Babes of Burlesque: 16
DITA VON TEESE
Perhaps more than any other performer, femme fatale and glamour girl Dita Von Teese can be credited with reviving burlesque in the 1990s. Her whirlwind success as an entertainer, pin-up model, occasional actress, catwalk fashion model and social debutante — briefly married to Marilyn Manson — all served to return the spotlight to burlesque. She was born Heather Renee Sweet in Rochester, Michigan, and her mother helped fuel her fantasies of more glamorous times by buying her retro gowns and garments that evoked the 1930s and ’40s movies of Betty Grable and other Hollywood starlets.
In her own words, Von Teese says she’s devoted herself to a quest “to put the tease back into striptease.” Ornate props she has used include a carousel horse, a giant powder compact and a clawfoot bathtub with a working shower head. In 2006, the Crazy Horse caberet in Paris invited her as its first-ever guest artist and in 2009, she danced on stage at the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow. Most recently, she has toured the United States with a revue she organized called Strip! Strip! Hooray!
Here, she works up a sweat before taking a swish in a giant martini glass. Rub-a-dub-dub.
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Von Teese also dances to Sarah Vaughan’s “Whatever Lola Wants.”
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Her website: http://www.dita.net/
