THE TRAPEZE

OF YOUR FLESH
 THE TRAPEZE
OF YOUR FLESH

CHARLES RAMMELKAMP

BLAZEVOX[BOOKS]
Buffalo, New York
The Trapeze of Your Flesh
by Charles Rammelkamp
Copyright © 2024

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without

the publisher’s written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza

Cover Art: Tempest Storm by Gene McCormick

First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-465-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023952532

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 Table of Contents

Prelude ...................................................................................................................................... 11
Tina James Raises Her Voice ............................................................................................... 13
I. ................................................................................................................................................ 15
The Original British Invasion .............................................................................................. 17
America’s First Stripper ........................................................................................................ 19
What’s My Line? .................................................................................................................. 21
The Great 48 ........................................................................................................................ 23
Springtime for April ............................................................................................................. 25
Fanne Fox, the Tidal Basin Bombshell ................................................................................ 27
Sweet Tooth ......................................................................................................................... 29
Ham and Legs ...................................................................................................................... 31
Promises Made, Promises Kept ............................................................................................ 32
The Further Adventures of the Rowland Sisters.................................................................. 34
The Bronze Venus ................................................................................................................ 36
One Night on Second Avenue ............................................................................................. 38
Queen of the Tassels............................................................................................................. 40
The Protégée......................................................................................................................... 42
The Intellectual Stripper....................................................................................................... 44
Gypsy Versus the Intelligentsia ............................................................................................ 46
The Bad Girl of Burlesque ................................................................................................... 48
Shades of Gray ...................................................................................................................... 49
Getting Even and Getting Ahead ........................................................................................ 51
Patti Waggin......................................................................................................................... 53
Get Back ............................................................................................................................... 55
The Poor Man’s Garbo......................................................................................................... 57
Nudity Just Isn’t Sexy ........................................................................................................... 59
The Hottest Blaze in Baltimore ........................................................................................... 61
Stormy Weather ................................................................................................................... 63
 The Flying G ........................................................................................................................ 65
The Dance of the Bashful Bride ........................................................................................... 67
The Day Burlesque Died ...................................................................................................... 69
II. ............................................................................................................................................... 71
The Chinese Sally Rand ....................................................................................................... 73
The Sepia Sally Rand ............................................................................................................ 75
The Prima Donna of Nudity ................................................................................................ 76
Hinda the Inimitable; Wausau the One and Only ............................................................... 77
Little Egypt ........................................................................................................................... 79
Cooch .................................................................................................................................... 81
Magnetic Mistinguett ........................................................................................................... 83
Bubbles Rhymes with Troubles ............................................................................................ 85
Venom................................................................................................................................... 87
The TNT Girl ...................................................................................................................... 89
America’s Most Beautiful Dancer ........................................................................................ 91
The Most Photographed Nude in America ......................................................................... 93
The Heartthrob..................................................................................................................... 95
The Bazoom Girl .................................................................................................................. 97
Cat Girl ................................................................................................................................. 98
The Marilyn Monroe of Burlesque..................................................................................... 100
Double Agent 73 ................................................................................................................ 102
Scanty Panties ..................................................................................................................... 104
Power to the People ............................................................................................................ 106
Lottie the Body ................................................................................................................... 108
The Original Garter Girl .................................................................................................... 110
The Sexquire Girl ............................................................................................................... 112
III. ........................................................................................................................................... 115
Was Bettie Page a Real Person? ......................................................................................... 117
Dame Aflame ...................................................................................................................... 119
Chemistry............................................................................................................................ 120
Shutterbug........................................................................................................................... 122
The Collector ...................................................................................................................... 124
Mothers of Invention.......................................................................................................... 126
Scollay Square ..................................................................................................................... 127
The Combat Zone .............................................................................................................. 129
The Night They Raided the Old Howard ......................................................................... 131
The Ziegfeld Follies Fan .................................................................................................... 133
The $50,000 Treasure Chest .............................................................................................. 135
Tit Town............................................................................................................................. 137
Sheila the Peeler ................................................................................................................. 139
The Siren of Swindon......................................................................................................... 140
Forgiven .............................................................................................................................. 141
The Divine Doda ................................................................................................................ 143
Ave atque vale ..................................................................................................................... 145
Golden Girl from the Golden West................................................................................... 147
Vedette from West Branch ................................................................................................. 148
What’s in a Name?.............................................................................................................. 150
The Howl ........................................................................................................................... 152
Jo Boobs .............................................................................................................................. 154
She Club ............................................................................................................................. 155
The Italian Stallionette ....................................................................................................... 157
Ask a Stripper ..................................................................................................................... 159
Is This Bliss? ....................................................................................................................... 161
Victory Girls ....................................................................................................................... 162
Stella! (Don’t Ever Leave Me, Baby) ................................................................................. 164
The Purple Pit Cigarette Girl............................................................................................. 166
Sweet Virginia..................................................................................................................... 168
Strippers Unite! ................................................................................................................... 169
The Original British Invasion

Still grieving about the assassination

of its president three years earlier,
America welcomed us with open arms.
We took New York by storm,
with our risqué jokes and saucy costumes.
Our six-month-tour lasted six years.

