Helene Polka and the Jungle Club of Miami True Burlesque

The Jungle Club in Miami started as a fruit stand.  Helene Kayfetz opened the stand around 1945, shortly after the war.  She sold fruit, but as a former showgirl herself, it wasn't long before she had put up dancing platforms, changed her name to Helene Polka and put a "humorous" darky on the wall. Not cool, but then the dump probably didn't have air-conditioning. 

Helene got her start in the sleaze business working as one of Earl Carrol's Vanities Girls.  She turned showbiz pimp herself, claiming to have hired over 2,000 girls

Soon the dancers Ms. Polka hired were doing TEN shows a day.  She was too cheap to hire a band, so "Voodoo beats" came out of hidden speakers while the dancers stripped in a "Voodoo Revue."  At any given time, some 30 nearly nude women roamed around the club, so raids and arrests were frequent.   One reason the club kept getting busted, according to rumor, was that Helene refused to pay off the cops and pay for "protection."  This was reported in 1949.  

In August 1949,  one "Dick Lowe" (good name!) reported in the Miami News that "The Jungle club has without a doubt the largest single collection of dog faced dancers in all of show business.  In one number Helene has the girls do a choral dance wearing absurb (sic) and horrible face masks, and on some of them the masks are a genuine improvement." 

Sheesh, and I thought I was rough on the business!   The headline of that review should read "Dick Lowe Hits Low."

He goes on to say Helene learned "homelier girls work a whole lot harder on the floor trying to make up for their lack of beauty."  Helene wasn't too sure herself!  Here she calls them "reasonably beautiful!"  Great Boss!

Since someone is selling pictures of them on eBay, here is one so you can judge yourself.

I dunno…they look pretty good to me.

In 1953 Helene put out a nude calendar to promote the business.  Ten years later, she was claiming a "heart condition" prevented her from appearing at yet another court case involving the club.

The Jungle Club lasted until 1961 when it dropped the nudes and became the Mermaid Club.
 
Florida now seems proud of their censorious past.  The State Library will SELL you a print of a group of strippers being arrested and hamming it up from the Jungle Club HERE.  
I thought libraries were supposed to be free? 


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Lili St. Cyr Hires Bill Ward to Ilustrate Her Lingerie Catalog! True Burlesque

True Burlesque Bill Ward Style (Lingerie Style)
The rumored but seldom seen Bill Ward illustrations for famed stripper and underwear seller Lili St. Cyr!  I guess if you are a burlesque queen going into the fashion business (to sell a "no mystery panty" which had no crotch) you know enough to hire the best, and at the time the best available artist of girlie underwear was Bill Ward.  In fact, he would probably be the best today, but he passed away in 1998.

Lili called her creations "breathtakingly effective" whatever that means.  Inducing?  Engorging?  Then she promptly took out full page ads in Men's magazines rather than women's.  I'm not quite sure who her market was.  Men strippers?  Don't be fooled men...women really don't want you to buy them lingerie.  They would rather shop themselves. (A scientific fact.) 

To see a previous entry in which the government tried to prosecute Lili for selling a vibrator, see HERE.

To see Lili's real name, read the next sentence.  Willis Marie VanSchaack


Bill Ward Illustration for Lili St. Cyr Lingerie Catalog.  1965 

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Tempest Storm's Big Ten Inch Record True Burlesque for the Blind

Kermit Schaefer is best know for his boners.  I mean his bloopers, which are also known as boners.   Kermit is the father of hilarious mistakes.  The next time your date makes you sit until all the credits roll just so you can see Seth Rogen or his fat little brother Jonah Hill make a mistake and break up, think of Kermit.   Kermit Schaefer invented that.  Now they are known as the "gag reel" but they are bloopers. Kermit put out records of guys making mistakes on the radio. 

Sometimes Kermit even faked his bloopers, so he was a deceptive crook.  They still do that, but now it is to fill out the "Bonus" version of the DVD.

By extension, Kermit is also responsible for the humorous "clip" shows which used to take your submissions in the mail, but now just take them off You Tube.  I don't miss Tosh ever.  Daniel Tosh is funny, maybe one of the funniest comics working today.  Kermit Schaefer isn't.  Working, that is...he croaked.   

I digress.  The point of this post is to question who would want to LISTEN to burlesque.  You go to burlesque to SEE, and if you are lucky, to see Tempest Storm, who is out of place here.  But it was a better idea to put her on the record jacket than it was to put out a record of burlesque SOUNDS, that's for sure. 

Kermit released his novelty records on Jubilee, an early label which dropped race records on white kids (thank GAWD, white music SUCKED) but also some dreck, and when they went broke, and mobster Moe Levy bought them out.

Burlesque Show is a fairly scarce record.  I mean, even with Tempest casting a double shadow over the imaginary first three rows, what the hell are you supposed to get out of playing this record?  No boners here.  The record inside is MINT but I still haven't played it.

Burlesque Show 10" record.  Jubilee Records (also known as Jay-Gee Record Company) Circa 1959 Collection Victor Minx

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"No, No, NO! JUST BLAZE STARR, NOT the BOZOS!" Press Photograph from the Morgue True Burlesque

Crop those morons out of the picture,  all I want is the STRIPPER! True Burlesque 8 x 10 Glossy!

A rare, heavily edited and cropped press photograph of the world's greatest stripper, Blaze Starr.

Press photographs are usually kept in a file known as "the morgue" but Blaze is alive and kicking still.  God Bless Her.  Note how many times the paper used the photo. 

Original Press Photograph of Blaze Starr 1969 well-used and cropped.  Collection Jim Linderman

True Burlesque MEET BUBBLES!

