Goddess of Love Incarnate

July 1, 2015
Zemeckis (Behind the Burly Q: The Story of Burlesque in America, 2013) chronicles the life of Lili St. Cyr (1918-1999), by all accounts the queen of the strippers. St. Cyr, like so many in her business, scrabbled to break out of poverty. Luckily, her grandmother Alice remained a stabilizing influence in her childhood. She taught St. Cyr and her sisters to sew, an art they used in making costumes for the burlesque acts. What Alice also taught her was to go after what she wanted and forget whatever didn't work. Unfortunately, St. Cyr never learned how to say no. She accepted every job offered to her, which kept her in the limelight. She also accepted marriage proposals, six of them. She didn't have the nerve to break up, though, waiting for her husbands to tire of being Mr. St. Cyr. Her work, her body, and her beauty were all she ever cared about. She was private, enigmatic, even shy, always emulating Greta Garbo. She never played to the audience, maintaining her air of mystery. The author has difficulty showing the inner St. Cyr because feelings were the one thing she never exposed. There were loves along the way, but an ex-hockey player was the only one she kept going back to, and he never proposed. St. Cyr loved meeting gangsters and marveling at their swagger; they adored and adorned her, and she ate it up. Friends were few, certainly no women (she never trusted them). Her dance routines played to packed houses, and it was her bathtub scene, using a well-placed towel held by her maid, that brought her lasting fame. The book is well-written and loaded with photos but tends to be repetitive-for which the author receives only partial blame: St. Cyr's life was one gig, one man, and one marriage/divorce after another.

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September 1, 2015

Film producer, director, and author Zemeckis (Behind the Burly Q: The Story of Burlesque in America) continues to explore burlesque in this illustrated biography of striptease dancer Lili St. Cyr (1918-99). At the height of her career, St. Cyr earned $7,000 a week, included among her lovers Orson Welles and Yul Brynner, and was more famous than Gypsy Rose Lee. The author describes how the enigmatic, creative, unconventional, narcissistic, and disarmingly beautiful woman was an entertainment icon with a troubled private life. As a teen, she dropped out of school, was discovered while working at a restaurant, and her career as a showgirl began. She revolutionized stripping and brought legitimacy to it by appearing in high-class Hollywood nightclubs, with an act that was sexy and sophisticated. Statuesque and graceful, she elegantly commanded the stage, dazzling her audiences with the vignettes she created. Notoriety came with indecency arrests. She lived lavishly and married six times, but at the end of her life was a recluse, using drugs and being supported by friends. Zemeckis admirably reveals the many sides of this complicated woman. VERDICT Readers with an interest in dance, theater history, the adult entertainment industry and the law, and women's history will be intrigued.--Joan Stahl, Research and Instruction Univ. Libs., Th Catholic Univ. of America, Washington, DC

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2015
What induced Marie Frances Van Schaack (191899) of Pasadena, California, by way of Minnesota, to choose striptease as her path to wealth and fame? Was it a shocking family secret? Her depthless need for adoration? Zemeckis (Behind the Burly Q: The Story of Burlesque in America, 2013) tells the entire provocative story of Marie's self-transformation into Lili St. Cyr, a tall, elegant, exquisite, creative, and fanatically hardworking performer who revolutionized stripping. Poised and glamorous, Lili choreographed witty and dramatic scenarios, including her famous boudoir and gilded-cage skits, featuring elaborate stage sets, bubble baths, and designer gowns. She attained headline-grabbing, lines-around-the-block adulation, counted many celebrities among her fans and lovers, and spent her fortune as she earned it. Cool, graceful, and stunning in public, Lili was fiercely combative and miserable in private, battling through six marriages and divorces while dosing herself with pills. She even created a daring vignette titled Suicide. With tireless detail, Zemeckis brings an enigmatic and forgotten star back in the limelight and raises tough questions about beauty, sex, womanhood, and success in this fascinating, lavishly (and racily) illustrated biography.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)