Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 159. Lili St Cyr - Burlesque Icon

Transcript

159. Lili St Cyr - Burlesque Icon · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to Who Did What Now?
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Speaker 1: The history podcast It's not Your History Class with me,
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Speaker 1: your host Katie Charlewood, history harlot and reader of books.
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Speaker 1: As a history harlot, a Harlot of history, a Harlot
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Speaker 1: for history, a Harlot on behalf of history. These are questions,
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Speaker 1: These are queries, which one is it? Is it all?
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Speaker 1: Is it none? It's at least one of them, if
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Speaker 1: not all three. But as the history harlot and a
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Speaker 1: reader of books, I love museums like I love I
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Speaker 1: love a regional museum because that's where the fun stuff is.
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Speaker 1: That's really interesting. Thing is give me you're weird, you're wacky,
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Speaker 1: you're silly, you're specific, you're intense, you're folklore based, you're
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Speaker 1: oh god, there's so many parts of like human history
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Speaker 1: and society that ends up in museums, and I want
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Speaker 1: to go visit them. Like I have this joke which
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Speaker 1: isn't really a joke because one hundred percent want to
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Speaker 1: do it, and that I want to have my own
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Speaker 1: TV show where I go visit museums and I am
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Speaker 1: very honest and funny about them because like obviously everything
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Speaker 1: in the British Museum is basically stolen like anyway, and
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Speaker 1: it's just me being like, yeah, the neck to this,
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Speaker 1: they stole us to anyway, so on and so forth,
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Speaker 1: and and I want to go like visit all these
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Speaker 1: regional museums, like take me to your regional museum, take
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Speaker 1: me on your walking tours, talk nerdy to me. I
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Speaker 1: fucking love it, right. So in order for me to
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Speaker 1: visit museums, though, they have to exist, which brings me
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Speaker 1: to my next point. And you're thinking, jeez, you've taken
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Speaker 1: this long to get to this one, and yes I have.
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Speaker 1: It's my podcast. I'll do what I want to. If
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Speaker 1: you do not like the jibber jabba, you can leave anyway.
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Speaker 1: So I'm bringing a link down below in the podcast
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Speaker 1: note section for donations for the Burlesque Hall of Fame.
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Speaker 1: So it's basically a museum to the burlesque stars of
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Speaker 1: old effectively and the history of burlesque, and the items
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Speaker 1: and artifacts that are there need to be put into
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Speaker 1: storage until they can find a new premises. Because it
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Speaker 1: is a register charity, it is a museum. And between
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Speaker 1: funding cuts from the husk of a man in charge
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Speaker 1: and the lack of tourism due to the husk of
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Speaker 1: a man in charge. They are just down. They are
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Speaker 1: losing money and they cannot afford the running costs. So
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Speaker 1: I am here begging everyone like a dollar, two dollars,
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Speaker 1: twenty dollars, dollars seven year old, like three pounds fifty
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Speaker 1: whatever you have, like whatever you have to spare that
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Speaker 1: you can feasibly spare. Like I just think that, you know,
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Speaker 1: it's so easy for certain aspects of history to be
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Speaker 1: dismissed and ignored, and especially when it centers around women,
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Speaker 1: POC and LGBTQ and as such, I think it is
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Speaker 1: our duty to try and protect this, and so I'm
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Speaker 1: donating what I can, so I'll be saying what is
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Speaker 1: available this month. I've been sponsoring like girls sports teams
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Speaker 1: over here because I'm just like, no more girls in sports,
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Speaker 1: let's do it. So I've been trying to help things
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Speaker 1: locally here as well. Some Palista and donations have been
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Speaker 1: going out and now now I have sort of this
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Speaker 1: is now my goal for for a little while, because
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Speaker 1: I I just think it's important and I would really
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Speaker 1: appreciate if any of you could, you know, give what
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Speaker 1: you can and if you've been listening to like this
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Speaker 1: whole series, and you've seen me, you know yap online
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Speaker 1: that you know that this is actually one of the
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Speaker 1: reasons why I decided to actually go into the whole
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Speaker 1: burlesque series. There's going to be like extra episodes coming
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Speaker 1: out as well. There's going to be more on the
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Speaker 1: patreot On because I was writing them this morning. With
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Speaker 1: the amount of books that are currently sitting on my
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Speaker 1: kitchen table, like I've been wearing a back support every
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Speaker 1: day because I cannot feasibly bend anymore because it's causing
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Speaker 1: me too much pain. And I have a package. I
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Speaker 1: have a package that is sitting from the US Postal
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Speaker 1: Services and I am excited to open it, but I'm
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Speaker 1: not allowing myself to open it until I finish all
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Speaker 1: of my recording today because it is my treat. I
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Speaker 1: don't know what it is, but it does a treat
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Speaker 1: and I'm so excited. I think there's a book in there. Okay,
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Speaker 1: but I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Katie, quite
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Speaker 1: your devil Dabba in fact me, in fact you I well,
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Speaker 1: but first we've got to get our source on. Our
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Speaker 1: sources are the Lily Sier papers from America History Museum,
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Speaker 1: b les Queen, Thely Saint Cyr by Larry Gallen. Who
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Speaker 1: the hell is Lily Saint Cyr by Michael Adams, Goddess
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Speaker 1: of Lovingcarnate by Leslie Zemechis who I'm fairly certain her
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Speaker 1: previous name is Goldwyn and she's married as Zemecchus. I
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Speaker 1: think that's what's happened. Maybe behind the barley Cue by
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Speaker 1: Leslie Zemechis. Mavie distripti Jus by Lily Sincere. We also
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Speaker 1: have our old friends Biography dot com and the Smithsonian
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Speaker 1: dot Com. I use it incomfortably good. Then let's begin.
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Speaker 1: According to her birth certificate, Lily Sincyr was born Marie
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Speaker 1: Francis Clerk East on the third of June nineteen seventeen
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Speaker 1: in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Minnesota. I can't help myself. One day,
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Speaker 1: I will learn that accent one day. So She's born
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Speaker 1: to Ben Clerk East At Carpenter and Mariah Recurry Clerk East,
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Speaker 1: also known as Maud, who was a seamstress very solid
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Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds professions. She was the youngest of three siblings.
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Speaker 1: She had an older brother, William and an older sister Idella,
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Speaker 1: and there's like quite a large age gap between her
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Speaker 1: and the older two. And unfortunately it's not a bountiful
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Speaker 1: time in the clerk eased household. As Ben he gets
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Speaker 1: injured on a work site, you know, because held in
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Speaker 1: safety in the early twentieth century was it the most
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Speaker 1: thorough or existent. So yeah, this injury meant that his
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Speaker 1: employment opportunities were limited. And little Marie as she was then,
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Speaker 1: grew up living hand to mouth. So they traveled around
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Speaker 1: a lot searching for work, going from Minneapolis, Minnesota to
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Speaker 1: Webster was called to Seattle, Washington, before eventually settling down
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Speaker 1: in Pasadena, California in nineteen thirty. She's like thirteen at
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Speaker 1: this point. She's been to seventeen different schools over the
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Speaker 1: course of her life, and she's finally like in a
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Speaker 1: relatively settled location. And so why Pasadena, California. Well, I'm
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Speaker 1: glad you asked, because I'll tell you. Big sister Idella
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Speaker 1: was living in Pasadena with her husband and their young children.
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Speaker 1: And so the bend are back together. Okay, the family
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Speaker 1: are back together, you know, strength and numbers. They're there
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Speaker 1: to help and support each other. And Lily, she's moved
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Speaker 1: around most of her life, she's never really settling down.