Bubbles has had True Burlesque better days. In 1952, she was created to puff up her boobs like a balloon dancer with remarkable boob power (or a fellow who can stick his gut out from here to there)...but if you tried to squeeze her today she would break like a cookie. Remarkably, there is no manufacturer indicated on the box, the insert, or even on Bubbles herself. She is a kind of gummy, cellulose thing, a chemical process which probably went out not soon after she was molded. I'm not saying Bubbles is toxic, but I wouldn't put her in my mouth, then OR now. I considered equating her name with the now fairly widely known expression "bubble-butt" which some of you may or may not have heard, but as her "bubbles" came from above the waist-line, it would be a stretch.


The real bubble dance is, of course, a part of show-biz history. Sally Rand probably perfected it rather than invented it, but it remains associated with her. Burlesque, striptease or pole dancing...the whole game is about hiding and revealing. But in this case the game was to blimp out anatomy portions like a Thanksgiving day float.

Bubbles Toy 1952 Collection Victor Minx

 

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Free Excerpt from the new book Private Photographs of a Burlesque Queen True Burlesque

Lynne O'Neill was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1918, studied in Evanston, Illinois but apparently lived most of her life on Long Island in New York.  In later years, she kept a post office box in Manhattan for fan mail, but was also known to provide her Lynbrook, NY address in correspondence to those who appeared harmless.

A tireless stripper with a pair of  long legs,  Lynne O'Neill was a dancer, a business woman and a marketer.  The original Garter Girl… so proclaimed by her own mother.   Who else could claim the title?  There were plenty of hoofers working the boards, but few had Lynne's gams or gumption, and fewer less had a business selling garters in the lobby during shows.

Lynne looked like a star but she really wasn't.   Most of her work was in New York City.  Acting as her own press agent, she didn't make the trades too often.  A few mentions, name only,  in Billboard magazine during the 1940s maybe,  but compared to more traveled peelers of the day like Tempest Storm and Blaze Starr,  mentions of Ms. O"Neill are scarce indeed.  Magazines seldom ran her photographs. 

Each night after her appearances in New York City, she traveled 28 miles back to her home on Long Island.  According to Bette Frary in The Official Metropolitan Gotham Life Guide  "Fans travel across the river to applaud her."  Gotham Life was a freebie listing of entertainments available to conventioneers and visitors to the city, and randy drunken male conventioneers were her trade.  

Burlesque revivalists refer to the glory days of burlesque.  There were no glory days.  Lynne danced late shifts in smoke and hormone-filled dumps, was stiffed by crooked promoters, sleazy club-owners with mob connections…and then walked in the dark to the Long Island Railroad after arousing an audience of drinkers.

Lynne survived by hard work, a good gimmick and a better slogan.  She even wrote a column on her experiences as a stripper for Man to Man magazine.   In one issue, she remembers through rose-colored glasses working what she calls "Midnight Shambles" in Baltimore with her mother handling her wardrobe.

Lynne did have at least one photograph appear in Abe Goodman's "joke" books under the Humorama imprint in the late 1950s.  Her greatest "hit" may have been on the cover of a horrible concept record called "Treasure Chest" which consisted of "88 Spicy Tales told by Captain Kidd"  produced by Joe Davis.  Davis operated a budget record label out of West 49th Street, where he released some of the few authentic blues recordings which made it out Manhattan and a number of Jazz recording artists.  He also put out some five "party records" with lame risqué jokes.  The scarce records was released with two covers, but Lynne was credited on one.  Needless to say, it did not chart.  

In Show Magazine of December 1955, she appears with the headline "Burlesque - Is It Bouncing Back?"

Lynne also appeared, remarkably, on the cover of  Leonard Burtman's Striparama magazine, holding a saxophone (!) in full color.  There, despite Burtman's reputation, she was in good company, as others appearing in spreads include Evelyn West and Zorita, both strippers with far more fame than Lynne. 

The March 1953 issue of Gala features her, and again three years later under the headline "Who's New in Burley-Q?"  In 1957 she appeared in Scamp magazine.

Lynne made at least one "legit" film and dances topless in the color film "Miami Strip" early in her career.

Many of the commercial and amateur photographs of Ms. O'Neill were shot in her basement studio, where she ran a mini-industry selling garters, fan club memberships and more. 

Professionally trained and THEN some, her resume lists no less than fifteen ballet and dance schools.

After Ms. O"Neill passed away in 2010, her effects were auctioned off.  Along with the 50 photographs shown here, which the dancer stored in a dresser drawer, were neat piles of correspondence to and from her fans, many who requested garters, souvenirs, autographs and favors.  The care and respect with which the performer saved these materials indicates how much she appreciated the fans.   There is a website devoted to the performer called "Lynne O'Neill: The Original Garter Girl" with her resume, correspondence and more.

Photographs and artifacts above from the author's collection. 

The new book "PRIVATE PHOTOGRAPHS OF A BURLESQUE QUEEN:  LYNNE O'NEILL THE ORIGINAL  GARTER GIRL" is available from Blurb.com in paperback ($22.19) and in Ebook ($5.99)  HERE.  Orders and a free preview is available HERE  

Jim Linderman is a collector, artist, popular culture historian and writer.  He maintains the art blogs "Dull Tool Dim Bulb" and "Vintage Sleaze" on a daily basis.

Lili St. Cyr Shows her BUST True Burlesque And Men My Fuel

Lili St. Cyr reveals her "bust" and what fuels her steamy performances by posing in a bubbling trippy stew with hyper-realistic makeup applied by the publisher.  Six Divorces, bizarre experiences, hidden desires and shocking values!  GET MY KINDLE!

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