Suicide Girls Blackheart Burlesque

The Suicide Girls' 2016 Blackheart Burlesque tour was slated for a performance at O'Brians Event Centre on Sunday May 1 in Saskatoon, Canada, but because of an "absurd adult services bylaw" in the city of Saskatoon , the show was cancelled. (Article here) However, the tour's next stop was the Garrick Centre in Winnipeg, where the ladies performed last night (as this goes to press), to a sold out house.

There has never been a Suicide Girl, past, current, or former, who has been featured here but we'll make efforts to end that spell in the near future. The Suicide Girls Blackheart Burlesque tour will continue throughout the rest of this year. Check the schedule at their official website to see when they'll be in your city.

In This Corner; Miss Ruby Tuesday

Whether known by her real name of Robin Lisa Kelly, her ring name the Red Snapper (among others), or her stage name Ruby Tuesday, this lady has had a colorful life and career under all of her names. Now a hairstylist in Southern California, Ruby (as I'll stick with here) is very open about her past, not that there's any reason for her not to be. She's got some stories to tell, along with some names to drop, and a jaw-dropping photo collection to document her escapades.

Ruby's show biz career began when she was a teenager and got a gig as a regular dancer on American Bandstand, which lasted six years. Then came her stint as the "Red Snapper," during the early-80s, when nightclub mud wrestling was in its heyday. She went on to wrestle under a couple of different ring names and later became an exotic dancer and adult magazine model.

This written interview is being published concurrently with the audio interview Ruby did tonight for Idol Features' podcast channel, where, besides Ruby's, you'll find several other of our audio interviews. Stay tuned for many more, among which will probably be a Part 2 with Ruby, in the near future. Above photo of Ruby as the Red Snapper at the Hollywood Tropicana, circa 1984, is from her personal collection.

Burlesque Queen Noel Toy

The above circa 1940 video of Chinese-American burlesque queen Noel Toy performing her famous fan dance, makes it clear to see why she was was often billed as “The Chinese Sally Rand.”

Undoubtedly the most famous Asian-American Burlesque performer of her time, Miss Toy began her show biz career as a photographer’s nude model at the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939. Since Asian nude models were a rarity at the time, word soon spread around the San Francisco Bay Area and Noel was contacted by the owner of “Forbidden City,” a once-popular nightclub in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Believing Noel was just what he needed to spice up his club, the owner offered her 50 dollars a week (good money for that time) to headline at Forbidden City, which was where she first became known as the Chinese Sally Rand. There, she made famous her fan and “bubble dances,” the latter in which she used large balloons, rather than fans. According to Miss Toy, some customers were successful in popping her balloons with their cigarettes, “but they also go it on their bill.”

2014 Christmas Compilation

With Christmas around the corner, here are a selection of some of the lovely and talented ladies whose interviews and featured articles have graced the pages of this site, decked out in the spirit of the season. Starting it off is actress and talk show hostess Michelle Tomlinson who could have, but did not bake that pie herself. A big thanks to all the ladies here, especially to the ones who took the time and effort to take a photo exclusively for this feature. Happy Holidays!

What would have been Stella Chuu's interview

To be clear, when I contacted model, cosplayer, and burlesque performer Stella Chuu about being interviewed for a feature here, she didn't say yes or no, but rather said I could send her my questions though Facebook and "we'll see what we can do." So, I subsequently sent the questions, but she ended up deciding she wouldn't "feel comfortable" being featured here, for whatever reason a burlesque performer may have for not feeling "comfortable," and declined the offer.

Absolutely no problem with that and much more her loss than ours, but I don't like to waste my time researching someone, only to have the good and pertinent questions I came up with, go unanswered, nor let interviews that others would have surely appreciated, go unseen. So, even though my questions will go unanswered, I'm not going to let them go unseen. Here's my half of what would have been an interview with the aforementioned Stella Chuu. Of course, at left is where a photo of her would have gone and I would have given credit to the photographer here.

Tristan Risk

I'll admit, I'd never heard of Tristan Risk until I saw the movie American Mary, in which she played Beatress Johnson (yes, "Beatress," not "Beatrice"), a stripper who had 14 surgeries to become a real-life Betty Boop look-alike. She gave such a striking performance, hers was the first name I Googled right after the final credits rolled ....and that's saying something because American Mary was full of memorable female characters. It also has the makings of a potential cult classic.

