Beauty in The Retro Vintage or Just Plain Old

I love about anything vintage or retro. The look, rather original duplicated makes me smile.

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Ladies They Talk About (1933)

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When I lived in San Francisco, I met Virginia, who danced under the name Dagmar. When she got a bit older, she changed her act, doing magic under the name Princess Po-Po San. Later she went to Vegas and billed herself as the World’s Fastest Mambo Dancer.

Virginia was a fascinating woman. A little tiny thing, when she got all dressed up she’d put on a blonde wig with a ponytail with a big bow. My husband said she looked like a “little Lana Turner”. She was very much my surrogate grandmother until she died at almost 100 years old. She had the most fascinating stories about being one of those girls in Hollywood who “entertained” visiting exhibitors, being farmed out to movie stars, and other things. “I was a dancer, I was never a stripper,” she’d insist. “They just walk around and take their clothes off!”

Virginia originated the Faust dance. One side of her was dressed as Marguerite, the other as Satan. I watched her, in her 90s, barely able to walk, sit at my dining table and enact it. One of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

When I knew her she used a vibrator. “An orgasm a day keeps the doctor away!” was her slogan. I miss her so much.

[modernizor]

Jazz singer Joyce Bryant in 1954. Known then as “The Bronze Blonde Bombshell” and “The Black Marilyn Monroe.”

via twitter.com

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The Erotic Nights of Shelley Frankenstein

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Bettie Page

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A showgirl backstage, ca. 1950

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Burlesque performer Diane Ross and her partner Squeaky. The pair had a successful carnival circuit act in the '50s. Squeaky was trained to remove Diane's garments à la King Kong and Ann Darrow.

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Burlesque performer Gene Gemay and her ‘Devil Dance.’

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Burlesque used to be a variety show, and the entertainers that were beautiful did talent shows and sexy shows. This is Sally Rand in the 1920′s and 30′s.

[mizworldofrandom]

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Forgotten: Minority Burlesque Performers, Part One

On Facebook I post a nightly photo in an album called “Palate Cleansers: to  wash each day’s bad taste out of your mouth”. This morning I was looking at pictures of vintage burlesque dancers. To my surprise, there were many Asian and Black performers. Almost everyone knows about Josephine Baker, but these ladies have been lost to history.

So I collected pictures and I’m posting them here. First, we start with Black dancers.

Baby Scruggs

Jean Idelles

Lilly Christine

Miss Topsy

Tootsie Roll

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[thecinamonroe]

Marilyn Monroe attending the Photoplay Awards in Los Angeles on March 9, 1954.