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Speaker 1: And now she has like her chance for something solid.
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Speaker 1: She's like really excited to put down some roots and
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Speaker 1: spend some like quality time with her sister and her
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Speaker 1: little nieces. And so, yeah, she'd moved around a lot,
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Speaker 1: but she still had like hobbies and interests, as if
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Speaker 1: moving around wouldn't make you have hobbies and interests, you know,
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Speaker 1: but she had, you know, a solid school life. She
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Speaker 1: had interests. Well. She loved fashion, right, she adored fashioned.
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Speaker 1: And luckily for young Marie, her mother is a seamstress,
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Speaker 1: and so she gets or to teach her how to sew,
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Speaker 1: and so she starts making these fancy weegunas for herself,
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Speaker 1: and she's sworning about in beautiful dresses that she made.
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Speaker 1: So here's a sidebar already, Kerry. Yes, all clothes are handmade.
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Speaker 1: I need everyone to understand this. All clothes, every garment
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Speaker 1: you wear is hand made. It's not magically put together,
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Speaker 1: buy a machine. It's not wished upon star. No, a
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Speaker 1: person shows that. Whether they use a machine, whether they handstitch,
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Speaker 1: it's irrelevant. It's still a person making that garment. Every
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Speaker 1: item is handmade. So it's really weird. To me when
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Speaker 1: they're like, this shirt is handmade. All shirts are handmade, sir,
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Speaker 1: all of them. There's a person working that. It's not right.
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Speaker 1: So next time you complain about the price of something,
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Speaker 1: think about why your T shirt is costing three bucks. Like,
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Speaker 1: if you're paying that amount for a T shirt, like
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Speaker 1: that's not even worth the fabric. Imagine what the person
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Speaker 1: who's making that is earning. And that's just something that
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Speaker 1: we need to consider in this very modern world. And
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Speaker 1: I say that as someone who owns a lot of
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Speaker 1: second hand clothing, because yeah, learn learning to sew. Like
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Speaker 1: I'd be a great nineteen fifties housewife. I'd be perfect
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Speaker 1: apart from the fact I yap to my but they'd
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Speaker 1: give me drugs to sort that out. So it's fine,
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Speaker 1: but or a little bottomy. And so like I can sew,
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Speaker 1: I can knit, I can weave, I can embroider, I
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Speaker 1: can darn. And you're thinking, aren't sewing, darning, and embroidering
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Speaker 1: the same thing. I'm gonna go with. No, I'm gonna
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Speaker 1: go no. I'm not great at machine sewing, but I
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Speaker 1: can just about put a costume together, not that I've
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Speaker 1: done it in years, but I will have to do
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Speaker 1: it this Halloween. Anyway, every item of clothing you wear
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Speaker 1: is made by a person. Okay. So back to Baby Marie,
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Speaker 1: Baby Marie, teenage Marie. So she's in beautiful dresses, she's
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Speaker 1: into fashion, and she's finally, you know, feeling comfortable and secure.
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Speaker 1: She's fourteen years old and she is being swept off
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Speaker 1: her feet by Jimmy Nichols, a mechanical apprentice, and she
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Speaker 1: adores being courted and romanced like she's such a huge
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Speaker 1: fan of like the motion pictures and of like the
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Speaker 1: gossip magazines in the fashion and all that that. Like
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Speaker 1: she feels like she's Greta Garble and she's the big
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Speaker 1: love interest on the silver screen, and she sees herself
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Speaker 1: as the love interest because like she's fourteen. She has
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Speaker 1: fantasies as a fourteen year old girl. And she even
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Speaker 1: uses Greta Garbo as her style and spro like she
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Speaker 1: emulates her. She looks like her, and she tries to
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Speaker 1: like emulate her looks and imitates her like me and
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Speaker 1: my Kira Knightly face. Listen, we all want to be
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Speaker 1: the pirate king and pend it like Beckham. Okay, shut up, okay,
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Speaker 1: Kara Nightley could still get it though anyway. So she
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Speaker 1: is loving her best life. She's settled, she's with her family,
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Speaker 1: she's got a boyfriend, and she's feeling really really good
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Speaker 1: about her place in life. And then when things are
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Speaker 1: just like common up milhouse, she gets the rug pulled
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Speaker 1: out from under her feet and it's it's not I mean,
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Speaker 1: it's a turning point in her life because her mother
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Speaker 1: and sister nudge, they sit her down, and they completely
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Speaker 1: flip her world upside down because, as it turns out,
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Speaker 1: Maud isn't her biological mother, it's Adella, the woman she
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Speaker 1: thought was her sister. This makes Maud her grandmother and
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Speaker 1: her nieces Rosemary and Adela. They are her half sisters,
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Speaker 1: our sisters, right. I I don't like the half thing.
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Speaker 1: My kids have a big sister from a previous relationship
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Speaker 1: with her, from their dad, and she's their sister. I
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Speaker 1: don't care. I don't I don't care about your halfs
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Speaker 1: I don't care it. It means nothing to me, sister or not.
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Speaker 1: Like if you have a sibling who has a different parent,
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Speaker 1: you love your life. You make your own choices about that.
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Speaker 1: But as far as I'm concerned, they're all siblings, and
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Speaker 1: I don't like that half that's put in front because
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Speaker 1: I feel like it creates a barrier, like it sort
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Speaker 1: of makes an other ring out of it. And I
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Speaker 1: don't like that because like that girl, she's my family, right,
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Speaker 1: I don't care, and I will fight for her, like
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Speaker 1: she loves her little brother and sister. She's amazing and
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Speaker 1: honestly somehow managed to be one of the most well
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Speaker 1: adjusted teenagers I have ever met. And she's also really
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Speaker 1: good at pool, like she will beat your ass. But anyway,
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Speaker 1: love her ten out of ten. So I don't like
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Speaker 1: that half thing. But so she's got two sisters, so Rosemary,
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Speaker 1: she ends up becoming Dardy she changed her into Dardy,
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Speaker 1: and Adela Ruth she changes her name to Barbara, and
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Speaker 1: they go on to have sort of semi careers. I'm
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Speaker 1: going to say they go into burlesque and film, and
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Speaker 1: I'll probably chat about them more another day, but it's
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Speaker 1: just interestingly all kind of ended up there. So there
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Speaker 1: are two stories about this, about her birth and the
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Speaker 1: situation which ended in her having a falsified birth certificate,
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Speaker 1: So which one of these stories is true? I do
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Speaker 1: not know. They have similar bones though, and these are
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Speaker 1: that her biological father was a Dutchman from South Dakota.
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Speaker 1: I'm sure that makes sense to somebody called Edward van Shack,
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Speaker 1: a traveling salesman. None of that is surprising to me.
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Speaker 1: And the other part is that Maud claimed to have
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Speaker 1: given birth to Marie. So the variations either Edward van
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Speaker 1: Shack and Idella were married and he skipped out after
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Speaker 1: the birth, or they weren't married and he left as
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Speaker 1: soon as it was clear that Idella was pregnant, like
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Speaker 1: he just got the heck at a dodge. Either way, Maud,
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Speaker 1: wanting to protect her daughter's reputation, she ends up staging
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Speaker 1: at least part of the pregnancy. You hide Zidela away
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Speaker 1: and says, oh, like I had a babe, because yeah,
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Speaker 1: her reputation would be ruined. Not the men's, though that
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Speaker 1: doesn't happen. Men are trash, not all men. Some of
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Speaker 1: my best friends are men. Okay, you know we're good.
