Burlesque. Although the word conjures up images of women
taking their clothes off, that's not all that "burleycue"
was about. Certainly the ladies were the major attraction, but there were
also sketches,
clowns,
and terrible jokes. Burlesque's golden age ended after a quarter century, when concerned citizens
closed down Minsky's Burlesque, but not before such performers as Bud Abbott and Lou Costello,
Bert Lahr,
and Phil Silvers
had learned their craft.
The Queen of Burlesque, though, was Gypsy Rose Lee,
whose 93rd (or 97th) birthday we note today. (A lady never reveals her age,
and being a lady was Gypsy's stock-in-trade.) Lee would talk to her audience
as she disrobed, commenting on current events in such an entertaining fashion
that she had left the stage before her fans noticed she hadn't stripped. (In
fact, admirer H.L. Mencken
coined the job title "ecdysiast"
for her, feeling "stripper" was too déclassé a term).
Lee died in 1970, after inspiring one of the greatest of all musicals, Gypsy, based on
the lives of herself and her mother
-- who was notorious herself, for being the most domineering of
stage mothers. But
that's another story....
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