The following article was originally submitted as a working chapter of the new book, Striptease: From Gaslight to Spotlight. If you would like to read more, click here: 

Burlesque of the 1950s

by Jessica Glasscock

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Performance artist and "NYC’s only female-female impersonator" *BOB* hosts a monthly burlesque event at the 1950s-themed The Slipper Room on the Lower East Side of New York. The September 21, 2000 performance was entitled "Bombshelter." It included an opening striptease by "International Burlesque sensation" Dirty Martini, who came onstage surrounded by pink balloons which she popped one by one with her cigarette to be revealed in pasties and a g-string. She was followed by belly dance troupe "The Undulation Sensation" dressed in sequined bras and layered harem pants and chiffon overskirts. Then the owner of The Slipper Room came out to disrobe and the re-robe in the high fashion of the 1950s, 1960s and 1990s as "Miss Fashionality." After an interlude of comedy, *BOB* took the stage to make and pour a martini using only her breasts. The grand finale of the evening was a goodnight from a topless *BOB* who assured the audience that no night of burlesque could go by without an appearance by "the twins" (i.e., her bare breasts).

*BOB*’s stated goal in the "Bombshelter" event’s playbill is "to bring Burlesque to you tonight and to secure its place in the future." Judging by the content of the performance, she is referring to the artful and humorous striptease. This is hardly a leap since in burlesque has become equated with striptease in contemporary pop culture. Or rather, "Burlesque" on a neon sign on Bourbon Street in New Orleans means strippers. Burlesque on a playbill on the Lower East Side denotes a nostalgic form of striptease.

The definition of the word burlesque in The Oxford Modern English Dictionary (Second Edition) reads as follows: "burlesque n. 1 a comic imitation, parody. b a performance or work of this kind. c bombast, mock-seriousness. 2 US a variety show, often including striptease. adj. of or in the nature of burlesque. v.tr. (burlesques, burlesqued, burlesquing) make or give a burlesque of . [from Italian burlesco]." How the United States definition of burlesque as striptease came to be alongside burlesque as literary and theatrical forms will be examined in this paper, specifically, the question of when and how that meaning was established. This paper will argue that the definitional shift from burlesque as literary parody or particular type of theatrical performance to burlesque as a nightclub bill of striptease punctuated with comedy became entrenched in 1950s America.

The cementing of burlesque as striptease was due to several factors inherent in the development of burlesque in the theater and in the social and economic pressures brought to bear on burlesque venues in the 1950s. The history of burlesque theater can be examined in terms of the theory of sexuality as discourse put forth in Michel Foucault’s A History of Sexuality, Volume I. Foucault suggests that the history of sexuality is not one of repression, but of proliferation. Burlesque could be viewed as one of "a steady proliferation of discourses concerned with sex."[1] Further, burlesque’s apparent evolution from theater into "confession of the flesh"[2] suggests that it may exemplify Foucault’s theory. This paper will review the history of burlesque up to the 1950s and examine primary sources on performances in burlesque venues and burlesque striptease artists in the 1950s in order to consider whether the evolution of burlesque represent a change in its nature or merely a clarification of its original intent.

According to Robert C. Allen’s Horrible Prettiness, the element of female sexuality as part of the burlesque theatrical performance was established with the premier of Lydia Thompson and her British Blondes on the New York stage. Lydia Thompson, under the management of theater impresario Michael Leavitt, staged the play Ixion at Wood’s Broadway Theatre in 1868. The performance was a parody of high drama of the period using contemporary songs, bad puns, and women in "breeches" roles, that is, dressed as men with their legs revealed. The first run of the show was a hit, but the second caused a backlash by the press, ministers, legislators, literary figures and suffragettes. The performance "came to be characterized as a cultural epidemic of indecency, impudence, and suggestive sexual display."[3] Despite the criticism, Leavitt was able to create a formula for box office success from Ixion which he sent touring across the nation throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century. The formula was a mix of minstrelsy, variety, and the women in breeches, who were the main draw. [4]

The woman in the breeches role who defined the marquee term "burlesque" in the nineteenth century had a fairly standardized costume of which elements can be found on the person of the 1950s burlesque stripper. The key scandalizing garment was a pair of tights which allowed the woman to perform as a man without her bare legs being revealed. Of course, the legs were being revealed, but the tights offered an illusion of decorum. In addition to the tights was a fashionable corset which emphasized the hips and bust and, for the women playing women’s roles, a slit skirt . The slit skirt allowed the woman in the feminine role to reveal her legs as well. The costume, quaint in the 1950s, was considered indecent by nineteenth-century standards. [5]