Lydia Thompson and the British Blondes –

Alice Burville, Lisa Weber, Rose Coghlan,
Pauline Markham; we charmed America,
but while we never claimed
to be more popular than Jesus,
a wave of anti-burlesque hysteria swept the press,
frightening away middle class audiences
with descriptions of our “jiggling and wiggling,”
a “disgraceful spectacle … indecencies of the hour.”

When Wilbur Storey of the Chicago Times

questioned our virtue, we demanded an apology,
and Pauline and Alexander Henderson, my husband,
and I horsewhipped the bastard at gunpoint.
We were arrested and fined, of course,
but the publicity made us more popular than ever.

We finally returned to England in 1874,

after crisscrossing America.
Nobody knighted or assassinated.
I went back to the stage.

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The other British Blondes?
Lisa died in Buffalo in 1887 after a declining career.
Rose, whose father was Charles Coghlan, the writer,
went back to England, too, starred
as Countess Zicka in Diplomacy and some other shows.
The last I heard about Pauline,
she’d married a former Confederate Civil War officer
named McMahon, while she was playing
at Niblo’s Garden on Broadway, in the early Seventies.
They had to skip town to avoid
arrest over a huge unpaid hotel bill.

What a life!
It was exciting being a star!
All you need? Love.

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America’s First Stripper

Born before the Civil War –

my dad, W.C. Gardner, named me Lida,
but I changed it for the stage –
I could see so many people just wanted to be entertained.
As the star of Madame Rentz’s Female Minstrels
(later renamed Rentz-Santley
to accommodate my popularity as Mabel Santley),
I knew just the thing those guys wanted to see.

The first American-born burlesque star,

called “the Queen of Burlesque,” in fact,
on Arthur Goodman’s famous lithograph,
the posters of me advertising the show,
brought the men in like ants to honey.
They thronged to see me at the Casino Theater,
in New York; we also toured the country –
a chance for me to wear elegant outfits,
show a little bit of skin.

It was my partner Mike Leavitt’s brainchild –

give credit where credit is due –
and by 1871 at least eleven troupes
of female minstrels had sprung up.
But I started it all!

My arrest in San Francisco in 1879, indecent exposure,

for lifting my skirts while dancing the Can-Can?
Likewise a first.
When the music went into its
dum-da-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum,
I always raised my foot and the audience went wild.

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This time I’d gone just a bit further –
my skirt above my knees. Shocking!

Later they’d use my image on trading cards

promoting various cigarette brands –
Virginia Brights, Little Beauties, Sweet Caporals –
scanty costumes, bathing suits and underwear –
selling tobacco with sex.
But that wasn’t the first time, for sure!
I certainly don’t claim it as a first.
Men have done foolish things for sex
at least since Helen of Troy.

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What’s My Line?

It was Cecil B. DeMille who gave me my name,

inspired by the Rand McNally atlas;
I was born Helen Beck in Elkton, Missouri,
to a retired Army colonel and a schoolteacher.

First appeared onstage at thirteen,

a chorus girl at the Empress Theater in Kansas City,
worked as an acrobat for the Ringling Brothers Circus,
did a bit of summer stock, but it was Hollywood
where I made my name,
known for the fan dance I’d popularized
at the Paramount Club in Chicago,
my peek-a-boo striptease for which
I’d be arrested four times in a single day!
It was during the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair –
“indecent exposure” when I rode a white horse
down the streets of Chicago, even though
the nudity was merely an illusion.
I did the fan dance in Bolero.

But my 1952 appearance on What’s My Line?

always stands out for me.
I was the “mystery challenger” that night,
following a tax collector from Massachusetts
and a man from Indiana who made mud packs.
The panelists, Dorothy Kilgallen, Bennett Cerf,
Arlene Francis and Robert Q. Lewis, all wore masks,
so they wouldn’t recognize me.

Dorothy began the questions, but the audience howled

when Bennett asked if I was a lady.
“That has been questioned on occasion,”

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I responded, amused,
“but yes, I am of the feminine gender.”

Robert Q. Lewis lost his turn

when he guessed I was Bette Davis,
and when Dorothy learned
I was performing on Broadway
more than eight times a week,
Lewis blurted, “Oh, I know! I know!”

He was like a little boy having to pee

while he waited his next turn,
Bennett asking if I was at Radio City Music Hall,
then Arlene guessing I was Gypsy Rose Lee.

