BEHIND THE BURLY Q by LESLIE ZEMECKIS : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

Leslie Zemeckis, the author of this book, really did her research. The book includes a long list of "characters", many of the performers who she interviewed in their old age. Blaze Starr, whom we are focusing on this month here at Mistress Manifesto, is just one of them. The book also includes strippers such as Gypsy Rose Lee, who was featured here at Mistress Manifesto in the past, and Sally Rand, known for her elaborate feather fan dances and Lili St. Cyr who was known for her Dance of the Seven Veils. You'll also note some familiar men in this book such as Jack Ruby, who assassinated Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President JFK, and Mike Todd, a husband of actress Elizabeth Taylor. JFK also makes an appearance and Blaze claims a few dates with him.

So let me start with admitting that I personally don't understand the appeal of burlesque and am too modest to have ever considered becoming a stripper myself.  Still, I want to be fair to those who have found their calling - their life's work - as women who have found this profession such as Blaze, who had to find her way out of the poverty of West Virginia coal mining country.

As Zemechis' profiles reveal, back in the day women who had to find some way to earn income as young as fourteen, many who were born into severe poverty, did find their way into burlesque or were solicited to dance. They were young, vital, and bodacious, and becoming what today we call "exotic dancers" was an opportunity.  Some made their fortune, some stayed in the profession for a long while even as they aged, and others became infamous.  

Burlesque evolved into an American art form, with roots in European theater, that intended to be comedic and mocking of legitimate theater and the upper classes.  The intention originally was to find humor in sex and what people were willing to do to have it. (I.e. akin to the French Farce.) So, though today's performances are generally distanced from what might even be thought of as a kind of protest, favoring titillation, the women who entered into burlesque when the average starlet wasn't taking it all off, created acts in which being funny was all part of being successful. (Blaze Starr having smoke seemingly emitting from her nether regions is funny.)

So, beginning in what is the history of burlesque was a popular art form that many people you might not imagine as enjoying it, did go off to fine theaters, where hundreds of people, including single woman and couples, were the audience and sometimes full orchestras played and a variety of entertainers acted. However as the decades went on, as the shows became more focused on the women who stripped, the musicians and comedians who had been part of the show were dispensed, and by the 1960's it was becoming all about porn.

This book focuses on what happened to the starts of burlesque, most who could not then move on into other aspects of entertainment. Some of them started out as chorus girls, some became prostitutes, some retired well regarded. No apologies.

The book is fascinating.  If this month's posts about Blaze Starr stroke your interest, you'll want to read this book!  (And remember that the books are often better than the films made of them!)

Missy