The Lydia Thompson burlesque costume remained in place as burlesque shifted over the course of the nineteenth century from high-status middle-class consumer theatrical extravaganza to low-status working man’s girlie show with comic interludes. In 1893, the element of orientalism was added to burlesque through the premier of Little Egypt at the Chicago World’s Fair. Little Egypt was a belly dancer featured in the "Street of Cairo" exhibit at the fair. She and other belly dancers performed at the fair without corsets in baggy trousers, a slim chemise and a short waistcoat with attached coins. [6] The well-publicized event found numerous imitators in burlesque theaters and at carnivals as the belly dance evolved into a striptease forerunner, the cooch dance. A solo cooch dance became a common feature of burlesque performance in the early twentieth century and represented a break from the emphasis on a chorus line in burlesque women’s performance. [7]

The new format solidified in the Minsky burlesque theaters; and Minsky publicists even coined the term "strip tease." [8] The Minsky theaters became immensely profitable during the Great Depression. They featured the first of the star strippers, such as Gypsy Rose Lee and Ann Corio. Though the Minsky theaters were shut down in New York City, the Minsky wheel (a circuit of theaters) continued to tour burlesque striptease performers throughout the country into the 1950s.

By the 1950s, burlesque in American discourse had taken two distinct forms: that of contemporary phenomenon and that of nostalgia phenomenon. Bernard Sobel’s 1956 book A Pictorial History of Burlesque and the autobiography of Gypsy Rose Lee are examples of the latter. Sobel’s book is a disjointed, opinionated and contradictory survey of the history of burlesque performance in the United States. Sobel avers that "[t]he scandal of tights . . . was the chief enticement of American burlesque."[9] Throughout the book, Sobel emphasizes the great performers who started in burlesque (including Jimmy Durante, Abbott and Costello, and Milton Berle). He marks the decade from 1900-1910 as

While Sobel emphasizes the value of early twentieth century burlesque as a training ground for great comics, he does not exclude the enticements of the female burlesque performers from his evaluation. He calls burlesque "the ideal school for a vicarious sowing of wild oats and for learning the facts of life." He says "it represented ‘what comes naturally,’ a wondrous experience in sex, an experience to anticipate, realize, remember and enjoy again."[11] Sobel also includes a chapter on striptease which features pictures of both 1930s and contemporary striptease stars. In his description of stripteasers, he alternates between condescension ("‘artistes’ - the swank term gradually adopted by strippers" [12] ) and open excitement ("Lily St. Cyr is a name with which to conjure and Rose La Rose someone to marvel over" [13] Later in the book, however, Sobel’s analysis of the place of women burlesque performers in the history of burlesque takes a less generous turn: "Swarms of stripper dominate what is left of [burlesque]." [14] Sobel’s concludes that striptease was the undoing of burlesque:

A less extreme position is taken in a pair of articles from Harper’s Magazine in 1957. The two articles are excerpted from Gypsy Rose Lee’s autobiography. The first is subtitled "A personal account of the turning point in the career of the most famous - and wittiest - practitioner of a unique American art form: The Strip Tease." [15] The first article covers the period in Lee’s life before stripping, when she considered herself a vaudevillian. Due to being flat broke, Lee’s mother is forced to let Lee play a burlesque house despite the fact that "Vaudeville performers looked down on Burlesque." [16] Lee then encounters the "sweat-stained, sleazy costumes" of "Tessie, the Tassel Twirler." By the end of the excerpt, Lee has been included in the comedy skit of the burlesque show and has put on a pair of Tessie’s gold high heels. [17] The second article traces Lee’s transition into strip tease and concludes with her being offered star billing at Billy Minsky’s Republic Theater. Lee’s burlesque nostalgia, placed as it is during the 1920s and '30s with the rise of striptease as burlesque, does not condemn striptease at all. However, the editors of Harper’s Magazine take her position on the matter and place it firmly in a bygone era with their conclusion to the first article which has the teaser that next month "Miss Lee tells about the . . . peculiar kind of artistry which finally made her a star in a now-vanished realm of the theatrical world." [18] The statement places Lee’s reminiscences firmly in the realm of nostalgia, as if striptease had vanished. It had not.

Burlesque as contemporary phenomenon was well-evidenced in the mass-media of the 1950s, but it was also compartmentalized as an exotic or sociological phenomenon. Mass media depicts 1950s burlesque as urban, foreign, or marginal. The first 1950s mention of burlesque in the periodical Life falls into the nostalgia vein. It reviews Vaudeville: From the Honky-tonks to the Palace by Joe Laurie, Jr and concludes that "[vaudeville] was killed by talking pictures, the radio and the greed of its management." [19] In 1956, Life covers striptease as a fad in Paris where "the newest fad is the U.S. method of slow and coy disrobing."[20] By 1958, Life announces the presence of striptease in Las Vegas in an article about conflict between east-side and west-side revues over "the extent of show-girl nudity that is both decent and lucrative to display." [21] The tone of the Life articles is more tickled than scandalized. Still, burlesque and striptease are portrayed as exotic phenomena existing in the past or in exciting travel destinations.

