Burlesque Arrests: Georgia Sothern
Burlesque has seen many incarnations, ups and downs, and even periods of hibernation over the past century, but try as the censors might, it has never really gone away. The magical connection between burlesque and the American audience can be summed up in the lyrics of Willkommen from the opening of Cabaret: “Leave your troubles outside! So life is disappointing? Forget it! We have no troubles here! Here life is beautiful…the girls are beautiful…even the orchestra is beautiful!” Although burlesque has seen success on the stages of Broadway and other high end venues, it remains an essentially working class form of entertainment, aiding escapism from the worries of everyday life through the troubles of the Great Depression and war times. Miss Georgia Sothern was a big player throughout. Her career lasted from 1922-1977 and began when she was barely 13!
Raised in vaudeville, Georgia began performing with her uncle when she was a toddler; her father had abandoned the family and her mother struggled to make ends meet for Georgia (then called Hazel) and her sister, Jewel. Within a week of Hazel’s thirteenth birthday, her mother was in a state-funded hospital being treated for tuberculosis and her beloved Uncle Virgil had died of the same. Uncle Virgil had entrusted Hazel to another vaudeville act, but that form of entertainment was vanishing quickly and the act soon dissolved, the manager running off without paying Hazel, and she found herself alone on the streets of New York city. After a week of nearly starving and without finding work in the only field she knew, the brave young girl turned to burlesque. She had a number of false birth certificates from her vaudeville days and was able to pass herself off as 17! Later, when Mr. Minsky found out that she was only 14 (and had been working for him for over a year) he nearly hit the roof, but she gave him one of her false birth certificates and assured him that she would never alert the law to this indiscretion.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia picked her name on the spot in Phil Rosenberg’s office and in her nervousness, forgot the ‘u’ in Sothern, and so the spelling stuck. Her unique style of whirling dervish striptease was also born out of nervousness, during her very first performance and this jazz age baby rode it all the way to the bank, eventually having a signature tune written for her, “Hold that Tiger.” Ann Corio wrote, “The mere sight of this red hot red-headed temptress tossing her hips in fantastic abandon to the wild music of the band caught up everybody in its spell…the audience was almost as exhausted watching as Georgia was performing.” Sometimes she would get so caught up in her exuberant dance steps that she would end up taking off and putting on her clothing several times during a number, leading one fan to remark, “She strips just like she had dynamite for lunch.”
Georgia Sothern
Not only did she do a fast strip, she led a fast-paced life in the roaring twenties and no matter how conservative she actually was, adventure always seemed to seek her out. Her skirmishes with the law didn’t always involve burlesque, but often gangsters and bootleggers, as well as her poorly picked husbands. While still only 13, Georgia witnessed a gangland murder that would have had her dead that very night, but for the fact that she had worn black and the streetlight happened to be burned out, so that the killers didn’t notice her. The plot thickened later, when she found out that perpetrator was her best friend’s boyfriend! Months of living in fear that he would discover her identity culminated in his dropping a large wad of stolen cash at their apartment as he fled from the police. But when he returned much later, to kill his former flame, he was the one that ended up snuffed out in a nearby park, thanks to her friend, Foxie, a rival bootlegger. The police also became involved in her personal life when her first husband threatened to jump from a tall building, to the amusement of a large crowd and the chagrin of the police squad. Georgia, however, called him on it, and he flew into a rage, swearing at her and hitting her, and ultimately landed himself in jail.
But back to burlesque. She was never busted for being underage, but she was escorted out of Philadelphia by the police. Whenever Mr. Poole, the city’s censor, would come around, the burlesque houses would tame down the show and cut all the bumps and grinds. He became fixated on finding Miss Sothern doing whatever it was that made her so popular; one night the theatre was not slick enough and Sothern was caught wearing only three sequined rosebuds. She was given 24 hours to leave town, or end up in jail. Although Georgia was mortified, the reporters were on her side and it all turned out for the best, with Mr. Cohen selling Georgia’s contract to none other than Billy Minsky. Burlesque thrived in the city of New York’s emerging nightclub scene for years to come, but further into the thirties, things began to change. Mayor LaGuardia was doing his best shut down burlesque and issued stricter and stricter edicts, including this one: “You are not allowed to remove an article of clothing. You may not peel from your person even so much as a glove.” The biz had to get creative, some operations creating floating nightclubs, modeled after prohibition speakeasies. However, when the states entered WWII, the art of the striptease didn’t seem so bad. As Ann Corio wrote in 1941, for Variety, “Burlesque, along with aviation and munitions, is experiencing a wartime spurt.” During this time, Georgia joined Gypsy Rose Lee on Broadway in Mike Todd’s productions of Star and Garter and The Naked Genius.
