Striptease Author Rachel Shteir

By Martin Cushing

Rachel Shteir is a woman of few words. But the author of Striptease: The Untold Story of the Girlie Show (Oxford University Press) can be as tight lipped as she likes when talking with Sex Wrecks because her book speaks volumes.

Striptease is being marketed as the first complete history of a century of stripping, which it purports is as unique an American art form as jazz and cartoons. No argument here. And while her prose can be densely academic, there’s nothing wrong with talking to a person who’s done the research--lucky girl!

An associate professor at DePaul University and a journalist, Shteir began her journey 10 years ago when a friend took up stripping. While this tome stops long before the proliferation of titty bars, it is an eye-opening exposé of how long women have been exposing themselves on stage for pleasure and profit.

The striptease began in the Jazz Age when flappers started to use their floppers for the carnal Charleston. But the tease part of the act remained until the ’50s, after which things got a bit hotter under the red lights. Still demure by today’s standards, the talents of exotic superstars of the era, such as Lili St. Cyr, cannot be underestimated.

Shteir begins with the first undressing acts, the Ziegfeld and Minsky Follies, and the rise of burlesque (among the rise of more private things) and progresses to the Golden Age tease of “Literary Strippers” such as Gypsy Rose Lee and fan and bubble dancing. Everyone had a gimmick. It was a glorious time to be a man.

The book stops with the Sexual Revolution, a war whose first casualty was sadly the striptease. Key parties and porno, a more liberated spreading of nubile legs, may have made every suburbanite a Hugh Hefner for a night, but it extinguished the hottest expression of fleshy desire ever to dance before the footlights. The strippers in G-strings that mechanically hump the pole today are nothing but ghosts of a bygone bump and grind that is tragically only a memory in the crusty crotches of some lucky old-timers.

So travel back with Shteir now, as she explains the origins of the term red-light district, reveals who the first striptease celebrity was, answers which stripper let a panther eat steak off her boobs, chimes in on the modern burlesque movement, and exposes whether she’d ever want to take it all off and steam the glasses of her hairy-palmed literary fans. And be sure to keep an eye out for Shteir’s next book on kleptomania; she’s already stolen our heart-on!

*

What motivated you to put the time and effort into writing a history of the striptease?
I became interested in female performers who took off their clothes for money--how they made it and how they failed. How they were an alternative American dream.

Press for your book states that the striptease is as much an American art form as jazz. Does it have its origins here?
There are some Parisian origins and of course, there’s a Middle Eastern strain of dance that has some sympathy to striptease, but basically it’s American.

Stripping began rather genteelly, correct? Not even taking off all their clothes in vaudeville acts. Who was the first stripper to break the skin barrier?
There was no one person who did this. Rather there were groups of performers. One, in 1923, was Carrie Finnell, who did a 52-week strip act.

With the rise of modern burlesque--Ziegfeld and Minsky--was there one particular striptease artist whose star shined brightest, and why?
Gypsy Rose Lee. She was the “striptease intellectual” who sent up the upper class and was funny and sexy at the same time.

What motivated the women to pursue stripping as a career?
Money.

When did nude stripping revues become popular in Times Square?
The ’70s, but my book doesn’t go this far.

Why do they call it the “red-light district”?
Because the brothels had red lamps in their windows.

You refer to Sally Rand as “the first striptease celebrity.” Why?
She was the first woman who brought girl-next-door charm to stripping. Although she never considered herself a stripper, really.

Let’s hear a bit about some of the other stars of the striptease, say Gypsy Rose Lee.
Her most famous number was “I Can’t Strip to Brahms” where she sent up the idea of what the audience wanted to know: what she was thinking about while she took it off.

And Lili St. Cyr?
Not very funny as a performer, but a graceful dancer. Did many numbers. Also was known for her posh, overproduced routines.

Blaze Starr?
Known for her torrid numbers, like a panther eating steak off her bra or her emerging from a teepee on flames.

When did the first films of strippers come out, and what are some of the better stripper movies?
Varietease is one of the best. These movies started coming out after World War II.

When was the Golden Age of striptease?
The ’30s. Then the silver age was the ’50s.

When did it go into decline, and how?
Well, obviously increasing nudism and availability of undressed female images had something to do with this. The final blow was the ’60s and the nudical.

What were some of the more creative gimmicks that strippers used to differentiate themselves?
Some strippers used animals and birds to distinguish themselves from other strippers: parrots, doves, etc.

What do you think of what passes as striptease today?
I don’t think striptease exists today. Stripping exists, but that’s not striptease. That’s the point of my whole book.

Are you familiar with the retro-burlesque entertainment gaining some cult popularity and what’s your take on it?
My take is that women want a way to express themselves erotically that is not porn.

Have you ever stripped before? Did you want to? Have you been to strip bars to research your book?
No. No. I’m a writer, not a stripper. Yes.