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Speaker 1: So this wasn't really that uncommon to do at the time.
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Speaker 1: Babies were born at home most of the time, not
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Speaker 1: always in hospitals, and yet like, it's fairly common practice
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Speaker 1: that this would still be happening, and so it wasn't
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Speaker 1: that hard to turn around to me like, oh, look,
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Speaker 1: I've already had other children, here is another one, And
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Speaker 1: so it was pretty easy to cover up at the time.
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Speaker 1: Plus it was one of the few ways to safely
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Speaker 1: protect a young women's reputation, because otherwise a guy would
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Speaker 1: be ruined, tannished, sullied by having children out of wood. Luck,
16:28
Speaker 1: because of course she created life all by herself. I mean,
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Speaker 1: she did just take the feenis on her own. But
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Speaker 1: still this, I mean all all to uncommon, but like
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Speaker 1: I mean, lucky it was this period because like in
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Speaker 1: the States, because if this had happened in Ireland and
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Speaker 1: that period, chances are she would have been shucked off
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Speaker 1: to a mother and baby home and then in the laundries.
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Speaker 1: So if you haven't listened to the Madden Laundry episode,
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Speaker 1: I'm gonna suggest you do that because that's harrowing, but
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Speaker 1: it's a good one. So by the time that Marie
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Speaker 1: finds out, like finds all this out when she sat
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Speaker 1: down and told Adella had actually remarried for maybe the
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Speaker 1: second time. So Marie, she's born. In nineteen seventeen, Adella
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Speaker 1: married Louis Sherman Cornett in nineteen nineteen. They moved to
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Speaker 1: Texas and had two children, Betty Lee and Louis, who
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Speaker 1: everyone called Jack for some reason. Now, Benny Lee ends
17:36
Speaker 1: up in a car accident which permanently scars her face
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Speaker 1: and so ends up being like hidden away Louis slash Jack.
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Speaker 1: I don't know about him anyway. So this marriage with
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Speaker 1: Louis Sherman Cornett doesn't really pan out, and they divorced
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Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty two. Then on May fifth, nineteen twenty three,
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Speaker 1: which is like less than a year later, Adela marries
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Speaker 1: John Alfred Blackadder, yes Blackadder, and they have two daughters,
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Speaker 1: Adela Ruth and Rosemary, who would go on to you know,
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Speaker 1: semi fame. After this shock to her system, Marie changed
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Speaker 1: her name to Marie van Shack. And it's like, was
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Speaker 1: she embracing her lineage? Was it an act of rebellion?
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Speaker 1: Or was this her trying to find a sense of
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Speaker 1: self because everything she knew about her life was wrong?
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Speaker 1: So was it sort of embracing was it rebellion? Whom's
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Speaker 1: to say? But as she gets older, she gets more
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Speaker 1: secretive about her past. In fact, her future husbands, or
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Speaker 1: six of them, I believe they would be told that
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Speaker 1: her family abandoned her or that they were all dead,
19:04
Speaker 1: even though like her sisters are out there performing and
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Speaker 1: like marrying off, like toy manufacturers and stuff. Right, so
19:16
Speaker 1: her teens, they're still full of dreams and garble. She
19:21
Speaker 1: was not the only starlet she idolized. So like in
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Speaker 1: her autobiography she says that she had the desire to
19:28
Speaker 1: be on the best dress list, or this is my
19:32
Speaker 1: favorite part being a gold digger, like Jeane Harlowe and
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Speaker 1: Dinner at Eight. That's a film that is one of
19:41
Speaker 1: those moving pictures. By the way, Geane Harlow, there are
19:47
Speaker 1: so many blonde bombshells that are out there and throughout history,
19:54
Speaker 1: throughout movies, and they are everywhere, but people tend to
19:58
Speaker 1: focus on like Marlon quite a lot. And I love
20:01
Speaker 1: Marlon know and she will be a topic of conversation
20:03
Speaker 1: at some point, but not just now. So she just
20:10
Speaker 1: she just loves this whole vibe and also good for her, right, right,
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Speaker 1: life women in the thirties, I feel like we can
20:20
Speaker 1: give them a break, right considering the world was not
20:24
Speaker 1: built for them. They are just trying to survive within it.
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Speaker 1: And oh, I just I love these sums. So my
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Speaker 1: favorite actually, no sidebar, My favorite ever thing about Gene
20:40
Speaker 1: Harlowe is like she's at dinner with Margot Asquith. Now
20:45
Speaker 1: Margot is spelled m A R g O T right,
20:48
Speaker 1: And so they're at dinner and she goes, hey, are
20:52
Speaker 1: you the Margaret Esquith? Margaret, she calls her market right,
20:58
Speaker 1: and and so Margot responds, now the tea is silent
21:07
Speaker 1: like the one in a Harlow. Basically, she was calling
21:12
Speaker 1: her a Harlow and that to me is funny. I
21:16
Speaker 1: was like, oh, Margot, you saucy minx and famous Margot
21:21
Speaker 1: asked with was a bit of a dick. And again
21:24
Speaker 1: we will talk about her someday. So Marie super into
21:29
Speaker 1: her magazines. She's into fashion and she loves going to
21:33
Speaker 1: the Mousion pictures, and inspired by Jean Harlowe, she does
21:37
Speaker 1: a home bleach job by mixing look soap flakes with peroxide, ammonia,
21:43
Speaker 1: and chlorox. If you have access to all of these
21:47
Speaker 1: items at home, please don't do this. Don't do this
21:50
Speaker 1: to yourself. I would like for you to keep your scalps.
21:55
Speaker 1: So this is what gives her this iconic white blonde look.
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Speaker 1: And when she's seventeen. Marie van Shack Toda, you're gonna
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Speaker 1: be shocked at this. She's pregnant. She and Jimmy the
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Speaker 1: Mechanic had been making whoopee knocking boats, doing the horizontal
22:13
Speaker 1: dango or the Lindy Hub. I don't know. I was
22:16
Speaker 1: trying to make it more American. So this teenage girl
22:23
Speaker 1: decides to make the right choice for her, which is
22:26
Speaker 1: to have an abortion. And this is a period of
22:29
Speaker 1: time where abortion is illegal, meaning that this was an
22:33
Speaker 1: off the book's procedure. And here's the thing. You cannot
22:38
Speaker 1: ban abortion. You can only ban safe abortions. This means
22:44
Speaker 1: no regulation, This means no safety measures. Abortion is healthcare.
22:49
Speaker 1: If you don't believe that, you can fuck off. Unsurprisingly,
22:54
Speaker 1: after this unregulated and dangerous procedure, she develops an infection
22:59
Speaker 1: which risks her life because there were no legal means
23:03
Speaker 1: in order for her to get the procedure that she needed.
23:08
Speaker 1: So she is in so much pain, like it gets
23:11
Speaker 1: to the point where it's excruciating, and so she ends
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Speaker 1: up telling Moderny Della that she terminated her pregnancy because
23:19
Speaker 1: she needs help, and so she goes to the women
23:21
Speaker 1: in her life, her mother and her grandmother for help
23:26
Speaker 1: and guidance and hopefully some pain relief. Did they console her?
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Speaker 1: Did they hell? Instead, they insulted her, degraded her, and
23:37
Speaker 1: told her that she was spoiled merchandise and that finding
23:42
Speaker 1: a husband would be nigh impossible. Now, first of all,
23:49
Speaker 1: what in the slut shaming? Secondly, adela glasshouses? And thirdly,
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Speaker 1: it's fucking barbaric to accuse a woman or girl of
24:02
Speaker 1: sullying her reputation because she's no longer a virgin, because
24:06
Speaker 1: virginity is a social construct. Otherwise we would have a
24:12
Speaker 1: socially accepted, typically universally a greed test for proving male virginity.