Tristan has been described as a "corsetier, chocolatier, baker, ta-ta shaker, hip-swayer, tight lacer," and a "troublemaker." While all of that's true, first and foremost, the Vancouver native is one of the best-know names in neo-burlesque, incorporating fire-eating and vaudeville-style magic into her act. She was originally recruited by the producers of American Mary, Jen and Sylvia Soska, as a choreographer for the film's dance numbers. The role of Beatress had not yet been cast since none of the actresses who'd read for the part so far, seemed to understand the character. When Jen and Sylvia decided to give Tristan a shot and saw her audition, they knew they'd found their Beatress and the rest is history.

After doing a bit of research on "Little Miss Risk," I sent her a link to the piece I wrote on the female cast of American Mary and told her I'd love to do and interview with her sometime. When she promptly replied, saying she'd love to, I was flattered, feeling that she was an admirer of my writings. However, it turned out, Tristan's a self-admitted attention whore and relishes any chance to talk about herself and her doings at great length. Certainly nothing wrong with that but I was a little disappointed that my journalistic qualifications didn't play a role in getting her to agree to this interview. Anyway, regardless of her reasons for doing this, I'm proud to add Tristan to my list of lovely interviewees. Above photo by Black Opal Images.

Calamity Chang

When American burlesque was in its heyday, Asian striptease performers were practically unheard of. However, with the emergence of "neo-burlesque" in the mid-1990s, a few Asian ladies have taken to the stage, doing the retro "bump 'n grind" acts. One of the most prominent being New York City's "Asian Sexsation" Calamity Chang. Above is Calamity doing her "Nunsploitation" routine at a show entitled "Meat My Friends," hosted at Full Cup in Staten Island. See more of Calamity at her official website and you can follow her on Twitter.

The Ladies of American Mary

Above is the trailer for Twisted Twins Productions' 2012 thriller, American Mary, which became available on DVD this month. The twins behind TTP are the eerily provocative Jen and Sylvia Soska, who also brought us 2009's Dead Hooker in a Trunk.

American Mary stars Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps, Freddy vs. Jason) as a medical student who applies for work as a dancer at a strip club, named the Bourbon a Go Go, to help make ends meet. When a "medical emergency" occurs during Mary's interview, the club owner, knowing that Mary's a med student, offers her five grand on the spot to save the victim's life. Mary does, but sure doesn't seem to appreciate the chance for the hands-on experience because she goes home, gets sick, and tries to shower the ordeal away.

Stella Chuu

Above is the "Anime Princess of Burlesque" Stella Chuu, performing her act entitled "The Darkest Corners of the Internet," which is her homage to the infamous website 4chan.org and the notorious Internet meme it popularized; "Pedobear." The opening song is Florence + The Machine's "Girl With One Eye" with Oingo Boingo's "Little Girls" accompanying the Pedobear part at the end.

Besides being a burlesque performer, Stella, a New Yorker, is a very high profile cosplayer and pin-up model, often appearing at comic and game conventions for fans to meet. As of this writing, her website is still under construction but you can see plenty more of her at her Facebook fan page and countless other sites all over the net.

Artwork by Karina Dale

Several months ago, while doing research on pinup model Inkerbella, for her feature here, I made sure to note the artists' signature beneath the illustrations I saw of Bella at her website. That brought me to Portland, Oregon-based artist Karina Dale.

Karina's illustrations initially bring to mind (my mind, anyway) the classic pinup artwork that graced the noses of famous World War II fighter planes like "Memphis Belle," "Dauntless Dotty," and "Diamond Lil," not to mention the traditional Sailor Jerry tattoo designs. However, Karina's renderings of her models are more refined. In her own words, Karina says; "I draw real people, of all shapes and sizes, and believe that beauty is in real life all around you." Many of the models she chooses are modern-day burlesque performers, such as Violette Beretta (shown at left), and pinup models, such as the aforementioned Inkerbella and the iconic Masuimi Max.

If you're in the Pacific Northwest, you can see Karina's talent showcased at any of her shows she presents in and around Portland. You can also see them in her book; PDX Gorgeous: The Art of Karina Dale, available at Amazon.com. To see her latest interview, along with a few more samples of her artwork, just click the link to read and view more.

This is Halloween with Lily Stitches

In keeping with the spirit of the Halloween season, here's New Jersey-based burlesque dancer Lily Stitches performing to Marilyn Manson's "This is Halloween" at The Slipper Room in New York's Lower East Side. She also does a pretty hot routine to "Science Fiction Double Feature," as well as many other numbers that you can catch at her Youtube Channel.

See more of Lily at:

Her Facebook

Her Myspace

Model Mayhem