Table Of ContentSTRIPPING IN TIME
of
A History Erotic Dancin9
LUCINDA JARRETT
An Imprint <f HarpcrCollinsPublishers
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Pandora
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPub/ishers
77- 85 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
1160 Battery Street,
San Francisco, California 94111-1213
Published by Pandora 1997
13579108642
© Lucinda Jarrett 1997
Lucinda Jarrett asserts the moral right to
be identified the author of this work
a.,
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
ISBN O0 4 440968 0
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Caledonian International Book Manufacturing Ltd, Glasgow
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the publishers.
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For Anna
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CONTENTS
Picture Credits viii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction: The Spark of the Fire 1
1 Tights and Peroxide 7
2 The Glutton 35
3 Little Egypt 59
4 Salome 84
5 The Dances of Vice, Horror and Ecstasy 106
6 The Golden Age 13 3
7 A Wink and an Eyeful 165
8 Mobs and Gangsters 187
9 In Pursuit of an Erotic Image 213
Notes 233
Bibliography 238
Index 241
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PICTURE CREDITS
Austrian National Library: Plates 8- 9; Billy Rose Theatre Collection,
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts: Plate 11; British
Museum: Plate 1, Plate 3 (L), Plate 10; Clive McLean, Rex Features:
Plate 16; Club X, Kiev, Ukraine: Plate 15; The Crazy Horse
Archives: Plates 12- 13; Diana Mahiou: Plate 15 (L); Mander &
Mitchenson Theatre Collection: Plates 2- 3, Plates 6-7; The Ronald
Grant Archive: Plate 14; Victoria & Albert Museum: Plate 4 (L).
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Particular thanks go to Nickie Roberts, who entrusted me with her
life and experiences as a stripper in Soho. It was her first book, The
Front Line, which led me to recognize the strength of the women who
work on the front line of the sex industry. It is thanks to Nickie that I
chose to look at a history of proud and strong agents of sexual
expression. I would like to thank all the dancers I met in London,
New York and Cairo for trusting me with their stories, particularly
Diana Mahiou. The Egyptian costume designer, Ahmed Khalil, led
me to Serena and Alan Wilson in New York, whose original research
on Little Egypt proved invaluable.
Thanks to Polly at The Crazy Horse for trawling the archives; to
Felix Cherniavsky for entrusting me with his research on Maud Allan
and to the Dance Collection in Toronto for sending me the unpub
lished material he had compiled; to the Mander & Mitcheson Archives
for pointing me in their direction; to the Theatre Museum, London;
the Billy Rose Theater Collections and the Dance Collections in
New York; the Harvard Theater Collection, Boston; and the Nation
al Theatre Museum in Vienna.
This book saw its first incarnation as a television script which was
developed with Derek Bailey of Landseer Films. I am particularly
grateful to him for his creative support.
It was a friend, Simon Andreae, who suggested the script become
a book and who gave me the confidence to approach a publisher. I am
particularly grateful to my editor at Pandora, Belinda Budge, for her
belief in my vision of the book and for a great working relationship
over the past 18 months.
I would like to thank my mother for her glorious sense of
humour, and also for her vulgarity (though she would prefer I did
not), my father for his impossible dreams and his incurable romanti
cism. Thanlc you, Marilyn, for making Cairo happen. And John for
reading the manuscript.
IX
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STRIPPIN G IN TIME
I could not have written this without Chris Rawlence, my lover,
partner and best friend . His close reading of the manuscript at each
draft made me believe in the writing and in the stories I was telling
and, most significantly, encouraged me to keep going when it all
seemed insurmountable.
Thank you. I had a great time writing it. I hope everyone who
helped enjoys reading it.
X
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THE SPARK OF THE FIRE
Se euf osse a Eva eu teria juizo
E nao perdia o paraiso
Chutava a cobra coma sua traicao
Pois nao, sou a Luz do Fue90
Pro 9ostar de cobra nao
!JI had been Eve, I would have been more careful,
I would never have lost Paradise.
I would have kicked out the make alon9 with his treachery.
ef ef
But no, course not. I am the spark thef ire
ef
And out love for the make I could not have done so.
LUZ DO FUEGO,
CARNIVAL MARCH SONG, I 9 5"0
Luz do Fuego wa~ born Dora Vivacqua on 21 February 1917. She
was a carnival queen through the 1950s, and was pivoted to fame as a
naked snake dancer after her appearance at the Teatro Recreio in Rio
de Janeiro. She performed with several live snakes, all of whom she
loved dearly. Her carnival march song embraces the contradictions
which have faced erotic dancers in the West. On the one hand the
dancer is admired as a strong, sexually powerful woman who has the
power to challenge the state of carnal sin which all women inherit
from Eve. On the other hand she celebrates and reaffrrms the divini
ty of sex, placing it at the core of the experience of love.
In 1962, pleasure was still being deemed sinful in the English law
courts. At the trial of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, the
prosecuting counsel, Mervyn Griffith Jones, spoke of the descrip
tions of sexual intercourse in the book and declared, 'The emphasis
is always on the pleasure, the satisfaction, and the sensuality of the
episode.' One journalist, Bernard Levin, was outraged by this opinion
I
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