24:20
Speaker 1: And while we're on the subject, And while we're on
24:23
Speaker 1: the subject, isn't that funny that, within the patriarchal, misogynistic system,
24:28
Speaker 1: the very thing that devalues women as a man just
24:34
Speaker 1: saying So, this whole experience leads Marie to say fuck
24:39
Speaker 1: this for a game of soldiers, and she breaks things
24:41
Speaker 1: off with Jimmy. She quits school, and she decides to
24:45
Speaker 1: live her life her way as Marie van Shack. She
24:55
Speaker 1: heads to Hollywood to work as a chorse girl, like
24:58
Speaker 1: she had ballet training when she was younger, so she
25:01
Speaker 1: had like a little bit of a dance background. So
25:04
Speaker 1: she moves to Hollywood, where she meets and marries racer
25:09
Speaker 1: Cordy Milne in nineteen thirty seven. He's like a bike
25:14
Speaker 1: racer who was from Pasadena, right, so yeah, he was
25:19
Speaker 1: like a messenger, like a bike messenger. And then he
25:22
Speaker 1: soaped up his bike so we could race it like
25:25
Speaker 1: a room room bike, not like a cycling bike. And
25:28
Speaker 1: so he does this and he gets like some notoriety
25:32
Speaker 1: and they get married. Now they do divorce, like I'm
25:35
Speaker 1: gonna warn you now every single one of her marriages
25:39
Speaker 1: and it is and divorce. So anyway, lovely sincere, she's
25:45
Speaker 1: a chorus girl, like just living her life performing and
25:52
Speaker 1: when she's twenty three, her younger sisters Rosemary and Adela
25:57
Speaker 1: with they have an audition at the Florentine Gardens and
26:02
Speaker 1: so she's to accompany them. So she brings them in
26:06
Speaker 1: and for whatever reason, it's actually Marie who gets hired
26:11
Speaker 1: instead of the girls. When she's working at the Florentine Gardens,
26:16
Speaker 1: she meets husband number two, Richard Hubert, and they get
26:20
Speaker 1: married in nineteen forty one, and so she's at the
26:24
Speaker 1: Florentine Gardens for two years before moving to San Francisco,
26:28
Speaker 1: where she dances at the music Box Theater as a
26:31
Speaker 1: chorus girl for twenty seven dollars and fifty cents a
26:35
Speaker 1: week and in today's money that is six hundred and
26:39
Speaker 1: four dollars and thirty four cents. Kiz I looked it up,
26:45
Speaker 1: but she cotton down fairly quickly that the featured dancers
26:48
Speaker 1: made the big bucks, and at the music Box Theater
26:51
Speaker 1: they were earning up to five hundred dollars per week.
26:56
Speaker 1: That is ten thousand, hundred and eighty eight dollars and
27:01
Speaker 1: three cents in today's money. Again, I looked it up.
27:08
Speaker 1: The only catch was that the featured dancers in burlesque
27:11
Speaker 1: theaters were required to perform topless or even nude. And
27:17
Speaker 1: she's like, what shows some nips for ten grand a week?
27:19
Speaker 1: Has that? And Telly Hoe like she had posed topless before,
27:24
Speaker 1: so like a few years earlier, like she modeled for
27:27
Speaker 1: a friend, and she was like, oh yeah, bibbs, I
27:30
Speaker 1: love bibbs. Everybody loves boobs, and like this is round
27:34
Speaker 1: about the time she starts using the stage name Lily
27:37
Speaker 1: Saints Cyr. Now I have heard three theories as to
27:43
Speaker 1: why she chose this name specifically. The first, which is
27:47
Speaker 1: my least favorite, is that there was a patron, a
27:52
Speaker 1: man who was like adoring of her, and his surname
27:54
Speaker 1: was Saint Cyr and she went, I like that, I'm
27:56
Speaker 1: gonna use it. I'm like, hmm, okay, that's fine. The
28:00
Speaker 1: other number two is that it's like a play on words,
28:06
Speaker 1: like it's meant to sound like sincere, like I'm so sincere,
28:10
Speaker 1: oh and behind mysterytoor number three, my favorite is that
28:15
Speaker 1: it's a shortened version of Saint Sirius, the child sat
28:21
Speaker 1: who was martyred, because there's a lot to unpack there,
28:26
Speaker 1: and it feels like this would be the kind of
28:28
Speaker 1: thing she would do, because it's it's that funny to
28:31
Speaker 1: me where she's like, well, you want to know where
28:33
Speaker 1: my name came from? Ha, you got this? Maybe she
28:37
Speaker 1: just thought it sounded cool. I don't know, so Lily.
28:41
Speaker 1: She begs for a solo performance at the Music Box
28:45
Speaker 1: and the producer Ivan Fanva like he is like he
28:52
Speaker 1: just thinks she's gorgeous and stunning and he's just wowed
28:55
Speaker 1: by her like charm and beauty, and he decides to
28:58
Speaker 1: give her a go. He's like, you're stunning, absolutely and
29:03
Speaker 1: Lily Sincere right, she's she is absolutely gorgeous. She's five
29:08
Speaker 1: foot nine, she's got legs for days, she's got white
29:12
Speaker 1: blonde hair, those fluttery bedroom eyes. And if you're thinking,
29:17
Speaker 1: you know, this sounds vaguely familiar, like she has all
29:20
Speaker 1: the curbs in all the right places, right as some
29:24
Speaker 1: might say. And here's the thing. The legend goes that
29:31
Speaker 1: Norma Jean based her Marlon Monroe look on her, like
29:35
Speaker 1: she even had that sort of breathy voice, hippie bathie
29:42
Speaker 1: c you so like it's supposed to be like emulating
29:46
Speaker 1: Lily Sincere. That is the legend. So anyway, like the
29:53
Speaker 1: first time you do anything, it wasn't great. Her first
29:57
Speaker 1: performance was I believe the term is unmitigated disaster. Like
30:03
Speaker 1: the audience was unimpressed, would be a gentle way to
30:07
Speaker 1: put it. They hated it. It did not go well.
30:11
Speaker 1: It was just like, sure, I can get naked on stage. Yeah,
30:16
Speaker 1: you gotta do it with some pinache. You've got to
30:18
Speaker 1: have like a thing, you know. It's not just this
30:23
Speaker 1: is where I think is really interesting, where people don't
30:26
Speaker 1: understand that it's stripping, Like, even if you take out
30:29
Speaker 1: the burlesque aspect, the art of taking off your clothes
30:32
Speaker 1: and not looking like an idiot doing it is an
30:35
Speaker 1: actual skill. Also, pole dancers, I do not have that
30:40
Speaker 1: level of core muscle in my body. I think one
30:43
Speaker 1: time I was able to flip myself upside down on
30:45
Speaker 1: a pole. Other than that, I don't have that level
30:49
Speaker 1: of strength in me. I wish I did, But I
30:55
Speaker 1: also have no rhythm. So if I was doing burlensque,
30:58
Speaker 1: I would be focusing on the comedy side of it. Well,
31:02
Speaker 1: also hilariously getting into my birth anyway, could you imagine?
