In Striptease Rachel Shteir brings to life striptease's Golden Age, the years between the Jazz Age and the Sexual Revolution, when strippers performed around the country, in burlesque theaters, nightclubs, vaudeville houses, carnivals, fairs, and even in glorious palaces on the Great White Way. Throughout the book, readers will find essential profiles of famed performers, including Gypsy Rose Lee, 'the Literary Stripper', Lili St. Cyr, the 1950s mistress of exotic striptease, and Blaze Starr, the 'human heatwave', who literally set the stage on fire.
Striptease is an insightful and entertaining portrait of an art form at once reviled and embraced by the American public. Blending careful research and vivid narration, Shteir captures striptease's combination of sham and seduction while illuminating its surprisingly persistent hold on the American imagination.
This first complete history of a century of striptease is filled with rare photographs and period illustrations.