But when the war was over, burlesque was booted from The Great White Way and it was back to the nightclubs for the peelers. In 1948, Georgia was arrested at Club Samoa in Manhattan, under the charge “lewdness in a tent.” The star was fined $125, but this didn’t stop her. She spent years fighting the case and finally won, the judge ruling that “the city could not deprive her from earning a living in a lawful occupation.” Furthermore, Georgia is cited as being the main force behind the abolishment of the ‘police card,’ which performers in New York had to pay for every two years and, if their card was taken up for any reason, they were not allowed to work in the city. Georgia was a great advocate of her profession and prompted H.L. Mencken to coin the term ‘ecdysiast’ to try and ameliorate the unfavorable image brought to mind by the term ‘stripper.’ Performing the carnival circuit in the later years of her career, Georgia eventually took her own shows on the road, Sothern’s Red-Headed Revue and the Top Hatters. She didn’t retire from the stage until five years before her death, in 1981. She was 72, and in my book, this dynamite dame deserves a lifetime achievement award.
For more information on Georgia Sothern, the Red Headed Bombshell, I highly recommend reading her autobiography, Georgia: My Life in Burlesque.
Remembering a Legend: Tura Satana
By: Hella Goode
Tura Satana
“Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” (Russel Meyer, 1965)…the title alone grips you. When you see Tura Satana as Varla, it kind of gropes you. But you wouldn’t want to grope her because she really would kick your ass. Tura, born Tura Luna Pascual Yamaguchi on July 10, 1938 in Hokkaido, Japan lived a less than privileged life, although those are usually the more interesting ones.
Her family immigrated to the United States and grew. She attended James A. Riis Elementary School in a part of Chicago where racial categories were distinct. She was neither black nor white, in fact she was multiracial. Yet people only saw her as Japanese, and after World War II that was not a good thing. She was constantly taunted by the other girls until one day she finally fought back, and as you might guess….she kicked their asses!
She spent more time fighting than most of us think anyone should have to, but these struggles helped form the foxy femme fatale she would become. She was an early bloomer which seemed to lead to trouble. As a young girl she was gang raped. Understandably, this left her shaken, but also very angry. As if it were a page torn out of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill manuscript she went on a revenge manifesto and over time found each and every one of the so-called young men and, again, she kicked their asses!
Her voluptuous build at such an age convinced others of her adulthood, helping her score jobs as a model and dancer way before legal to do so, according to most sources beginning at the age of 13. She was 5′ 7″ and by the time she was fully developed was said to be a 40FF bra size. Her burlesque routines weren’t run of the mill strip numbers. She was very athletic, graceful and artistic too. Her skills as a martial artist and her sultriness as a dancer lead to roles in other movies and on television as well. About her dancing she said, “When I was dancing burlesque was an art – classy and elegant and requiring talent. I got out of it when it started to become raunchy and lost the art. Now they call it nude dancing, but it’s plain old pornography as far as I’m concerned. They do things on stage that I wouldn’t have even thought of doing.”
As was common in Japan, early on her parents had planned her arranged marriage. She was 13 at the time and he was 17. As was to be expected by a girl who had seen that life could be better than the four walls of a domestic home, she broke free of it. It was not her only marriage. Tura had also married John Satana, giving her his now infamous last name, and Endel Jurman whom she loved dearly. She had a daughter named Kalani later at 19 years old.
Tarantino must have been extremely mused by Tura as parts of Death Proof seem to be reminiscent of her performances as an actress where she took names and kicked ass and had fun in muscle cars with other hot chicks who kick ass. Some say that he even based the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, and Lucy Liu’s part Japanese character, Oren Ishii from snippets of Tura herself. Her image sparks flames even now.
It was tempting to think that Tura would have even kicked death’s ass had it knocked on her door before coming in. It had to happen. All that ass-kicking can take its toll on the heart. This February 4, 2011 in Reno, Nevada, Ms. Tura Satana passed of heart failure. Tura, darling, KAIP, may you Kick Ass In Peace, or Pieces……
Editor’s note: Our very own Hella Goode has her very first book out (under her legal name, of course)! We couldn’t be more proud of her! You’ll check it out, won’t you? 101 Mexico City Travel Tips
Legends: Josephine Baker
Story: Hella Goode
When Frida Kahlo painted her double self-portrait, the Two Fridas, she couldn’t possibly have been imagining that she would meet another Frida one day that would enchant her so.