31:08
Speaker 1: Could you imagine? Could you imagine I fight it? Could
31:11
Speaker 1: you could? I? Could? I? Anyway? So the audience just
31:19
Speaker 1: it was bad. It was a bad show. It was
31:21
Speaker 1: a bad, terrible thing. And so Finova he's like, I
31:27
Speaker 1: gotta give you a second chance, you know, which is
31:31
Speaker 1: wild because they don't do that. But he's like so
31:33
Speaker 1: besorted with her, and he just sees something there and
31:38
Speaker 1: so he helps her like create an act, and she
31:41
Speaker 1: starts off with this biblical number because of course it is,
31:45
Speaker 1: it's always a biblical number. And she's got two other
31:49
Speaker 1: dancers because safety and numbers because you know, one of
31:52
Speaker 1: them buggers up, there's always another one there to help.
31:55
Speaker 1: So she's there. It's like Adam Eve and the Serpent.
32:01
Speaker 1: She's even this scenario. So she's wearing this knee length
32:06
Speaker 1: white blonde wig and a G string because she has
32:11
Speaker 1: to have something, you know, and at the end of
32:14
Speaker 1: the act, right, so the G string she's wearing again,
32:17
Speaker 1: she's wearing this knee length wig, so it's covering her boobs,
32:21
Speaker 1: it's covering all the bits. It's like he hate sneaky
32:23
Speaker 1: snaky because they had weird. I'm gonna go with public
32:28
Speaker 1: decency laws. So like you couldn't get like in the
32:32
Speaker 1: full nip at this point, like it was it something
32:34
Speaker 1: you could technically do, and so and so she's got
32:39
Speaker 1: the G string on and it is attached to a
32:42
Speaker 1: fishing line and like on a like fishing rod, and
32:45
Speaker 1: there's a stage hand at the side of the stage.
32:48
Speaker 1: It's what would happen is as the lights would turn
32:51
Speaker 1: out right at the end of her act, the G
32:54
Speaker 1: string would fly off her body and into the balcony
32:59
Speaker 1: like in this be just as the stage lights go down,
33:02
Speaker 1: so technically not showing anything people want to see. It,
33:05
Speaker 1: and so it's tantalizing and teasing and it's just a
33:08
Speaker 1: very very smart move altogether. And so this like becomes
33:14
Speaker 1: her signature. It's like a gimmick. And like today today
33:19
Speaker 1: this is still used because it's like a world famous
33:23
Speaker 1: strip tease gimmick. It's called the flying gee, and yeah,
33:28
Speaker 1: people will still do it today, which is I love that.
33:31
Speaker 1: I love that. Like I saw I saw an amazing
33:35
Speaker 1: that's gonna sound so pretentious. I saw an amazing Burlass
33:38
Speaker 1: performer when I was in Prag and they were doing
33:41
Speaker 1: like a Josephine Josephine Baker set, and I actually follow
33:47
Speaker 1: her on Instagram because I thought she was so amazing
33:51
Speaker 1: and she has that same like joy and like just
33:57
Speaker 1: comedy in the whole routine, and I love I love
34:00
Speaker 1: her so much. Anyway, so yes, where was I now?
34:06
Speaker 1: My mom bought me tickets. Actually, I want to say
34:08
Speaker 1: my mom took me triber lesque show in Prague because
34:11
Speaker 1: we were over there to celebrate my birthday. So anyway,
34:16
Speaker 1: oh that's like ten years ago. I think, oh my goodness,
34:20
Speaker 1: about no less eight eight years ago, because my daughter's nine.
34:26
Speaker 1: That's how I know. I count time now in the
34:29
Speaker 1: last decade. I'm like, how old is was my child
34:32
Speaker 1: when the thing happened? And then I work backwards from there.
34:35
Speaker 1: I completely miss my point. My point was that classic
34:38
Speaker 1: routines are still being performed to this day, and I
34:40
Speaker 1: think it's wonderful that we still get to see art
34:46
Speaker 1: and performance and that it's not lost to the sands
34:48
Speaker 1: of time, you know, send me to museums. Sorry to
34:53
Speaker 1: everyone listening on headphones. I did try and pull myself
34:58
Speaker 1: back so that you didn't get my film Miss Piggy
35:02
Speaker 1: like shriek there, I know I do a fairly decent
35:06
Speaker 1: Miss Piggy. I fresh. I think at this point I
35:10
Speaker 1: just need my Kermit honestly, though Kermet could still get
35:14
Speaker 1: it for a puppet fuck me sideways. I got to
35:17
Speaker 1: stop doing this. So Lily Saint Cyre is a quick learner,
35:22
Speaker 1: and she becomes a sensation, a hit, a somewhat notorious celebrity,
35:27
Speaker 1: hearing all over America and the world. So shocker. She
35:33
Speaker 1: got married again, this time to actor, dancer, vaudeville performer
35:38
Speaker 1: Paul Valentine also known as Van Valentov. I don't know,
35:45
Speaker 1: there's so many names. So they were together from nineteen
35:49
Speaker 1: forty six to nineteen forty nine, and he had previously
35:52
Speaker 1: been in a relationship with.
35:53
Speaker 2: Sally Rand the fan dancer, right, so occasionally he actually
36:00
Speaker 2: performed with Lily on stage like opposite her, because you know,
36:05
Speaker 2: he's a vaudeville man.
36:07
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna take a moment to just remind everyone
36:13
Speaker 1: that Donald O'Connor is the reason I love comedians. That's
36:18
Speaker 1: why I'm attracted to comedians. God damn it, funny men.
36:22
Speaker 1: I blame Donald O'Connor, but he could also bust a move,
36:25
Speaker 1: so love him anyway. Lily's career is booming. She has
36:32
Speaker 1: a seven year headlining gig at the Gaiety Theater in
36:37
Speaker 1: Monterey Hall and in the Sunset Strip in Vegas, like
36:43
Speaker 1: which is like still at infansation. She has shows there
36:47
Speaker 1: and fun fact, Lily Saints here is often credited as
36:53
Speaker 1: being the person persona who popularized strip teas in Las Vegas.
37:01
Speaker 1: She's credited with it. Now, as we go through this series,
37:05
Speaker 1: we will find out if that is the case. Sorry,
37:12
Speaker 1: I couldn't think of any other sound to make at
37:15
Speaker 1: that point. I feel like I've been more unhinged on
37:19
Speaker 1: this episode than I have been in a while. I'd
37:23
Speaker 1: like to apologize, but I don't want to, so like
37:27
Speaker 1: she's making bank back then, and unsurprisingly, men were clambering
37:33
Speaker 1: for her attention and they wanted to sit with her
37:36
Speaker 1: in between shows, and her assistant told them that if
37:42
Speaker 1: they wanted to do so, that Miss Saint Clair was
37:45
Speaker 1: only available if champagne was purchased. So like in these clubs,
37:52
Speaker 1: in these like when they're little tables, man after man
37:56
Speaker 1: would have a bottle of champagne at their table, and
38:00
Speaker 1: so Lily would saunter through the audience and sometimes whips
38:05
Speaker 1: knock over a champagne bottle, after which each gushing fellow
38:09
Speaker 1: would be more than happy to replace. Because if there
38:12
Speaker 1: was no champagne, Loally Sincere would not be sitting with you.
38:18
Speaker 1: And so this is where miss Sincere would earn an
38:26
Speaker 1: extra buck or two because she would split the profits
38:30
Speaker 1: with the venue, you know, over like the champagne that
38:36
Speaker 1: was sold, so she would get a cut of that.
