Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show

by Rachel Shteir

Striptease recreates the combustible mixture of license, independence, and sexual curiosity that allowed strippers to thrive for nearly a century. Rachel Shteir brings to life striptease's Golden Age, the years between the Jazz Age and the Sexual Revolution, when strippers performed around the country, in burlesque theatres, nightclubs, vaudeville houses, carnivals, fairs, and even in glorious palaces on the Great White Way. Taking us behind the scenes, Shteir introduces us to a diverse cast of characters that collided on the burlesque stage, from tight-laced political reformers and flamboyant impresarios, to drag queens, shimmy girls, cootch dancers, tit serenaders, and even girls next door, lured into the profession by big-city aspirations. Throughout the book, readers will find essential profiles of famed performers, including Gypsy Rose Lee, "the Literary Stripper"; Lili St. Cyr, the 1950s mistress of exotic striptease; and Blaze Starr, the "human heat wave," who literally set the stage on fire.
Striptease is an insightful and entertaining portrait of an art form at once reviled and embraced by the American public. Blending careful research and vivid narration, Rachel Shteir captures striptease's combination of sham and seduction while illuminating its surprisingly persistent hold on the American imagination.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Microhistory, Sexuality, Feminism, Gender

438 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Rachel Shteir is associate professor, The Theatre School, DePaul University, and author of Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show. She lives in Chicago.

Reviews

[The Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shteirs makes a rather limp attempt to prove that burlesque was an empowering, rather than an exploitative institution, but seems to lose the thread of her argument partway through. I think this would have done better as a straight history, that Shteirs failed to come up with enough concrete evidence to make the effort worth her while, and only ended up clouding her narrative by trying to fit it to her thesis. Largely informative, though Shteirs is annoyingly vague in some places, or makes connections that are less than obvious to the reader. Worth reading if you have any interest in burlesque, and particularly if you like Gypsy Rose Lee (she gets a whole chapter to herself).

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The offical textbook of bump-and-grind. Covers everything from the ol'school brothel "flea act" to the rise of the "tit serenader." Consise but very clinically written. Truly a history book, not something to be bought with the intent of use for masturbation material.

[Don Munsil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating history of a very different era of striptease and burlesque. Did you know that every World's Fair up to roughly 1962 (the Seattle World's Fair) had multiple striptease and/or girlie shows? That the Ziegfield Follies had "tableaux vivant" with stationary stark-naked women (and men) as well as showgirls who were as close to naked as Ziegfield felt he could get away with? The amazing ubiquity of naked ladies in popular live entertainment is a little surprising today, and this book covers in a fair amount of depth how common it was for many years, as well as the non-stop attempts by moral scolds to shut it all down. While this is a popular history book, it was written by an academic and is at times a little dry. It could use more pictures and larger pictures, and many of the pictures are not near the section of the book that discusses them. Still, I would recommend it as a good overview of the period from around the turn of the century to the late 60's.

[Vincenzo Ridente · Rating 4 out of 5]

If your interested in striptease this is the book for you I highly recommend it

[Luna · Rating 3 out of 5]

My interest in striptease in the 1930s and my bigger interest in Gypsy Rose Lee is what made me pick up this book. I have a fascination with burlesque and the art of striptease during the Depression, and so I was happy to find a relatively cheap book (I picked this up in a second-hand book store) that was full of it.

Shteir doesn't disappoint. With over 80 pages of footnotes alone, she goes from the late nineteenth century right until The Pussycat Dolls of today. Her focus is primarily during the Golden Age of stripping- the late 1920s to the early 1940s. She also devotes an entire chapter to my favourite striptease artist, Gypsy Rose Lee. She presents the women involved in a favourable light; women who enjoyed their work, were good at it, and were able to make money off it until they retired (which some never did). She also focuses a little to striptease in the 1950s, with an emphasis on the adorable Candy Barr. Throughout the text, Shteir also continuously refers to Gypsy Rose Lee, Ann Corio, Sally Rand, Tempest Storm and Lili St. Cyr.

One thing I found very interesting was that the turn of the century, ballet was what introduced the art of stripping. When Francisque Hutin appeared on stage wearing tights and a loose skirt, she caused a scandal. This in itself isn't worth writing home about, but I found it interesting how Shteir stated this is what caused everything to evolve from.

I gave this book a three out of five due to the amount of information within. However, in terms of interest it sustained for me, I'd give it more of a two out of five. It was difficult to sustain interest. I would have liked more of a history to the leading ladies Shteir presents, and their life before stripping. She occasionally refers to their life pre-stripping, but never fully establishes their personalities beyond their working life. Shteir also briefly discusses burlesque and neoburlesque, but never fully develops her ideas. I found it surprising she never referred to Dita Von Teese.

Despite this, it's a very informative book, and worth a read if you have an interest in stripping and striptease.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

In her introduction Rachel Shteir writes that “This book seeks to restore the world of striptease to history, to chart its geography and to recall its cultural and social representations.” As a professor in the Theater School at DePaul University she is well trained to deal with the last two of her intentions, less so on the first. “Striptease” is history that is written by someone who is not a historian so while it seems well researched it lacks a consistent methodological point of view. It is a bit too wide ranging but almost always interesting, sometimes provocative and certainly worth reading by anyone interested in burlesque, strippers and the businessmen who profited from their work. It is social history examining the phenomenology of a popular pastime and commercial history, charting the ups and downs (boom and bust, if you will) of the business.

[Eleanor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although not very well fact-checked ("Blues in the Night" is credited to someone other than Harold Arlen, for instance, and there were other mistakes I caught here and there), this book is a fascinating foray into the history of burlesque striptease. It's very ambitions in terms of what it covers, and combines history with theory and ideas about feminine subjectivity. One thing I especially loved was her comment on how strippers, in order to be popular, always have to conjure up a sense of pathos, and how Gypsy Rose Lee's mother would paint teardrops on her daughter's cheeks before a show. It really gives a dimensional view into the theatrical and performative aspects of burlesque, and there are many stories that highlight the inventiveness of individual performers. A political as well as an entertaining read.

[Tim Robinson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Profoundly disappointing. Firstly, the narrative is confined exclusively to America and American performers, and secondly even the American experience isn't covered well. The legendary Josephine Baker gets less than a paragraph.

[Kieran · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative, but doesn't quite capture the aura of the time. Illustrations and biographical information are both a bit sparse.

[Jillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

interviewed the author

[Challen Clarke · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great introduction to burlesque and striptease.

[Jeanne T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the one. Want to read a comprehensive history of burlesque in America? Read this.

[Dfordoom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly the definitive history of one of America's characteristic art forms, strip-tease.

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

Historical read only--not masturbatory material at all. Interesting tidbits and trivia on the history of the art of stripping. It's a decent read but quite long as it IS a historical read.

[Jessrawk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ostensibly a book about striptease & burlesque that, unfortunately, fails to ever differentiate fully between the two. In fact, nowhere does a definition of either even appear and they are often used seemingly interchangeably. Wildly frustrating.

Despite the chapters being organized by time periods, they meander all over & tend to go off on tangents that are rarely, if ever, explained.

I learned a lot, but be prepared for a disorganized slog.