The other ‘Frida’ in the rumored love affair, was actually born Freda Josephine McDonald on June 3, 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri to Carrie McDonald and drummer Eddie Carson, who hesitated very little in abandoning the new mother and child. She would later choose to go by her middle name, Josephine. After a series of family changes and a few short-lived marriages, she would become the legend known today as Josephine Baker, sometimes called ‘Black Venus,’ ‘Black Pearl,’ or ‘Creole Goddess.’ Josephine was renown worldwide for many of her passions, dancing, singing, mothering a menagerie of unusual pets, rallying for Civil Rights and setting the example for such adoption-happy celebs as Mia Farrow and Angelina Jolie, with her dozen adopted multicultural children which she lovingly referred to as the “Rainbow Tribe.”
One might ask, how did a black woman shoot to such fame and success at a time when racial restraints would not let her so much as sit in the front of the bus in the United States? Josephine mentions, “One day I realized I was living in a country where I was afraid to be black. It was only a country for white people. Not black. So I left. I had been suffocating in the United States…A lot of us left, not because we wanted to leave, but because we couldn’t stand it anymore…I felt liberated in Paris.”
Before departing for Paris, she had performed in the first all-black Broadway musical, Shuffle Along in 1922 at the age of 16 in New York. In 1925, she joined La Revue Nègre in Paris. Her performance with her partner, Joe Alex in the Danse Sauvage made her a star. She then took on La Folie du Jour at the Follies-Bergère Theater. Meanwhile in 1926 she recorded music for the first time ever. She briefly returned to New York to perform at Carnegie Hall, where she never before would have been accepted, but after her success in Europe and social growth in the Civil Rights movement, she was given a standing ovation.
In France, she starred in movies and on stage. Off stage she lead her life the way she saw fit. She became iconic, known for her exotic beauty, although she mocked it, saying her good feature was her legs, and the rest of her body was simply ‘amusing.’ She had presence that few other stars had.
Her films included:
La Sirène des Tropiques (1927)
Josephine plays a tropical beauty who aspires to dance in Paris. She was used to overacting for the live stage and thus gave an exaggerated performance which later haunted her.
Zouzou (1934)
Josephine portrays Zouzou, a circus performer in love with the man who plays her twin brother, but leaves her for another woman.
Princess Tam Tam (1935)
Josephine takes on the role of a primitive woman again, introduced to the French culture by a man.
The French Way (1945)
Josephine plays a cabaret performer named Zazu.
One can speculate as to why, despite being such a proponent of equal rights, she would accept roles as a ’savage,’ however, she made sure that she was not pigeonholed as such. She was civilized in all other aspects of her life, after, her favorite food was spaghetti.
Josephine never left the United States behind completely. She kept vigilant watch over the events going on in the Civil Rights movement while enjoying her success in France. By the time she had amped her popularity in film and on stage in Europe, becoming one of the best if not, the highest paid performer of her time and ranking amongst the most photographed women in the world, she knew she had a new mission, to aid in the fight for Civil Rights in the United States. She was invited to speak at the 1963 march on Washington DC, where Martin Luther King Jr.’s infamous speech still runs shivers down the spines of those who hear it. “Until the March on Washington,” Josephine stated, “I always had this little feeling in my stomach. I was always afraid. I couldn’t meet white American people. I didn’t want to be around them. But now that little gnawing feeling is gone. For the first time in my life I feel free. I know that everything is right now.” Josephine continued to help the cause by refusing to perform or appear in places that did not allow blacks to enter or refused them seating. She was very public about her stance on equality, even when it meant open and public media battles.
How ironic for the spirit of political activism to come from the woman most known for the image of the costume she wore for the Danse Banane. It was nothing more than about a dozen bananas strewn together to make a less than skimpy skirt. Josephine gave new meaning to many things, but she topped the sweet cake by showing us what Chiquita Bananas really meant with this one. She wasn’t recognized for being very modest in her costumes, but often wore revealing and sensual digs, performing and posing topless as well, which was not nearly as scandalous in France in the 1920’s and 1930’s as it was in the United States. It took until the 1950’s in Las Vegas for American girls and venues to accept the daring challenge of having topless showgirls. She lit up the venue no matter what she did, taken over by the thrill of the stage. … “I improvised, crazed by the music… Even my teeth and eyes burned with fever. Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone,” she said.
She died at the age of 69 on April 12, 1975 in Paris, France of cerebral hemorrhage, a recognized contributor to the victory of World War II on the French side, earning her a 21-gun salute, an American Civil Rights activist, the cause of the contagious jazz bug in Europe, amongst other achievements including giving hope to those who had none. She was honored with the presence of over 20,000 people in her funeral procession and status as a stage legend, inspiring women of her time and future generations to not let beautiful and bold be determined by the opinion of the masses, but to simply bleed it from the inside out.
For more: http://www.cmgww.com/stars/baker/