38:38
Speaker 1: So every time she knocked a bottle, the bottle would
38:41
Speaker 1: have to be replaced, so that's still more money going
38:44
Speaker 1: to the bar, right, And I just love it. She's
38:49
Speaker 1: like champagne profits. I love it. It's just like girl
38:53
Speaker 1: has her champagne profits and I love that for her.
38:57
Speaker 1: And like, my favorite thing is that she charged men
39:01
Speaker 1: for dates, which honestly, go Lily, make it worth your time.
39:06
Speaker 1: So like she would charge for like dates for like
39:09
Speaker 1: lunchtime dates, dinner dates, and even breakfast dates, but a
39:14
Speaker 1: breakfast date was the most expensive because Lily was not
39:18
Speaker 1: a fan of mornings, like not super into them at all,
39:23
Speaker 1: Like yeah, she was not. She was not an early
39:27
Speaker 1: riser by choice. So she does end up marrying again,
39:32
Speaker 1: this time to restauranteur Armando Orsini in nineteen fifty, but
39:38
Speaker 1: it didn't last because she was too self sufficient. I
39:44
Speaker 1: this is like such a little irony. Is like she
39:48
Speaker 1: always dreamed of being a gold digger like Jean Harlowe
39:51
Speaker 1: and Dinner at eight, but in reality she was the
39:54
Speaker 1: breadwinner and she financially supported her spouses most of the time.
40:00
Speaker 1: Like I mean, granted, she did have a whole host
40:03
Speaker 1: of affairs, like like is it Jimmy Jimmy Orlando like
40:08
Speaker 1: in Montreal was like one of her like big lovers.
40:11
Speaker 1: There was a rumor that she even shagged Ronald Reagan,
40:15
Speaker 1: which before he was president obviously, but he was still
40:20
Speaker 1: you know, Ronald Reagan and therefore a bit of a deck.
40:24
Speaker 1: But again, women in the past doing what they can.
40:28
Speaker 1: So she like lived her life as she pleased. She
40:34
Speaker 1: enjoyed performing, she enjoyed the attention and the adoration and
40:39
Speaker 1: the money because good for her. And over the years
40:45
Speaker 1: she created acts like the Bally Dancer or the Wolf
40:48
Speaker 1: Women Jungle Goddess, which involved simulated sex scene with the parrot.
40:55
Speaker 1: So I'm told. So she had like an array of props,
40:59
Speaker 1: elaborate sets and costumes. Now I would be doing a
41:05
Speaker 1: disservice if I didn't mention that many of her acts
41:09
Speaker 1: they had imperialist, colonialist themes. So she had like a
41:15
Speaker 1: Cleopatra act. She had other acts. I can't even remember
41:21
Speaker 1: them all now, Okay, I have it. I have it
41:24
Speaker 1: written down here. I knew I had a list. I've
41:26
Speaker 1: got in a Persian Haram, I've got the Chinese Virgin, okay,
41:31
Speaker 1: and I've got Cleopatra. Now, Cleopatra is the only one
41:35
Speaker 1: where I think you kind of have a little bit
41:37
Speaker 1: of leeway with there, because she's Greek, you know, which
41:41
Speaker 1: is spicy white, I guess, like you know, white with
41:46
Speaker 1: olive oil maybe and herbs Cleopatra is like Macedonian Greek,
41:52
Speaker 1: so that's sort of on the whiteness scale, which makes
41:55
Speaker 1: her like the only option where you can goin of
41:57
Speaker 1: go maybe maybe, I say, with great terror, gripping my
42:03
Speaker 1: white heart. Right, So here's the thing, like appropriation comes
42:11
Speaker 1: from It just stems from colonialism and imperialism, because there's
42:16
Speaker 1: this belief that you should have open access to other
42:20
Speaker 1: people's cultures and you have the right to take it
42:23
Speaker 1: when we fucking don't. And I say that as somebody
42:26
Speaker 1: who is the human equivalent of a mayonnaise sandwich. I'm
42:30
Speaker 1: so fucking white. I mean, there's some other ingredients in
42:35
Speaker 1: the recipe there, but we don't get to do that.
42:38
Speaker 1: We've stolen enough of their shit. Like empires have destroyed countries, nations,
42:46
Speaker 1: like societies, and we took the pretty things that we
42:51
Speaker 1: liked and then we claimed them as our own and
42:55
Speaker 1: then acted like we were, you know, celebrating it when
43:00
Speaker 1: you unicked it and now you're wearing it, Like, no,
43:04
Speaker 1: don't do that. But I am going off on a rant.
43:07
Speaker 1: But like, here's the thing. We need to understand and
43:11
Speaker 1: accept that the past is going to have some dark parts,
43:14
Speaker 1: and even in the people that we admire in respect.
43:18
Speaker 1: And again, just because you're critiquing something doesn't mean you
43:22
Speaker 1: don't love it. And you can appreciate the beauty and
43:26
Speaker 1: the art, but you have to see the full picture
43:30
Speaker 1: and not just the part that you want to see,
43:33
Speaker 1: you know, like I never want to see a white
43:35
Speaker 1: person doing Josephine Baker's savage dance. Like no, I will
43:40
Speaker 1: find rotten fruit to pelt at you. I will find you,
43:44
Speaker 1: and I will hunt you down because you know better
43:46
Speaker 1: at this point, that's not for you, Lily. Sincere becomes
43:57
Speaker 1: known as Montreal's femme fatale and her act had Quebec's
44:01
Speaker 1: clergy foaming at the mouth. They condemned her performance, stating
44:07
Speaker 1: that whenever she danced, the Therda is made to stink
44:10
Speaker 1: with the voul odor of sexual frenzy. This sentiment was
44:15
Speaker 1: echoed by the Public Morality Committee. The Public Morality Committee says, no,
44:22
Speaker 1: that's how you know it's good. She gets arrested and
44:26
Speaker 1: charged with behavior that was immoral, obscure, and indecent. Now
44:30
Speaker 1: she was acquitted because they didn't actually have that much
44:34
Speaker 1: evidence on her. However, the authorities did eventually close down
44:41
Speaker 1: the gaiety theater. So this wasn't her only time like
44:47
Speaker 1: being arrested or having a run in or having to
44:49
Speaker 1: go to court, because in nineteen forty seven, Lily Sincere
44:53
Speaker 1: was performing her bathtub routine at Ciro's chiros Kiros I
44:59
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm gonna go with CEO's nightclub in Hollywood,
45:04
Speaker 1: and she was billed as the anatomic bomb and of
45:08
Speaker 1: course because ah like we love a pun here and
45:12
Speaker 1: she gets arrested because a customer thought her act was
45:16
Speaker 1: lud a lud act. So when she goes to court
45:21
Speaker 1: with one of her husbands by her side, one of them,
45:24
Speaker 1: you know, she insists that her act is elegant and
45:28
Speaker 1: refined and not lud or egregious. She explains the act
45:33
Speaker 1: and then she performs it for the jury like fully dressed,
45:38
Speaker 1: of course, for the sake of decency after all. So
45:42
Speaker 1: the act goes like this. She's on stage and she
45:46
Speaker 1: has a maid. She slips off her dress and she
45:50
Speaker 1: has undergarments on. She tries on a hat and she
45:55
Speaker 1: removes the hat. She removes one of her brasiers because
45:59
Speaker 1: she wearing too. She has a sort of pink mesh
46:03
Speaker 1: one on underneath, and so she removes one brassire and
46:06
Speaker 1: slips into a black neglige. She then moves behind her maid,
46:11
Speaker 1: sort of hiding behind her and discreetly gets undressed, and
46:17
Speaker 1: then she steps into a bubble bath, and so she's
46:21
Speaker 1: sort of playing around in bubbles and splashing about and
46:25
Speaker 1: then emerges from the tub basically fully dressed for a
46:30
Speaker 1: night on the town, and like that's the act. So
46:35
Speaker 1: she kind of goes from being dressed to undressed to
46:38
Speaker 1: being dressed again, and so after a mere eighty minutes
46:43
Speaker 1: of deliberation, the jury ecquits Lily Saints here skip forward
46:50
Speaker 1: now to nineteen fifty five and Lily Marri's actor Ted Jordan.
