Born on this day 99 years ago: quintessential fifties pin-up queen (and perennial hairstyle role model for generations of female rockabillies) Bettie Page (22 April 1923 – 11 December 2008). Why not frolic in lingerie, teeter around in a pair of extreme fetish heels or at least do something naughty in Page’s memory?
Died on this day: doyenne of burlesque, Rita Hayworth lookalike and undisputed Queen of Exotic Dancers Miss Tempest Storm (née Annie Blanche Banks, 29 February 1928 – 20 April 2021). The death of “the torrid tornado from out West” aged 93 conclusively ends a chapter in strip-tease history (Storm outlived all her contemporaries including Russ Meyer, Bettie Page and Blaze Starr). What a life! At her peak Storm earned $100,000 a year, making her the highest-paid striptease performer in history. Her last performance was in 2010. And she had a fling with young Elvis! I used to love catching glimpses of bouffant-haired eternal showgirl Storm at the annual Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekenders over the years, consistently looking immaculately groomed and fiercely glamorous. Tempest Storm was a woman and a half!
“Liz Renay was my idea of total glamour.” John Waters
Born on this day 96 years ago: the fabulous Liz Renay (néePearl Elizabeth Dobbins, 14 April 1926 - 22 January 2007) – b-movie actress / burlesque queen / convicted felon / naive outsider painter / gangster Mickey Cohen’s moll / “Streaking Grandmother” / authoress of multiple volumes of memoirs (including My Face for the World to SeeandHow to Attract Men) and all-round kitsch icon. For John Waters fans, Renay is adored for her performance as murderess Muffy St Jacques in punk masterpiece Desperate Living (1977) - especially for her acidic delivery of lines like, “I was having an erotic dream!” and “I sleep in the room next door - naked!”
“She Puts Everything in Writhing! Bouncy Blaze Starr Makes Every Curve a Wiggle When She Peels! Blaze Starr is tops in peelmanship! Every line and movement have a message all their own! This sultry stripper, headliner at Baltimore’s Two O’Clock Club, has the ringsiders shrieking when she puts on her take-it-off routine!”
Born on this day 90 years ago: sin-sational exotic dancer Blaze Starr(née Fannie Belle Fleming, 10 April 1932 – 15 June 2015). Billed as “The Hottest Blaze in Burlesque” and "Miss Spontaneous Combustion”, the flame-haired and buxom sex goddess was one of the top striptease headliners of the post-war era. Starr’s affair with Louisiana’s married governor Earl Long sparked a national scandal in the fifties and was later dramatized in the 1989 film Blaze starring Paul Newman. Later in life Starr became a fixture in Baltimore’s seedy red light district The Block when she bought the Two O'Clock Club. That’s where cult director John Waters discovered her. “Just from a showbiz point of view, I respected her deeply,” Waters has said. "I still think she was the best tourist attraction that Baltimore ever had.” I particularly treasure Starr for her gloriously terrible performance in the 1962 Doris Wishman sexploitation flick Blaze Starr Goes Nudist.
Attention, Leather Jacket Lovers! Born on this day 102 years ago: fetishistic and homoerotic beefcake illustrator Tom of Finland (aka Touko Valio Laaksonen, born 8 May 1920! His gloriously brazen “dirty drawings” fired the imagination of generations of leather men! Do something extra kinky in his memory!
Born on this day 93 years ago: definitive snarling and menacing rock’n’roll guitarist – and perennial Lobotomy Room favourite - Link Wray (2 May 1929 – 5 November 2005). That quiff! Those sideburns! Those shades!
