Do You Know These 7 Black Burlesque Performers?
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
Before go-go dancers, strippers, & OnlyFans girls... some 20th-century Black women worked as shake dancers, striptease artists, and burlesque stars. Once a part of larger performance ensembles, these individual performers grew in popularity in the 50s. To generate income, they branded themselves with attention-grabbing names and were routine fixtures in Black media, where their dating exploits and career choices were reported regularly. Keep reading for details on 7 women who paved the way.
La Bommie
Detroit-born Gloria Howard originally began shake dancing because “a booking agent said she was too tall for the chorus line.” She had been billed previously as a shake dancer, and beginning in 1952 at the famed club Minsky’s, she was paid $1000/week for her “bumps and grind act”. She also received marquee billing. Just two years later, La Bommie was reported to start a six-month European nightclub tour working for at least $500/week, or about $5500 in today's money.
By comparison, a black woman working in Mississippi could expect, on average, $700 per year, and for black women nationwide, the average weekly pay was $24, or $256/week in today's money. However, Tempest Storm, the highest-paid white dancer, earned around $3000 a week.
On the steamship the Queen Mary on the way to London in 1954, a storm scared passengers so badly that the captain requested LaBommie to perform and put them at ease. Wrote Jet, “her torrid, hip tossing act made everybody forget the storm.” While in Europe, La Bommie married a Swedish nightclub owner and businessman and quit burlesque.
Rose Hardaway
Like LaBommie, some women used their time in burlesque and shake dancing to move into other realms of entertainment or to meet well-paid husbands. Rose Hardaway was a well-known shake dancer who, in the late 40s, performed in New York, Paris, and London. In 1952, the Baby Grand Cafe in Harlem offered Rose $1500 to dance against La Bommie for the title of Shake Dance Queen of 52. LaBommie reportedly won this battle. Rose went to Paris, where, after a rumored near-fight with her boss in a club, she was nearly blacklisted. It was rumored, however, that she turned down a $750 weekly fee in 1952 to tour Minsky’s Burlesque circuit, but this could have been a PR attempt on her part. She retired in the mid-50s to become a blues singer, her one album being the well-received Its Time For Rose Hardaway. However, the transition didn’t go too smoothly because in 1958, she was arrested for larceny and forgery. Even still, in 1960, she was listed as a guest on various programs, including The Ed Sullivan Show.
Lottie The Body
Lottie Tatum Graves Claiborne stood out as a shake dancer because she was classically trained and integrated stylistic dance into her routines. She also never got fully nude. She started her dance career at age 17 as a Lindy hop dancer. When the Lindy Hop trend died, she found that one of the few professional dance jobs she could get was as an exotic performer. Beginning in San Francisco and eventually settling down in Detroit, she traveled far and wide, even making her way to Cuba, where she was exposed to a revolution. She said, “I was there in Cuba the night that Castro became [prime minister]. And he spoke all night long, and we stayed in, had a villa down at the Isle of Pines. And we had to stay in the house all night. You couldn’t come out. And there was orange juice and boloney sandwiches, those things, and he ran his mouth all night long. All day and all night, non-stop.” She also recalled how there was rampant full service sex work, learning that “Cuba was a totally different place from what we think of it today…American men [would] come down for female prostitutes; wealthy men would also send their wives for male prostitutes. Sometimes the couples would come together.
Lottie was known as the “Black Gypsy Rose Lee” and the “Gypsy Rose Lee of Detroit”, as she was a fixture at Detroit’s Brass Rail Club. Lottie was social with Aretha Franklin, Louis Armstrong, and Billie Holiday. In 1961, Lottie apparently told friends she was moving to Liberia for two months to “study tribal dances”. She was also notably one of the first women to perform with a trans burlesque performer, Christine Jorgensen. Lottie would retire in Detroit to become a receptionist and local personality, saying “When you had to go nude, I stopped. I couldn’t deal. The owners would tell you, ‘If you don’t take it all off, it’s over.’ And I thought too much of myself.” She died in 2020.
LaWanda Page
LaWanda Page, widely known for her role as Aunt Esther on Sanford and Son, was a shake dancer for four years before transitioning into fabulous fire shows as the “Bronze Goddess of Fire” before settling down as a comedian. She earned $55 a week during her Bronze Goddess years and toured the US and traveled to Australia, Canada, Lebanon, and the Fiji Islands. Sanford and Son incorporated her past as a burlesque dancer and her actual act in the show.
Jean Idelle
Jean Idelle was a student of the Katherine Dunham School of Dance in Chicago when she was discovered by a talent agency. She performed at Minsky’s Rialto theater in Chicago and was billed as the “Sepia Sally Rand”. She took home about $12,000 a year, or $125,000 in today's money. She was renowned for her sensual dances with huge, luxurious ostrich feather fans. When she was just 22 years old, it was reported that “she was booked solid for the next 30 weeks on a coast-to-coast 11 tour with an otherwise all-white burlesque unit, using $1,000 worth of ostrich feather fans”.
A 1954 Jet article mentioned that she “put three locks on her dressing room door at the night spot where she works in Minneapolis. After finishing her torrid act in the show, fresh guys try to crash her dressing room, and date her.” Due to her popularity, she played a major role in integrating white-only burlesque clubs. In the Untitled Black Burlesque History Project, she recalled the conversation of her mother telling the family pastor of her new profession.“She said my daughter’s dancing butt-naked. He said, go ahead, Chile. Be another Lena Horne.”
By 1963, Jean Idelle retired to have children and became a nursing assistant. She returned in June 2012 to perform at the Titans of Tease Showcase.
China Doll
At the mob-owned Savannah Club in New York, Elizabeth “China Doll” Dickerson’s act involved covering her costume in balloons and allowing audience members to pop them until she was nearly nude. She found modest success in 1950s Paris before becoming singer Zabethe Wilde in 1959. She recorded atleast two songs for Capitol Records, did a few Broadway shows, and signed a two year contract to tour Europe in theaters, tv shows, and cafes.
Toni Elling
Rosita Sims, a friend of Duke Ellington, was an unhappy 32-year-old telephone operator in Detroit in 1960. Her employers at Michigan Belle refused to promote her because she was black, so she decided to try burlesque. This is notable because both burlesque and the adjacent shake dancing were dying down in popularity. Inspired by the Duke, she became Toni Elling. Though not afraid to flash a pasty-covered tit, Toni’s style didn’t involve outright nudity. Though not afraid to flash a tit, Toni’s style didn’t involve complete nudity. She said of her refusal to take off her panties or wear a G-string, “it’s entertainment, yes, but the idea is to suggest what’s there, not throw off all your clothes and reveal everything. That’s why they call it strip-tease.” Like all of the women on this list, she faced discrimination behind the scenes. She said,“I had a harder time than a lot of girls because of my blackness. It was very hard for a black stripper in those days. We weren’t paid what other girls were paid, and we weren’t allowed to work at certain clubs.” When Toni quit shake dancing in 1974, she went on to “work odd jobs as a waitress, barmaid, switchboard operator
and manicurist.”
Want to learn more about the history of Black women in burlesque? Check out this list of sources on my patreon or check out the free video below!
