On June 3, 1917, Marie Frances Van Schaack was born at Abbott Hospital in Minneapolis. Instead of Marie’s mother, her grandmother Alice took the newborn home from the hospital and raised her. Years later, her family told Marie that Alice took her home because her mother Idella was too sick to care for her and her father Edward simply disappeared. But in fact Edward hadn’t disappeared, he’d been drafted. … The United States entered World War I toward the end of the struggle and Edward spent less than a year in the army, serving most of his hitch at Camp Lewis in Washington State.

By the time Edward arrived at Camp Lewis, Idella was involved with another man, Louis “Jack” Cornett. While it is uncertain whether the two ever wed–and descendants of Cornett’s doubt it–they did have two children. But Idella’s relationship with their father did not last. By 1924 she had married Ian (John) Alfred Blackadder, a Scottish immigrant, and was pregnant with their first child. A year later, a month before she turned 30, Idella gave birth to her fifth and last child.

While her young mother started a new family and her father served in the military, Marie remained with Alice and her new husband Ben, believing they were her parents and Idella was her older sister. And for much of her childhood, she went by the name Marie Klarquist.

Much later, her family finally explained to Marie that Idella was really her mother, not her sister, and that Alice was her grandmother, not her mother. Marie rarely talked about the admission or its impact on her. As late as 1982 she wrote in her Canadian memoir Ma Vie de Stripteaseuse, “Even today, I don’t understand perfectly how much this revelation affected me. I did my best not to let it affect me.”

Lili’s not the only one celebrating a birthday today. According to The Writer’s Almanac, “it’s the birthday of Josephine Baker, a dancer and singer who became one of the most popular music-hall entertainers in France. Time magazine wrote: ‘Mlle. Baker wore feathers on her rump, bananas dangling from her belt, nothing else. Parisians were raving overnight.’ Baker said: ‘I wasn’t really naked. … I simply didn’t have any clothes on.’”

Here’s an announcement from the Burlesque Hall of Fame
‘May 12, 2008, Las Vegas, NV - The Burlesque Hall of Fame and The Keep A Breast Foundation are pleased to announce the opening of Breast Defense: Glamour Girls For Early Detection, an exhibition of one-of-a-kind plaster molds cast from the busts of such legendary burlesque icons as Tempest Storm and Tura Satana (Miss Japan Beautiful, Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!), as well as modern day neo-burlesque and pinup sensations Immodesty Blaize (Miss Exotic World 2007), Michelle L’amour (Miss Exotic World 2006, America’s Got Talent), Jami Deadly, Kittie Klaw, Sabina Kelley and Heidi van Horne and many, many others.
‘Customized by today’s most exciting contemporary artists–including Amy Sol, David LaChapelle, Derek Hess, Elizabeth McGrath, Gary Baseman, Iggy Pop, Jerry Misko, Kat von D, Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth), KRK Ryden, Mark Mothersbaugh, Mitch O’Connell, Tim Biskup and Hi-Fructose co-publishers Annie Owens and Attaboy–the casts will be on display at Downtown Las Vegas’ The Fallout Gallery from May 23-June 28, 2008.’

Here’s a picture of me with my casting, taken last year in downtown Las Vegas:

The inevitable caption: “Hey, my eyes are up here!”
I took this photo in the hotel room where the casts were set to finish drying:

It looks maybe a little spooky, yes, but it was a fabulous, heartfelt, wonderful day. We were asked to suggest some artists we’d like to paint our casts, and I was keen on Liz McGrath because, obviously, I LIKE her work; but also because she does dioramas, and I once saw this picture of breast implants that had been removed from someone after a few years and that looked like they had terrariums in them, and now I always imagine my implants as mini-ecosystems, and that made me think of Liz’s dioramas. So I was picturing the inside of my cast being decorated rather than the outside, which just goes to show you how the mind works sometimes.

Check out the awesome pictures on Keep a Breast myspace!