Newsweek coverage of burlesque is more engaged with the contemporary phenomenon of striptease as burlesque. The first of only two Newsweek articles on burlesque covers the closing of Minsky’s Rialto Theater in Chicago. The article identifies Lili St. Cyr as the star of the theater’s final show and offers two opinions on the state of burlesque, one from a 70-year-old booking agent who states that "Burlesque decided it had to change from comedy, vaudeville, and music. . . . the strippers became the most important part," and the other from St. Cyr’s manager who says "Burlesque will last. It’s the one form of entertainment you can’t put on television." [22] The second Newsweek article in the 1950s provides more gleeful coverage of the burlesque/striptease scene and clearly identifies burlesque as striptease since the premise of the article is that burlesque is on the decline but for the mushrooming of exotic dance. The article goes on to state that the current of number of "ecdysiasts" is estimated at 2,000, that the number of strippers has quadrupled since the 1930s while the number of burlesque houses has shrunk from 60 to 25, and that 50 night clubs in New York City employ strippers. The article also provides a list of props being used by strippers (snakes, monkeys, macaws, doves, parakeets, stuffed horses, swimming tanks, and bubble baths) and the names taken by them (Carita La Dove - the Cuban Bombshell, Betty de Cue - Duchess of Disrobe, Evelyn West - the $50,000 Treasure Chest Girl, and Melba - The Toast of the Town). According to Newsweek, gimmicks and elaborate stage sets are the order of the day in 1950s stripping.

Burlesque striptease as a sociological phenomenon is evidenced in both Time and The New York Times Magazine as they cover a "field trip" by a class from The New School for Social Research to a New Jersey Minsky theater. The Time article takes care to describe the group as "no ordinary Minskyites" [23] and delights in the teacher’s discomfort with the performance, narrating that "Teacher Bill Smith . . . became more and more embarrassed. . . . He had forgotten how low burlesque had sunk."[24] Meanwhile, Time portrays the students as interested. In a description of the same event, The New York Times Magazine quotes the teacher of the class at length: "‘I want to point out,’ Smith went on resolutely, ‘that burlesque as we know it came into being about - uh - 1926 or ‘27, when the stripper came along. . . . Before that, it was not an integral part of burlesque." [25]

The 1950s discourse on burlesque reveals that it had always involve a display of female sexuality. The apparent change was that in the 1950s, burlesque had become nothing but female sexuality in the form of the striptease. The response to the apparent shift ranges from Sobel's hysteria to Time’s muted amusement with such prudery. What is glaring in its omission from the 1950s discourse is any consideration of the importance that female sexuality had always had in burlesque theater. Sobel’s romanticism of the eroticism of early burlesque obscures the fact that it was regarded as indecent in its era. This sexuality of the past has been "rigidified . . . stuck to an age, a place, a type of practice." [26] This is in part because early burlesque costume has become quaint in comparison to 1950s burlesque costume.

The aspects of 1950s burlesque costume and performance are unclear in a review of mass media magazines in the era. G-strings, tights, tassels, hose and rhinestones are mentioned, but any examination of the burlesque costume of the 1950s requires a review of period pictures and film. Unfortunately, striptease and burlesque, being considered pornographic, are marginalized in recorded history, part of an "archive dematerialized as it was formed."[27] The publications devoted to strippers in the 1950s (See, Wink, Eve, and Eyeful) are only available through collectors, not in public libraries. One 1950s publication with a prurient interest that is readily available is Playboy. However, a survey of all the magazine’s issues of the 1950s offers surprisingly few articles about burlesque. Some of the Playboy articles cover burlesque in the same manner as Life magazine, that is, as an exotic phenomenon. Pictorials like "Paris Hot Spots," "Paris ‘Round the World," "Burlesque in Tokyo," "Filming the Folies-Bergere," "Latin Quarter Lovelies," "Minsky in Vegas," and "Les Girls, Les Girls, Les Girls" all cover burlesque as somehow foreign in origin. The few articles that cover contemporary burlesque do so in a condescending manner. "Got To Have a Gimmick" opens "There was a time when a girl could count on an enthusiastic audience by simply peeling down to her birthday suit. Not so today. The modern male is a jaded animal." [28] The article goes on to recount gimmicks currently in vogue in burlesque such as costumed assistants, the use of animals, a bathtub, a wired g-string, a trained bird, and underwater stripping. The article concludes "All of these clever goings on are designed to make show lounge sex more interesting and, at that, they’re pretty successful. Nevertheless, all things considered, we prefer our sex in the bedroom." [29] Another article, about striptease headliner Tempest Storm, takes a similar superior attitude: "Miss Storm is, in the words of her press agent, ‘a strip tease recitalist.’" [30] On the whole, the Playboy articles follow the same tack as Life and Newsweek in casting burlesque as exotic inasmuch as it relates to exotic locales. They add their own tack in portraying it as laughable in comparison to the actual sex which the Playboy reader is assumed to be having. The result is that little light is shed on either burlesque performance or costume. [31]

