American burlesque

I have to admit I don’t know much about American Burlesque or Lili St. Cyr. Now I start a quest to learn more. You see, American burlesque is part of history, American history.

I was actually researching something else on Newspaper.com when I came across an advertisement for a film called “Love Moods” from 1954. It starts with someone called the incomparable Lili St. Cyr.  Apparently, Lili has a celebrated bubble bath and she was America’s no. 1 box office attraction. You heard about her… You wondered about her… Now see her at popular prices!

Now I have my doubts that Lili was the number 1 box office attraction in America. I could be wrong.

As I said, I don’t know a lot about American burlesque. It seems to me that there was a time when burlesque was a fun, innocent form of entertainment. Sexy women teased gentleman, usually without revealing everything. In fact, the word burlesque is derived from the Italian burla – a joke, ridicule, or mockery! The dancers were mocking sexiness, while at the same time, begin sexy (if that makes any sense).

So, before I can begin talking about the individual performers, like Lili St. Cyr, I need to know more about American burlesque. Apparently, it began with Lydia Thompson’s burlesque troupe, “The British Blondes” in 1868. Lydia and her ladies came from England to New York and caused quite a bit of controversy. Thompson’s troupe will be the subject of my next post.

And I write more about Lili St. Cyr later, but quickly, According to Wikipedia, she was Marie Frances Van Schaack, born on June 3, 1918, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

She had been married six times, none seemed to have lasted that long. One of her husbands, Ted Jordan, wrote a biography of Marilyn Monroe entitled Norma Jean: My Secret Life with Marilyn Monroe. In it, he claimed that Lili and Monroe had an affair, though many think that is untrue. But it is claimed that Marilyn Monroe took her whole image from St. Cyr, “her way of dressing, of talking, her whole persona. Norma Jean was a mousy, brown-haired girl with a high squeaky voice, and it was from Lili St. Cyr that she learned how to become a sex goddess.”

St. Cyr seemed to have an interesting life. I can’t wait to research her some more.  She died on January 29, 1999, at the age of 80. Here is her obituary.

Lili St. Cyr; Captivating Stripteaser of ‘40s, ‘50s

By Myrna Oliver
TIME STAFF WRITER

Lili St. Cyr, the stripteaser artist of the 1940s and ’50 who memorized audiences with her on stage bubble bath and them moved to Hollywood to star in B movies and see mail-order Lingerie, has died. She was 80.

St. Cyr, a sexy blond vamp who served as a role model for Marilyn Monroe, died Friday in her Los Angeles home, said her sister, Rosemary Minsky.

Born Willis Marie Van Schaack in Minneapolis, St. Cyr studied ballet and worked as a chorus girl before making her breakthrough in vaudeville as an ecdysiast. Her exotic stage name and famed ranked with Blaze Starr, Tempest Storm and Gypsy Rose Lee.

Brian MacDonald, the director and choreographer of “Gypsy,” the Broadway hit musical about lee, befriended St. Cyr in the early 1950s. She was dazzling Montreal at the Gaiety Burlesque house, and he was a music critic for the Montreal Herald.

“She was an extraordinarily glamorous woman with a very, very beautiful body.” MacDonald say in 1993. “And she has this wonderful haughtiness. After she’d taken a few things off, she’d half over herself with the curtain and say, ‘That’s to boy. You’re not getting’ and more from me.”

When the Gaiety was reopened in 1996, the Montreal Gazette recalled St. Cyr’s opening performance in her geisha mode: “This midwinter night in 1944 was the beginning of Lili St. Cyr’s seven-year reign as Montreal’s most famous woman, the city’s Femme Fatale, a person whose name invoked sophistication, mystery, son and—for many males—instantly arousal.”

St. Cyr also created her seductive imitations of about 25 famous women—including Carmen and Scheherazade—at the Old Howard Theater in Boston and burlesque houses in Seattle. When she stripped at Ciro’s in Hollywood, she was arrested and tried for indecent exposure‚ and acquitted, thanks to the talents of show business lawyer Jerry Geisler.

The stripper and she played various characters to present herself in interesting roles, and created acts like “Suicide,” in which she tried to  woo a string lover by revealing her body, and “Jungle Goddess” in which she appeared to make love to a parrot.

St. Cyr also holed briefly in films, most mutable in 1958 in the classic World War II motion picture, “The Naked and the Dead,” based on the Norman Mailer novel.

Her less memorable films included “The Miami Story,” in 1954 with Barry Sullivan, “Some of Sinbad” in 1955  with Dale Robertson and Vincent Price, and “I, Mobster” with Steve Cochran in 1958.

One of St. Cyr’s  many husbands was sometimes actor Ted Jordan, who managed her career in the 1950s and wrote the 1989 book “Norma Jean: My Secret life with Marilyn Monroe.”

It was Jordan who said the brunet, Monroe turned herself into a sexy blond by mimicking St. Cyr.

Liza Dawson, editor for William Morrow, which published Jordan’s book, told Newsday in 1989: “Marilyn very much patterned herself on Lili St. Cyr. Her way of dressing, of talking, her whole persona. Norma Jean was a mousy, brown-haired girl, with a high, squeaky voice, and it was from Lili St. Cyr that she learned how to become a sex goddess.”   

Long before Victoria’s Secret came along, St. Cyr operated a mail order firm out of Los Angeles, selling such items as “scanti-panties” and exotic Hip-length opera hose.”

More about American burlesque

Mike Wallace interviews Lili St Cyr

The post The start of my Journey into American burlesque first appeared on Coffee With Jeff.