Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie ShowThe fascinating, untold story of the history of undressing: over fifty years of taking it off. Striptease combined sexual display and parody, cool eros and wisecracking Bacchanalian humor. Striptease could be savage, patriotic, irreverent, vulgar, sophisticated, sentimental, and subversive--sometimes, all at once. In this vital cultural history, Rachel Shteir traces the ribald art from its nineteenth century vaudeville roots, through its long and controversial career, to its decline during the liberated 1960s. The book argues that striptease is an American form of popular entertainment--maybe the most American form of popular entertainment.Based on exhaustive research and filled with rare photographs and period illustrations, Striptease recreates the combustible mixture of license, independence, and sexual curiosity that allowed strippers to thrive for nearly a century. Shteir brings to life striptease's Golden Age, the years between the Jazz Age and the Sexual Revolution, when strippers performed around the country, in burlesque theatres, nightclubs, vaudeville houses, carnivals, fairs, and even in glorious palaces on the Great White Way. Taking us behind the scenes, Rachel Shteir introduces us to a diverse cast of characters that collided on the burlesque stage, from tight-laced political reformers and flamboyant impresarios, to drag queens, shimmy girls, cootch dancers, tit serenaders, and even girls next door, lured into the profession by big-city aspirations. Throughout the book, readers will find essential profiles of famed performers, including Gypsy Rose Lee, "the Literary Stripper"; Lili St. Cyr, the 1950s mistress of exotic striptease; and Blaze Starr, the "human heat wave," who literally set the stage on fire.Striptease is an insightful and entertaining portrait of an art form at once reviled and embraced by the American public. Blending careful research and vivid narration, Rachel Shteir captures striptease's combination of sham and seduction while illuminating its surprisingly persistent hold on the American imagination. |
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American Ann Corio April Artists audience became began Billboard Billy Blaze Starr Broadway Brooks Atkinson BRTC burlesque houses Burlesque Review Burlesque Scrapbooks burlesque show burlesque striptease burlesque theaters Cabaret carnival Chicago City Clippings File clothes comic cootch costume critics culture dancer December described dress E. E. Cummings entertainment Fair fan dance February female films Finnell Folder G-string Garter girls Gypsy Rose Lee Herk Hollywood Irving Place January Jazz Age June LaGuardia legs lesque Lili St male March Margie Hart Minsky Minsky's movie Mutual circuit naked National Winter Garden night nightclubs November nude nudity onstage Paris performers played police popular prostitutes reformers revue Sally Rand San Francisco September sexual shimmy Shubert song stage Star Starr story Street strip clubs strippers striptease striptease's tease teaser Tempest Storm topless TUNC undressing acts Variety vaudeville Wassau wearing WHMC woman women wore wrote York Ziegfeld Follies Zit's Theatrical Newspaper