46:56
Speaker 1: This marriage lasts like four years before they called it,
47:00
Speaker 1: and the year they divorced is also the same year
47:04
Speaker 1: that she marries special effects man Joseph Albert Somar, and
47:09
Speaker 1: this marriage ends in nineteen sixty four, So like each
47:12
Speaker 1: of her marriages, they sort of last like a little
47:15
Speaker 1: bit longer each time. But yeah, so let's talk about
47:19
Speaker 1: her filmography for wee second. So she ends up being
47:22
Speaker 1: in those motion pictures, So she's in Strip Rama, Varieties
47:29
Speaker 1: and Teas Orama, all made by Irving Klaw in the
47:32
Speaker 1: early fifties, but like her first appearance in a feature film,
47:38
Speaker 1: which was officially condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency right,
47:47
Speaker 1: her first avereance her acting debut is in Son of
47:50
Speaker 1: Sindbad in nineteen fifty three, and this was thanks to
47:55
Speaker 1: entrepreneur tycoon and wirdo Howard Hughes. Listen, if you keep
48:01
Speaker 1: Charles of p under your bed, I'm allowed to call
48:03
Speaker 1: you a weirdo. That's just how it is. So anyway,
48:07
Speaker 1: Hollywood was not a calling for Lily Sincere. And like
48:13
Speaker 1: even the funny thing about her being in this because
48:16
Speaker 1: of Howard Hughes, like she didn't actually meet him, Like
48:21
Speaker 1: there is no record of them ever meeting, but she
48:24
Speaker 1: met with a man on his behalf and his name
48:27
Speaker 1: was like Howard Kane, and so everything was done through them,
48:30
Speaker 1: and they sort of kind of started having a relationship
48:34
Speaker 1: and then he left her or he just kind of
48:37
Speaker 1: disappeared one day more than anything else. And yeah, this
48:42
Speaker 1: left her fairly distraught. So I'm gonna get you ake, Okay,
48:46
Speaker 1: trigger warning, content warning. I'm gonna suggest you skip forward
48:50
Speaker 1: about fifteen seconds if you have any issues regarding ending
48:55
Speaker 1: of life and suicide attempts. Okay, so Lily said, he
49:00
Speaker 1: was a big taker of sleeping pills, like everybody in Hollywood,
49:04
Speaker 1: I'm fairly certain was on sleeping pills at that point
49:08
Speaker 1: because they just prescribed like jubjibs, you know, And so
49:12
Speaker 1: she was on them. And after Caine disappeared, she ends
49:15
Speaker 1: up swallowing a bunch and tries to end her own life,
49:19
Speaker 1: and she woke up like a couple days later. She
49:22
Speaker 1: was just out for several days, but she did manage
49:26
Speaker 1: to survive. But this would happen a few times throughout
49:31
Speaker 1: her life where when someone would leave her, or relationship
49:35
Speaker 1: would end, or things just felt hard, she would have attempts,
49:40
Speaker 1: but she didn't succeed in any of them. So Hollywood
49:45
Speaker 1: wasn't really calling for Lily sincere like she preferred having
49:49
Speaker 1: control over her acts herself and in nightclubs and theaters,
49:54
Speaker 1: like she was the boss. She could choose, you know,
49:58
Speaker 1: what costumes to wear, what prop to use, what music
50:01
Speaker 1: she was going to use in her act, how she
50:03
Speaker 1: was going to do it, what length it was going
50:05
Speaker 1: to be, Like she had control and power over that,
50:09
Speaker 1: and she didn't have to answer to studio execs or
50:12
Speaker 1: even get up early in the morning, because she fucking
50:15
Speaker 1: heired getting up early in the morning. Again, not a
50:19
Speaker 1: fan of a breakfast date. And she built this career
50:24
Speaker 1: on being beautiful and aloft. I mean, of course she
50:28
Speaker 1: was more than that, because women are people too. I
50:32
Speaker 1: don't know if you knew that, but that's a thing.
50:35
Speaker 1: But yes, she built this image of who she was,
50:41
Speaker 1: and she gave the tabloids a field day, like gossip
50:44
Speaker 1: columns were awash with rumors of love affairs with everyone
50:48
Speaker 1: again like Ronald Reagan, mafia men, actors, actresses, and even
50:54
Speaker 1: Marilyn Monroe herself. Like what I love especially about Lily
51:00
Speaker 1: Sincere is how open she was about not wanting children,
51:04
Speaker 1: like she often told the press that she had no
51:06
Speaker 1: desire to procreate, and like, honestly, good for her, right,
51:10
Speaker 1: And here's the thing after that back alley abortion. Anyway,
51:15
Speaker 1: there is no guarantee that she could, you know, get
51:19
Speaker 1: pregnant again, Like there's no information regarding any more pregnancies
51:24
Speaker 1: in her life, so maybe, but either way, it's not
51:28
Speaker 1: something she wanted or desired, and yeah, good for her.
51:34
Speaker 1: By the nineteen sixties, burlesque is sort of peteering away
51:38
Speaker 1: and Lily is aging, as we all do. Like the
51:42
Speaker 1: only thing that stops the aging process is death, so
51:46
Speaker 1: good luck with that. Going old was difficult for her
51:50
Speaker 1: because she had constructed this image of herself, this stunning,
51:54
Speaker 1: untouchable sex symbol, and the world couldn't see that as
51:58
Speaker 1: beautiful at that time. The idea of beauty is so twisted,
52:02
Speaker 1: like I'm I'm fucking sick of seeing all these women
52:06
Speaker 1: with the same face, Like no, Like it's the wonderful
52:10
Speaker 1: thing about watching a movie from even the nineties or
52:14
Speaker 1: the mid two thousands, like that's not that long ago,
52:17
Speaker 1: but even that far where you can see people have
52:20
Speaker 1: different face shapes and different lips, and not everybody has
52:24
Speaker 1: extra five hundred eyelashes stuck on in the same eyebrows.
52:27
Speaker 1: And I just like, listen, if you want to look
52:31
Speaker 1: how you look like, I get botox because my natural
52:34
Speaker 1: default state is frowning. But if you feel like you
52:39
Speaker 1: want to change something about yourself, I believe in you
52:42
Speaker 1: and have faith in you. But I think a lot
52:46
Speaker 1: of people are more stunning and gorgeous and beautiful than
52:51
Speaker 1: they think they are. And this goes for everybody, men, women,
52:55
Speaker 1: non boundary gender, fluid, gender, non conformist. They there intersex.
53:02
Speaker 1: I almost forgot what intersex was there and almost said intermission,
53:05
Speaker 1: Oh no, but yes, like everyone, like people don't see
53:13
Speaker 1: the beauty in themselves, and I think it's a shame.