“Sally Rand!” Robert Q. Lewis exploded,

the kid who finally gets called on in class!

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The Great 48

I couldn’t live a normal life with these.

My breasts are so large, I can’t sleep.
My back is killing me, they’re just so heavy.

I was born Geraldine Paredes in Saint Louis, 1939,

but I took the stage name Alexandra the Great 48 –
stopped traffic once when I paraded
through the Pacific, Honolulu’s financial district –
the Wall Street of Honolulu – in one of my sexy costumes,
that 48-inch bust leading the way.

Winning that Sophia Loren lookalike contest

when I was still a teenager
really launched my career, though my tits
had already taken off
when I was still a self-conscious kid.

Rose la Rose helped me develop my act

when I worked at the Town Hall,
her club in Toledo.
I’d been modeling for Xavier Cugat
when she took me under her wing.
Within two weeks, I was headlining at Town Hall.

I performed for about fifteen years,

mainly Hawaii and Australia,
but I finally gave it up –
I know I’m a sex symbol,
but I’m also a person.
It finally got to me, having to bare my body
in front of that whooping vulgar audience.

23
So I became a beautician at Universal Studios,
pioneered my own brand of cosmetics.
You see, I always wanted
to use my mind as well as my body.

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Springtime for April

Born Velma Fern Worden in Oklahoma City,

I got my stage name from Barney Weinstein,
my manager at The Theater Lounge in Dallas.
I’d been working as a cigarette girl at The Derby Club in OKC –
had to lie about my age to get the job –
when Barney discovered me.
He and his brother Abe had me trained
to be a stripper, gave me my name, April March.
I was just seventeen.
Abe and Barney were training Candy Barr at the same time.

By the time I was eighteen?

I was touring clubs and theaters all across the country,
Mexico and Canada, too.
My act was the sophisticated debutante,
an elegant striptease with the accent on tease.

By the time I was old enough to vote,

I got the nickname “First Lady of Burlesque”
because I looked so much like Jackie Kennedy.
Didn’t hurt I was always so ladylike on stage.

Sure, there were some ugly scenes,

like the time at The Place Pigalle in Miami,
the crumb who started shooting up the club
because he’d been charged for my drinks,
killed the singer, wounded the doorman and a dancer –
she’d later have to have the leg amputated –
even held the gun to my head!
Luckily, he was overpowered before he pulled the trigger.

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But I also met two of King Saud’s sons at the Piccadilly Club,
had a private audience with the king himself.
Hefner offered me ten grand
to pose for Playboy magazine,
but you know what?
I would never appear fully nude in public.

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Fanne Fox, the Tidal Basin Bombshell

I’d always planned to go to medical school,

become a doctor like my Argentinian dad,
but life has a way of shifting your goals,
like a never-ending bump-and-grind onstage.

I became a performer after I married Eduardo Batttistella,

dropping out of the University of Buenos Aires
to accompany his piano-playing as a dancer.
When we moved to America, I started stripping.

I was working at the Silver Slipper Club on 13th Street in DC

when April March introduced me to Wilbur Mills.
I always thought she couldn’t stand him,
pawned him off on me to get rid of him.

But I thought he was kind of cute.

Maybe April saw the Arkansas in him, an Oklahoman herself,
that hick charm a little too close for comfort.
Billed as “the Argentine Firecracker,” I fell for him, hard.

Wilbur knocked me up. I had an abortion

to protect his reputation, then our affair became public,
and I divorced Eduardo.
But then we had a big argument one night
after we left the Silver Slipper. Wilbur hit me,
and I panicked when the police stopped us
near the Jefferson Memorial around 2:00 AM,
jumped into the Tidal Basin, trying to escape.
They took me to Saint Elizabeth’s for treatment.

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I was working at the Pilgrim Theater in Boston,
the old Gordon’s Olympia Theater on Washington Street,
when Wilbur showed up and made an ass of himself.
I was already calling myself
The Tidal Basin Bombshell by then.
Poor Wilbur! He’d barely won re-election that fall,
but after his rant in the Combat Zone club,
he resigned his chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee,
didn’t run for re-election in 1976.

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Sweet Tooth

OK, it’s kind of a silly stage name,

like Rip Torn or something,
but it sure beat Juanita Dale Slusher,
the name my parents gave me.

I was sweet sixteen when I starred in Smart Alec,

a twenty-minute porn movie so popular
they called me “the first porn star”;
I’d been pulling tricks for a couple of years already,
since I ran away from home and got a job in a motel.
Barney Weinstein saw Smart Alec and hired me
to be a stripper at his Dallas club, the Theater Lounge.
He also gave me my name, Candy Barr –
because I liked Snickers so much.

