was bounced betwixt Jake in Colombia, Jared in the Philippines, William in Mississippi,
and finally Michelle in the Philippines
over a 4-hour world tour before my service…phone, internet, and TV were up and
running. The journey was peppered with my repeated pleas for the rep to speak
slower so that I could cope with their struggles with ESL (English as a second
language).
On Sunday morning the drama began anew when I awoke to
discover that I had lost service once again. While John in the Philippines was
talking to me, our connection was lost. Redialing got me Jim in Colombia who
told me that the repair on Saturday must have been faulty because my neighbors
on either side of me had service, while my neighbors across the street had my
same problem. And, as he said he was informing the service department, we lost
contact.
Calling back I got Sheila in the Philippines who told me that she
could see that Jim had indeed reported the problem and assured me that I would
receive a callback when the trouble was corrected.
After an hour, or so, I called again to check on the
progress and wound up with Nick in Colombia who told me that Jim had scheduled an
appointment for a service-call for the following week. When I went ballistic at
this un-asked-for appointment, Nick turned out to be one of the nice guys. He kindly
volunteered to try to fix things and began to “tickle the ivories” from his
end. In short order he was able to get my devices up and
running…except for the DVR box connected to one TV. Because he does Internet
only, he transferred me to the TV department where I was queued up for twenty
more minutes until Kim in the Philippines came on and announced that she’d
schedule a tech to visit.
Once more I went ballistic and insisted that she try sending
a refresh signal as was successfully done the day before. Voila!! After an hour
of rebooting activity, the DVR was a-ok.
At this point my wife got into her own unsuccessful marathon
as she tried to reach a supervisor or a billing rep to negotiate a credit for
the lost service…sometimes on hold for as long as ninety minutes before giving
up.
The bright side is that the next morning my service was still
functioning correctly, and my wife did reach a billing rep who sympathetically
credited $37.00 to our account.
As a final aside…my Google search for experiences by other Comcast
clients produced a plethora of similar situations.
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