December 28, 2009--Impresaria of Striptease
If you never managed to get to the Pink Pussycat on the Strip in LA you really missed something. It was a gentlemen’s club at a time when there were still gentlemen.
There was no VIP room and certainly no lap dances. It was good clean fun at a time when our collective consciousnesses hadn’t yet been raised, and thus it was still possible for what went on there to be thought of in that way. It was also a time when many of the Pussycat’s performers were able to meet future husbands at the club and wind up marrying very well.
And to someone of my predilections (have no fear, I will spare you the randiest of them) as an adult educator, I was as much impressed by the show when I first visited in the 1970s as I was by the startling fact that the Pink Pussycat was the only institution of its kind to have an education division.
Tuition in the College of Strip Tease as it was called was $100 for 10 sessions and the curriculum included mini-courses in “The History and Theory of Strip Tease”; “The Psychology of Inhibitions”; and, since it was a program in applied studies, “Sensual Communication”; and “Dynamic Mammary, Navel, and Pelvis Rotation.”
It was also possible to enroll as a non-matriculated student. Wherever you might live in the country, for $4.95 plus shipping and handling you could order a home instruction kit that included self-guided lessons, a G-string, and two “bosom bonnets”—pasties for the less euphemistic. And, yes, a rhinestone for the navel.
The final exam was taken on the honor system, though perhaps the man in one’s life awarded the actual grade. But the Pink Pussycat itself offered the diploma, which arrived signed, gold-sealed, and ready for framing.
A very different time it clearly was.
The guiding genius behind all aspects of the Pussycat, Alice Schiller, died in her sleep last week at 95. The New York Times dubbed her the “Impresaria of Striptease.” (Obituary linked below.)
She was not to this manor born. In fact, she was born in 1914 in Indiana Harbor, Indiana to Orthodox Jewish parents. After they were divorced, her mother and grandmother ran a deli. Alice’s first marriage also ended in divorce; but then with her second husband, Harry Schiller, they opened a men’s store in Beverly Hills. Thus far, fairly classic stuff.
Then, on impulse, Harry bought a Latin dance club on Santa Monica Boulevard. The Club Seville. Within a few years it was obvious that it would never make money and, again impetuously, bringing Alice to tears when he told her, he converted it into a burlesque house. When he managed to calm her, Alice came up with the Pink Pussycat name; and soon thereafter joined Harry in managing the club.
She was the guiding force and a brilliant entrepreneur. To attract publicity and a glamorous crowd, she gave her “girls” stage names such as Fran Sinatra; Samya Davis and, my personal favorite, Peeler Lawford; and wouldn’t you know it, once they heard about this rather than sue, the Rat Packers showed up and helped put the place on every tourist map.
Alice was proud to proclaim, “I myself am an authority on beauty and glamour. I’ve probably glamorized 1,000 pussycats. Twenty of them married millionaires. One of my girls got a $2,700 tip one night. She disappeared. We heard that she fixed her nose with some of the money, but we never heard from her again.”
And we never again will see Alice’s kind. As they used to say, they broke the mold.
There was no VIP room and certainly no lap dances. It was good clean fun at a time when our collective consciousnesses hadn’t yet been raised, and thus it was still possible for what went on there to be thought of in that way. It was also a time when many of the Pussycat’s performers were able to meet future husbands at the club and wind up marrying very well.
And to someone of my predilections (have no fear, I will spare you the randiest of them) as an adult educator, I was as much impressed by the show when I first visited in the 1970s as I was by the startling fact that the Pink Pussycat was the only institution of its kind to have an education division.
Tuition in the College of Strip Tease as it was called was $100 for 10 sessions and the curriculum included mini-courses in “The History and Theory of Strip Tease”; “The Psychology of Inhibitions”; and, since it was a program in applied studies, “Sensual Communication”; and “Dynamic Mammary, Navel, and Pelvis Rotation.”
It was also possible to enroll as a non-matriculated student. Wherever you might live in the country, for $4.95 plus shipping and handling you could order a home instruction kit that included self-guided lessons, a G-string, and two “bosom bonnets”—pasties for the less euphemistic. And, yes, a rhinestone for the navel.
The final exam was taken on the honor system, though perhaps the man in one’s life awarded the actual grade. But the Pink Pussycat itself offered the diploma, which arrived signed, gold-sealed, and ready for framing.
A very different time it clearly was.
The guiding genius behind all aspects of the Pussycat, Alice Schiller, died in her sleep last week at 95. The New York Times dubbed her the “Impresaria of Striptease.” (Obituary linked below.)
She was not to this manor born. In fact, she was born in 1914 in Indiana Harbor, Indiana to Orthodox Jewish parents. After they were divorced, her mother and grandmother ran a deli. Alice’s first marriage also ended in divorce; but then with her second husband, Harry Schiller, they opened a men’s store in Beverly Hills. Thus far, fairly classic stuff.
Then, on impulse, Harry bought a Latin dance club on Santa Monica Boulevard. The Club Seville. Within a few years it was obvious that it would never make money and, again impetuously, bringing Alice to tears when he told her, he converted it into a burlesque house. When he managed to calm her, Alice came up with the Pink Pussycat name; and soon thereafter joined Harry in managing the club.
She was the guiding force and a brilliant entrepreneur. To attract publicity and a glamorous crowd, she gave her “girls” stage names such as Fran Sinatra; Samya Davis and, my personal favorite, Peeler Lawford; and wouldn’t you know it, once they heard about this rather than sue, the Rat Packers showed up and helped put the place on every tourist map.
Alice was proud to proclaim, “I myself am an authority on beauty and glamour. I’ve probably glamorized 1,000 pussycats. Twenty of them married millionaires. One of my girls got a $2,700 tip one night. She disappeared. We heard that she fixed her nose with some of the money, but we never heard from her again.”
And we never again will see Alice’s kind. As they used to say, they broke the mold.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
4:36 AM
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