Film becomes the next option when exploring documents of burlesque and burlesque costume in the 1950s. Films of burlesque performance are as rare as the magazines which covered them as the films have lost their pornographic value and are consequently only available if they have cult status, such as Irving Klaw’s films centering around Betty Page. The only film available of a 1950s burlesque show at the performing arts library in New York City is 1953’s A night in Hollywood. The film opens with an older woman singing "Hollywood news" in rhyme and a mangled Cuban accent. She is followed by the first stripper, wearing a dark, sequined, hourglass gown with a slit up the front allowing a chiffon underlining and her legs to peep through. She dances to a live band and strips off the dress as the music changes to be revealed in a dark, sequined bra and matching briefs with floor-length chiffon panels attached to front and back. She dances in this until another music change when her bra, the chiffon flaps, and her brief come off to reveal . . . another, smaller, flesh-colored bikini. She dances in it briefly and then exits to be replaced by two comedians who do a brief and painfully unfunny skit. Five more strippers follow (their performances broken by comic interludes). There is little variation in either their performances or their costumes. The consistent elements are: contemporary formal wear as a starting point, a large fringed or tasseled bra and briefs with sheer chiffon flaps as an interim costume, and a tiny "nude" bikini as a finale.

Burlesque performance costume, as portrayed in A night in Hollywood, clearly shows its nineteenth-century roots. Though the cross-dressing aspect is nowhere to be seen, the emphasis on the coyly revealed leg is clear. All the "formal wear" sported by the stripteasers in the film featured side slits or a front panel through which the legs could be revealed, whether or not such an opening was appropriate to the high fashion of the era (which they were imitating). In this way, the costume is a direct descendant of that worn by the non-cross-dressed female performers of 1860s burlesque theater. The second layer of the 1950s burlesque costume reiterates that idea while highlighting the second sartorial influence on burlesque costume, the Little Egypt "orientalism." The low-slung waistline of the 1950s costume references belly dancing costume as does the spangled and tasseled over bra. The tassels can even be interpreted as a modernization of the jingling coins which were featured on the original Little Egypt costume. The final layer of the 1950s costume refers again to the 1860s burlesque costume. The flesh-colored netting worn by all the 1950s strippers both reveals all and reveals nothing. The vulva is emphasized by the g-string, but fully covered. The breasts are visible and set off with pasties, but are clearly constricted within a transparent covering. 1950s burlesque, like 1860s burlesque, would seem to be less about the revelation of the flesh than the suggestion of the revelation.

In the 1950s, through performance like that in A night in Hollywood, burlesque took on its present meaning. Ironically, discourse about burlesque in the 1950s was in great part devoted to avoiding that very result. Self-styled burlesque historian Bernard Sobel exemplified this losing battle as he wrote of history that both glorified the "men’s club" purity of early burlesque while insisting that it was so much more than a girlie show. He then places the blame for the decline of burlesque squarely on the shoulders of women burlesque performers. The mass circulation weeklies continue this process in the 1950s by mourning the death of burlesque while hailing striptease artists as its sole survivors.

The hysteria over the supposed artlessness of 1950s burlesque strippers in comparison to the good old days of early burlesque seems pathetically repressed and small-minded to a modern audience. The playful innocence of *BOB*’s 1950s-style burlesque revival is clear in comparison to current pornographic portrayals of women. Meanwhile the comments of 1950s burlesque survivors reveals the same negative comparison of the present to the past as in the 1950s. In 1989, Blaze Starr, a 1950s headline strip tease performer, said "Porn killed stripping. . . . in my day, nudity was so rare - so special." [32] The question that the elevation of 1950s burlesque, so reviled and corrupted to its contemporaries and so worthy to the present, raises is about the meaning of burlesque as a whole - from theatrical performance of the 1860s to main attraction of Bourbon Street in the year 2000. I submit that burlesque’s crystallized meaning of the 1950s was its meaning all along. A survey of the history of burlesque shows that feminine spectacle, the suggested (if not actualized) revelation of the female body and sexuality was integral to its performance. Theatrical burlesque was always, in short, about female sexuality, a fact which has been consistently clouded through the lens of nostalgia. The costumes, quaint to the present, but scandalous to their contemporaries, bear this out. They became more revealing as burlesque became more explicitly about feminine spectacle. The present fallacy is that burlesque is again dead, except in revivals like *BOB*’s, and that now degraded nudity reigns supreme. In fact, current striptease require some sort of clothing by law in most areas of the United States and the aspects of make-up and plastic surgery in striptease as a form of costume and a denial of the still elusive flesh remain unexplored.

Notes