My get-up was a cowgirl costume,

cowboy hat, pasties and scant panties,
a couple of pearl-handled six-shooters
in a hip holster, cowboy boots.
I was hot. Married, had a kid at nineteen,
shot my husband a couple of years later,
when he kicked in my apartment door.

The love of my life?

Probably Mickey Cohen. I met him
when I was stripping at the Largo Club, West Hollywood.
He put up bail when I was convicted on the marijuana charge,
fifteen year sentence, for which I’d serve three,
after all the appeals went up in smoke.
I testified against Mickey in his tax evasion trial
just so I could reduce my own sentence.
They let me out April Fool’s Day, 1963.

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November 25 that year the FBI questioned me
about my friend Jack Ruby, after he killed Oswald.
We’d been pals for about a decade;
Jack had even given me
a pair of dachshunds from his prize litter.
They were sure he’d told me names and places and people,
which of course he hadn’t.

What a world!
At my peak I was taking in a couple grand a week
in Vegas, LA and the Sho-Bar Club in the French Quarter.
I finally gave it all up, retired with my pets
back in Edna, Texas, but you know what?
I was named a “perfect Texan” along with Lady Bird Johnson,
so roll that up and smoke it, honey!

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Ham and Legs

When I read the Red-Headed Ball of Fire’d died,

I remembered her from Behind the Burly Q,
the documentary about the stars from the age of burlesque,
straight through the Depression and into the postwar years,
people like Tempest Storm, Lili St. Cyr, Noel Toy.
Dead at 106, Betty Rowland outlived them all.

At 5’1”, she’d been a graceful redhead,

famous for her “German roll,”
an undulating bump and grind;
she’d favored long skirts slit to the hip,
elegant evening gloves.

Though she pranced vivaciously across the stage,

she always took her time stripping,
never shedding her pasties or her G-string.
Onstage at Minsky’s in Times Square,
with the likes of Phil Silvers and Gypsy Rose Lee,
she even did slapstick skits,
hamming it up while being sexy.

Betty’d been jailed in 1952 for lewdness,

sentenced to four months, until a gossip columnist
took up the cause, noting her sentence was the same
as a man who’d recently shot someone.

Chaste? Well, those were different times,

Betty on the edge of adult entertainment, for sure,
but in an interview in 1997, she asked a reporter,
“What exactly is a lap dance, anyway?”

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Promises Made, Promises Kept

“Always a mother but never a bride, that is my doleful admission. An actress at heart, I went wrong
from the start by giving the groom an audition.” - Gypsy Rose Lee, The G-String Murders

I came a long way from Xenia, Ohio,

where I was one of four sisters,
on stage by the time I was four,
dancing in vaudeville shows.

When vaudeville died, we moved to burlesque –

still dancing, but without any clothes.
No longer Rosie Rowland, I called myself
Roz Elle, Rose Zell, and other variations.

We’d moved on to New York,

dancing on Fourteenth Street for $3 a day,
five shows daily, six on weekends.
My specialty? Wearing only a coat of gold paint.

Nils Granlund discovered me –

the man credited with inventing the nightclub –
paid me $60 a week to dance in gold paint
at his Irving Place Burlesque.

Clifford Whitley whisked me away to London

to dance at the swanky Dorchester House,
Rose Zell and “Les Girls” performing
at midnight to packed audiences.

That’s where I met the Baron, Jean Empain,

who fell for me, love at first sight,
smitten by my “Goldie ” act,
the Baron fifteen years my senior – and rich.

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We traveled to Egypt, the Belgian Congo –
safaris, hunting big game, decadent parties.
We became engaged; I quit dancing for good.
But the Baron had a problem.

Having only had a daughter by his first wife,

Mathilde Marie Hoffman, he said he’d marry me
only if I gave him a son. When Wado was born
in Budapest, November, 1937, Jean kept his promise.

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The Further Adventures of the Rowland Sisters

After Diane died in 1944, heart failure

brought on by scarlet fever, only twenty-nine,
Betty and I stayed especially close.
She’d dance for decades to come,
headlining at Minsky’s and elsewhere,
a flaming redhead known as “the Ball of Fire.”
Me, I called it quits at twenty,
when I married the Baron, Jean Empain.

Betty often came to Europe,

staying for weeks with us
at the Château Bouffémont,
our home thirty kilometers from Paris.

When the Baron joined the war for France,

he was locked up in a concentration camp,
after an injury. The Nazis took over the Château.
We were forced to flee to Vichy.

Accused of collaborating with the Nazis,

my husband fled to Spain after France’s liberation,
but he was buried in France
in his Belgian uniform, in 1946.
After the Baron died,
I remarried his cousin, Edouard Empain.

During the worst of the war,

my sisters implored me to come to America,
but I couldn’t abandon my son Wado,
a Belgian citizen, not allowed leave the country.

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