53:16
Speaker 1: Like I have friends who are all over the spectrums
53:18
Speaker 1: and yeah, they're all hot. I'm sorry, Oh, my friends
53:20
Speaker 1: are hot. That's just how it is. So the aging
53:25
Speaker 1: process was not kind to people in the past, and
53:30
Speaker 1: even now we're sort of struggling to understand that beauty
53:34
Speaker 1: isn't just like frozen in time at sixteen years old,
53:37
Speaker 1: because that's a child. But we grow, we evolve, and
53:43
Speaker 1: you know, you're still hot? Do I need to point
53:45
Speaker 1: out Hell and Mirror and for everyone to understand what
53:48
Speaker 1: I mean, Like Hell and Mirror is still smoking hot.
53:51
Speaker 1: I don't care what anybody says smoking hot. And if
53:55
Speaker 1: I may add, because I will always reference Murder, she wrote,
53:59
Speaker 1: whenever I can. In the pilot episode of Murder, she wrote,
54:03
Speaker 1: she is fifty nine years old. The character is fifty
54:05
Speaker 1: nine years old, and she has all of these men
54:10
Speaker 1: who are hot for her. Like, it's amazing throughout the
54:13
Speaker 1: first season how many men are just fucking hell over
54:17
Speaker 1: heels for Jessica Fletcher, and she's fifty nine, and she
54:21
Speaker 1: looks fifty nine, you know, and again good for her.
54:26
Speaker 1: Back to Lily. In the mid sixties, she meets a
54:30
Speaker 1: man seventeen years her junior who had served as a
54:34
Speaker 1: paratrooper near the end of the Korean War, Donald Andrew Markik.
54:41
Speaker 1: He wanted to be a magician, so Lily decides to
54:43
Speaker 1: help him. He changes his name to Lorenzo Holmes, like
54:48
Speaker 1: that is what's his name? With the magical Lorenzo and
54:53
Speaker 1: his family disown him and kick him out of the house,
54:56
Speaker 1: and so he ends up moving in with Lily Sincere
55:00
Speaker 1: and they never marry, but she would often introduce herself
55:04
Speaker 1: as Missus Holmes and they would be together for the
55:07
Speaker 1: final like thirty years of her life. At the age
55:12
Speaker 1: of fifty three, she retires from the stage and starts
55:16
Speaker 1: a new venture, a very successful venture, a lingerie store
55:22
Speaker 1: on Hollywood Boulevard called the Undie World of Lily Sincere.
55:27
Speaker 1: And so I have some fun facts about this, because
55:29
Speaker 1: of course I do. If I have a fact about Laingerie,
55:31
Speaker 1: you're all gonna hear it. So the Rocky Horror Picture Show,
55:35
Speaker 1: the whole like n sequence, the don't dream it, don't
55:38
Speaker 1: be a rose tied to my world and wild and
55:41
Speaker 1: untamed thing. Right that whole sequence, they are all wearing
55:46
Speaker 1: garments from the undie world of Lily Sincere, and like
55:51
Speaker 1: even the final line of the song goes like Susan
55:54
Speaker 1: Sarandon is Janet Vice and she's like godless Lily saintcy
56:00
Speaker 1: like and there's more, have more. So this is nineteen
56:05
Speaker 1: seventy five, so skip forward like less than a decade later,
56:09
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one Elevira. She gets her like look because
56:14
Speaker 1: she is wearing a Lily Sincere plunge bra and that's
56:19
Speaker 1: where the big like push up boobs come from, and
56:23
Speaker 1: so like, she has continued to influence like pop culture,
56:30
Speaker 1: like that's the like Lily Sincere has managed to transcend
56:35
Speaker 1: into like modern movies and television with like her whole
56:41
Speaker 1: lingerie store. So it continues, and so like in her
56:46
Speaker 1: later years she becomes a recluse and like she's still
56:49
Speaker 1: with Lorenzo, who I think is going back to being
56:52
Speaker 1: called Donald at this point, and according to her sister,
56:57
Speaker 1: I think it's Barbara Donald was a drug dealer. Like Lily,
57:03
Speaker 1: She's already on her sleeping pills like again like half
57:06
Speaker 1: a Hollywood and in the final thirty years of her life,
57:11
Speaker 1: like she becomes a shut in, and like he's he's
57:16
Speaker 1: got her hooked on heroin allegedly, and so she's like
57:23
Speaker 1: in this cramped dingy apartment, she's hooked on heroin, and
57:29
Speaker 1: she's got magazine papers taped to the windows to keep
57:33
Speaker 1: out the light. And up until the end, Lily Saint
57:38
Speaker 1: Cyr was always proud of her life. She was never
57:42
Speaker 1: ashamed of her career. She was never ashamed of being
57:45
Speaker 1: a purveyor of pleasure, like she was proud of burlesque,
57:52
Speaker 1: as she should be. And on the twenty ninth of
57:56
Speaker 1: January nineteen ninety nine, Lily Saint Cyr passed away from
58:00
Speaker 1: heart failure at the age of eighty one. I like
58:05
Speaker 1: she came from nothing and became a star, and she
58:09
Speaker 1: was her own woman and showed that burlesque is art
58:17
Speaker 1: and Lily sincere she was an icon. Like the end
58:23
Speaker 1: of the day, she was, and I think she deserves
58:26
Speaker 1: to be remembered. And so ends our story on the
58:31
Speaker 1: life of Lily Saints Her. If you like this my
58:36
Speaker 1: retelling of the story, including my rants, feel free to
58:39
Speaker 1: wait in review five stars. If you didn't like it,
58:42
Speaker 1: you don't have to do anything. Shut up. I'm not
58:47
Speaker 1: interested in your criticism at this time. So that is that.
58:52
Speaker 1: Donate if you can to the Burlet's Call of Fame.
58:55
Speaker 1: I would greatly appreciate that you can find me on
58:58
Speaker 1: all of the socials. I am everywhere, apparently most places.
59:03
Speaker 1: I am most places. Am I active in most places? Maybe?
59:07
Speaker 1: But I'm there, so you can always like contact me
59:09
Speaker 1: through that if there's anything you want to tell me
59:12
Speaker 1: that it's like bigger information. There is a contact form
59:15
Speaker 1: on my website. And yeah, thank you so much. And
59:19
Speaker 1: I think it's time for recommendation. Recommendation, time for listening,
59:24
Speaker 1: watching and reading. You know what I was watching. I
59:30
Speaker 1: started watching. I watched the entirety of Wednesday. I watched
59:33
Speaker 1: it all, and I've decided that the second half of
59:37
Speaker 1: the second season was much better than the first half,
59:41
Speaker 1: but it still needed a lot of work, to be honest.
59:45
Speaker 1: So obviously that is not going to be my recommendation
59:48
Speaker 1: for watching. I think you should all watch the Rocky
59:51
Speaker 1: Horror Picture Show. I don't care if it's the original version.
59:55
Speaker 1: I don't care if you watch the Slime tutorial on
59:58
Speaker 1: YouTube or the Annivi nursery editions. It's amazing. Go watch
1:00:03
Speaker 1: it and feel free to sing along in the comfort
1:00:06
Speaker 1: of your own home. I can't stop you. Right for reading,
1:00:12
Speaker 1: I'm gonna recommend Goddess of Love Incarnate by Leslie Zemeckis. Like,
1:00:17
Speaker 1: read that book. It is an amazing book. And for
1:00:20
Speaker 1: lessening Sabrina Carpenter. Just listen to Sabrina Carpenter. I've decided
1:00:25
Speaker 1: because her VMA performance was amazing, so I think everybody
1:00:29
Speaker 1: should enjoy that. And with that I will bid you
1:00:33
Speaker 1: adiew Arios au Revoir of way does them my friends,
1:00:38
Speaker 1: BIBB