Jo Weldon's New York School of Burlesque

Brian Smith is a Pulitzer-Prize-winning photographer whose photographs of celebtrities and personalities have graced the pages of uncountable newspapers and magazines, including his picture of Pope John Paul II on the cover of Newsweek. So it should come as no surprise that for years he has been traveling to a goat farm in Helendale and later to hotel showrooms in Las Vegas to photographs burlesque queens of the 1950s for the annual Striptease Reunion of the Burlesque Hall of Fame. What? It's true. We at the Burlesque Hall of Fame have been honored by many of the people who have taken an interest in the organization, its personalities, and its events. But it's fair to say that Brian, with his talent, his reputation, his kindness, and his appreciation, ranks uber high in those honors! I met Brian on a photo shoot for which I'd been hired to bring burlesque models for a promotional project for photographic equipment. I was so charmed, really touched, by his enthusiasm and ...

There's a fantastic article in Paraphilia Magazine Issue 3, pages 43-65. You can open and read the issue at the site.

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Every year at The Burlesque Hall of Fame Striptease Reunion , several performers bring numbers constructed to tribute their favorite superstars of classic burlesque. Sometimes they are recreations, sometimes they are simply inspired by and include elements of movement, costuming, and/or lore associated with those performers. This year I'm tributing Sherry Britton, for which I have the honor of having had her guidance and suggestions before she passed away. As the BHOF Weekend nears (or I should say, zooms in, as I'm feeling a bit behind in my preparations!), I want to make note of some of the loveliest tributes I've seen, so I've asked the performers who did them to make some comments on the experiences they had with their numbers. This is the first of two or three posts I'll make about tribute numbers. Above: BOB and Ruby at the New York Burlesque Festival. Photo by Kitty Kowalski. Video of an Interview with Liz Renay "Last year for the NYBF 2007 I de...

The applications for the Miss Exotic World Pageant are up! Click here to get one. Gigi La Femme signing in performers at the Miss Exotic World Pageant in Las Vegas. Click here for a little history of the Pageant. Click here to see some youtube clips from Exotic World. If you haven't been to the Burlesque Hall of Fame Striptease reunion that happens the Friday night before the Pageant, when all the legends of burlesque perform, you can't imagine how fierce and wonderful those ladies really are. I've been incredibly lucky to be a part of it! Tempest Storm , Burlesque Hall of Famer, performing at Exotic World, 2004, in Helendale.

Did you have close friends in burlesque, and do you still have them? For some reason I really got along great with all the girls, and I don't remember having any friction with any of them. If you featured you traveled a lot and had your own dressing room, and the locals and chorus girls hung together more, so I usually didn't get to know them well, but I did make friends. I've still got friends that I still write to from way back. I would say it was a very wonderful comaraderie among the women. There may have been more conflict in the big eastern theaters. When I lost my scrapbook in Miami Beach I put an ad out to help me find it, and I got 14 letters from young people saying they wanted to hear about mortal combat backstage! It wasn't like that. I would say every once in awhile there would be two redheads or two very famous dancers and we'd expect conflict because of what they had in common. Sometimes at 9 am we'd be downstairs for rehearsal with the piano pl...

'"I love the boys, the girls, all the movers and the shakers who come to our show," said former burlesque phenomenon Dixie Evans, 80.' http://www.sbsun.com/ci_6325132 'Dixie plays a big role in keeping burlesque alive, Rio said, with a museum that allowed current dancers to learn from the original movers and shakers. Dixie's Exotic World, Home of the Movers and Shakers' Burlesque Museum and Striptease Hall of Fame in Helendale came about from her friend's collection of burlesque memorabilia. Jennie Lee ran the Sassy Lassy nightclub until she was diagnosed with breast cancer and moved to an abandoned goat farm in Helendale. Dixie and her friend held a reunion there every year for their friends in the burlesque business. "We didn't quite know what to do about the reunion when Jennie Lee died" in 1990, Dixie said. "But one thing was certain, she wanted to keep burlesque alive." So Dixie kept it going. That year marked the fir...