About Keep A Breast: The Keep A Breast Foundation,, is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization. Our mission is to help eradicate breast cancer by exposing young people to methods of prevention, early detection and support. Through art events, educational programs and fundraising efforts, we seek to increase breast cancer awareness among young people so they are better equipped to make choices and develop habits that will benefit their long-term health and well-being.

Posted by Jo Weldon, Headmistress of The New York School of Burlesque, for burlesquedaily.blogspot.com.

I’ve always been inspired by Angie Pontani’s timing, dance ability, and sense of mischief, and I was thrilled when she began adding solo striptease performances back into her shows.

One of the first numbers I saw her do as a striptease was her tribute to Blaze Starr. I love Blaze’s story (the movie is fun, yes, but it’s her autobiography that really blows me away). If you’ve ever seen Angie do the wild number with the bongo drum, that’s it!

Above: Angie Pontani, with Helen and Tara, Channeling Blaze Starr. Photo by Me.

Angie had this to say when I asked her about the tribute number:

“Blaze has always been one of my favorite stars of the golden era of burlesque. In addition to the unbridled carnality that comes across in even the most faded black and white, her life story is equally dramatic. Her affair with Governor Earl Long, her outrageous performances including the use of live panthers, the smoking couch and the iconic shot of her playing the bongos are all amazing, as well as her ability to transcend performance and own and operate her own venue. Smart, sexy, classy, wild and sassy to boot, her interviews are candid. She makes clear what she likes and doesn’t like and I love her for it. When I decided to do the tribute, I got touch with her brother whom she resides with in West Virginia to request permission to create a Blaze Starr tribute, replete with the smoking couch and bongo drum. Blaze and her brother could not have been more helpful, approving and accommodating, which the world to me! Considering her straightforward nature and the high quality she demands, I was terrified of how she might say no!

“I worked on the act for months, originally using my sisters as panthers! We debuted the performance at the Birchmere in Virginia and then performed it at the 2006 Miss Exotic World Pageant. A few days before the show in Vegas I recieved a phone call from the Burlesque Hall of Fame, letting me know that Dixie & Blaze would love for me to use the original smoking couch which was currently at the Museum! I just about fainted. It was such an honor to perform a tribute to the legend and to use her actual smoking couch. It was an honor and always will be one of my favorite performance memories! The couch is back in the museum, but I still perfom the bongo section of the act just about every night at my off broadway show This Is Burlesque. It is absolutely my favorite number to perform. Viva Blaze Staar!”

I’ll soon be reviewing Blaze’s autobiography here as well.

Kelly DiNardo is interviewing many of this year’s contenders for titles at this year’s Exotic World Pageant in her blog, as well as presenting many videos of performances from previous years’ pageants. Read her interview with Angie here!

Posted by Jo Weldon, Headmistress of The New York School of Burlesque, for burlesquedaily.blogspot.com.

‘Being a burlesque performer is all about the music and moving with its beat and rhythm, which is a huge challenge for someone with a degenerative hearing loss.’

“As long as it’s loud enough, I’m fine,” said Millie. “I memorise my music as much as I can, but there have been times I’ve missed my cues because it was too low. It will get worse with age so I’m going to keep performing as long as I can.”

Rave reviews for the burlesque babe with rare hearing condition

Posted by Jo Weldon, Headmistress of The New York School of Burlesque, for burlesquedaily.blogspot.com.

Kate Valentine, Julie Atlas Muz, left, and Jo Boobs all sat together on the stage of the Slipper Room, to take part in a panel discussion about the development of New York burlesque over the last ten years-and longer. Dr. Lucky was the evening’s moderator and kept the conversation moving with plenty of humor and insight. The evening was organized by Legs Malone, Clams Casino and myself, and we were thrilled to be in the audience for it. It was a truly unique and special evening, that everyone in the packed house was lucky to share with this group of brilliant and inspiring performers, each one of a kind.

