BLAZE and A PANTHER AS A PROP?

In Leslie Zemeckis's book Behind the Burly Q, a reference for this month's posts, we learn that Blaze Starr tried to include various animals from the feline - Big Cat family into her act, without success. As you may know most strippers have a gimmick, a brand, which helps them define how they are different from another dancer.

EXCERPT : Pages 196-197

Starting out, Blaze Starr admitted, "I first saw Gypsy and I thought, Well you gotta have a gimmick, something people remember ya by." Everything had been used. She thought "animals." She got an ocelot and dyed it black. "I didn't have sense enough to know; it got sick and died.  It wasn't big enough."

So next she bought a Samoa leopard. "Got it through an animal company in New York who found it from a zoo... (Again) I didn't have sense. You can't ever train a cat, couldn't travel with them. I wasn't scared of them. They were babies.  t swallowed a rubber ball and died. Then I got a puma - a mountain lion they're called. Big and dangerous. It had been declawed. Died during surgery."

Her bad luck with cats continued, but she hand't given up yet. "I paid $1,100 for a baby black panther. I'd get it raw steak, just warmed."

Blaze and her panther were in a hotel in New York and Blaze went out shopping, leaving the panther inside - something she was used to doing. Although she'd leave it in the cage when the maid came. "(The maid" didn't come in and clean. She'd give me clean sheets." While Blaze was shopping, "it got in the shower, turned on the hot water. I come back, the cops and firemen are there. It had flooded a wing of the hotel. No one cold go in the room, it was screaming, weighed one hundred pounds."  Blaze went into the room. "It jumped on my back and laid its head on my shoulder and scratched my brow. I thought it was going for my jugular vein. I knew then. This is ... scary.  I sold it back for five hundred dollars.

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