The conversation roamed over the ways that a group of performers, venues and producers created shows in the formative years of New York burlesque, where many of them performed for the first time, met each other, or first discovered that what they were doing could be called burlesque. Asked what made the New York scene distinctive in its history and growth, they talked about New York’s unique early to mid-1990s confluence of dance clubs, drag queens, gay bar go-go scenes, downtown theater and post-NEA crisis performance art bringing performers together and inspiring them. They discussed how the distinctive grittiness of the city influenced the New York style and attitude.

The group also talked about how the influence of the legendary performers of yesteryear, the donning of the iconic Marilyn wig or the first time picking up feather fans was the beginning of an entirely new persona. New York’s early neo-burlesque shows allowed these performers to hone their skills and develop their performances over a long time.

An audience question led to an enlightening conversation about what they would like to see from new performers: true passion, a distinctive voice and a commitment to truly giving the audience their money’s worth.

Much more ground was covered in nearly two hours than I can summarize here of course, but I’m happy to report that there was video recording and transcribing going on to record the evening for posterity.

Thanks for the report Neil! If the video gets uploaded to YouTube, we’ll be sure to post some of it here on The Candy Pitch.

The space will also double up as a TV studio for our forthcoming IP/TV channels, plus offices for our growing business.
We’re hoping to open the doors in late June or early July. More info to come soon.

Not being familiar with the programme, I presumed that they wanted us to provide a homosexual performer for one of their TV productions which is why I started making a list of the gay performers on our books and applying gayness profiling to each one.

I have to confess that I was flying blind here as I’ve never been attracted to men and hence my gaydar probably needs some fine tuning. However I chose the following factors in order to provide them to the BBC.

Pizazz Factor
Is does the performer dress like Liberace or not?

Fabulousness Rating
How well can they hold the audiences attention, dahling!

It turned out that I didn’t actually need to do this because the Nancy that the BBC were referring to was the name of the female lead in the West End’s production of Oliver and the programme (7pm on Saturday night on BBC1) is a sort of talent contest which is looking for a suitable person to fill the role.

I guess that counts out our Village People tribute act!

“It was really exciting and fun to do The Sensuous Woman, but I am glad to say that I am now a retired burlesque dancer because I don’t want to do it any more. I have these huge, horrible scars around my nipples and around my (pubic area) because I wore pasties and a prosthetic penis for 62 performances in a row and I had to use heavy-duty carpet tape to make them stick. So I salute the women of burlesque for what they go through, but I’m over it now.”

For more Cho-licious fun, sink your teeth into our Candy Gram with Margaret Cho.

You’ll definitely have to click to view the larger version to be able to read it:

Here’s a fab story–when I first moved permanently to New York in the late 1990s, I was writing for a fetish magazine. Basically, the entire magazine was written and photographed by my friends Kate and Misa, and me. I wanted to write about some of the amazing paper memorabilia I was seeing around New York related to pulp and vintage men’s magazines; the dumb (one day he asked me what my alter ego’s name would be and I said, “Dick Van Dyke,” and he didn’t get it, sitting there surrounded by strap-on experts) publisher at the fetish magazine wasn’t interested. I contacted Tease!, a magazine I greatly admired, asking if they needed any writers or photographers in the city. My call was returned by Eve Wynn, who is no other than Torchy Taboo, with whom I had gone to film classes in college. She and the publisher, artist Greg Theakston, encouraged me to write this article on New York burlesque. I think this issue came out in 2003.

If you enjoy this part of the article, let me know and I’ll scan the rest of it and post it on flicker, and I’ll add a link here.

And wait until you see the vintage magazine clips I’m posting this week! Holy Moly and Hubba Hubba!! From Fortune Magazine in 1935!!!

Posted by Jo Weldon, Headmistress of The New York School of Burlesque, for burlesquedaily.blogspot.com.

Damon Allen Davison - Photographer agreements for models

It is the first in a series about UK copyright law in relation to photography - both from the perspective of the model and the photographer.

This should help to clarify the legal area that many of us struggle to get our heads around. It’s all too easy to get muddled amongst websites outlining copyright law as it stands in various countries and to become confused with even the basics.

I hope many of you find this useful. It’s certainly a text I wish had been available 3 years ago, when I started working with professional photographers.