Kitten posing in one of her signature Burlesque numbers
Marsha the Birthday Girl and her Fancy Friends
Last night I had the pleasure of formally meeting Kitten in
person. We had made plans to spend time
together last week but her busy schedule kept our plans from working out (which
is all for the best considering that I was studying for our first exam). I have seen Kitten perform before so I was
not surprised by how beautiful she is. I
was, however, really impressed by how genuinely nice she is. We agreed to meet at the dance studio I teach
at for my class at 6pm and then she had arranged for me to accompany her to a
birthday dinner for a friend of hers.
She ended up watching the class (we are 3 weeks into the choreography so
she didn’t decide to jump in) and showering my students with compliments about
how great they look and how far they have come in such a short time. Then she showers me with compliments the
entire night about how pretty I am, she likes my hair, she thinks I’m a great
teacher, she thinks I’m a great dancer (generous compliment there), etc. So then she tells me we are going to the place
“Genghis Cohen” for a birthday party for a longtime tenant of hers,
Marsha. Kitten also happens to mention
Marsha is a famous, songwriting lesbian, and Genghis Cohen is kosher Mongolian
bbq. So here I am, sitting at this table
with people that have won Grammy’s, people that have written songs that
everybody knows (Faith Hill’s “This Kiss”).
And everyone is so gracious and accepting (mind you I don’t really know
how unbelievably famous these people are at this point). I end up talking to this teenage girl who has
Asperger’s and recently decided not to go through a sex change. Kitten leans over and whispers she thinks the
girl has a crush on me. Of course,
because how could this situation get any more bizarre? I am explaining to Kitten and Syd (my new
teenage lesbian friend) about what the assignment is about, and I see a look in
Kitten’s eyes that tells me she doesn’t like to think of herself as aging. To be completely fair, I don’t think of her
as old or aging or anything of that nature.
I felt bad having mentioned it because I don’t want our time together to
be about her age or mine or the difference between them. Rather, I want the time we spend together to
be an oral history project, a how-to guide for growing up and being fabulous. It just so happens to be lucky for me that
she just barely makes it to the young-old category so I can hang out with her
and have an excuse other than I’m creepy and I want to learn everything there
is to know about what her life is like and how it feels to have thousands of
people know your name and think about you naked (these are on the list for my
life aspirations, in case that hasn’t been said). Kitten is young in just about every way there
is, functionally, socially (she’s been married but doesn’t have any children),
psychologically (the woman runs her own fan website from which she generates a
profit), and biologically as well. She
still has a very social life, and many friends (mostly other creative geniuses
like herself). We got to chat briefly
about her relationship with Russ Meyer, the kinds of merchandise that she
sells, and the other things she does for work (she owns two houses and an
apartment building, all of which she rents out to tenants like Marsha the
birthday girl). She also was very forthcoming
with me about her experiences with addiction, and I was able to share my
experience with her. We even talked
about maybe going to an AA meeting together.
She invited me to meet her other friends and was absolutely the most
hospitable wonderful woman I have ever met.
Especially considering I was a complete stranger, asking her for a favor
on good faith. She even sent me an email
this morning with a song Marsha wrote for another legend, Shannon Doah, with a
note saying I had permission to use it if I wanted to. She also sent me a funny article about a
stripper rupturing a man’s bladder by falling on him. Needless to say I am having an absolutely
wonderful time getting to know Kitten and I absolutely can’t wait to spend more
time with her. Our tentative plans
involve going to the gym together, going to a meeting, going to another legend’s
house, going to GlamourCon together, etc.
I should have zero issue getting this assignment done and reporting the
most interesting things.
My choice for the assignment to socialize with older adults
is a bit uncouth, but I’m sure will prove very interesting. Before I do my big reveal, I’ll set the stage
for how I came to this project concept.
Bettie Page
I am a burlesque performer in Los
Angeles and within the burlesque community, there is a high reverence for the
performers who came before us (referred to as Legends). Most of these women were performing burlesque
in its golden era, the 1930’s-1960’s.
Needless to say, there is a lot of untold history to be explored
there. This is an entire community of
performers that were essentially left behind and swept under the rug when
vaudeville died, and then again when porn hit the scene. Burlesque, essentially, was the modern day
stripping of the time, except that many of the stars became huge stars with
household names (ie: Gypsy Rose Lee, Lili St. Cyr, Bettie Page, etc). Unfortunately and without cause, this chunk
of American history is quickly swept under the rug and forgotten about. Our predecessors went through hell to pave
the way to a performance art so many of us love today. What the modern burlesque community
understands is that without our Legends, there would be no revival. We also realize that there is an enormous
oral history that should be kept alive and keeps us humble. Who better to teach a craft than a
master? There is a Burlesque Hall of Fame Museum in Las Vegas, where we keep and pay respect to artifacts related to
the golden age. As a community steeped
in such amazing and secret history, we spend a lot of time listening to and
helping out our Legends. Which is how I
came to my project idea, I am going to be spending 32 hours (hopefully more)
with as many Legends as I can get ahold of.
Lili St Cyr
Gypsy Rose Lee
Spending time with Legends is
something I have wanted to do for some time, but didn’t have the time or the
access to anyone to really make it happen.
This assignment provides me the perfect opportunity to get myself out
there and it gives me an excuse to approach women I have only admired from afar
until now. I also figure it is much more
interesting than spending time with well behaved people (as I assume most of my
classmates will do.) It is my experience
that strippers have the best stories and most eclectic life experiences. I want to walk away from this learning more
about my art, where it comes from and having a better understanding of what its
like to grow up when you choose this kind of lifestyle. Incidentally, the same lifestyle I am
choosing for myself as well.
My first, and primary Legend will
be Kitten Natividad. Kitten is famous
for her enormous breasts and her appearances in many Russ Meyer cult
films. She also happened to be
romantically involved with Russ for 15 years.
Kitten is also famed to be one of the strippers at Sean Penn’s bachelor
party. Kitten, now in her 60’s still
performs burlesque and does appearances all over the place. Trying to pin her down to meet with me is
proving to be an arduous task, to say the least. We decided to spend a day together September
30th. We plan on getting
lunch and shopping at the Bettie Page store in Hollywood before and after my
weekly chair dance class. Down the line
she has invited me to spend time with her at Glamuorcon (http://www.glamourcon.com/) In mid
November. So it looks like I will be
able to complete my hours with Kitten in a few long days rather than a series
of short visits.
Kitten and Russ Meyer
The thing I am most looking forward
to in regards to this project is getting to know what it’s like to age and
continue doing something widely regarded as a young woman’s thing. It will be as if I am looking into a possible
future for myself. That and I can’t wait
to hear what she thinks about burlesque and about her time with Russ Meyer,
etc. I am delighted to take part in such
a rich history and get a first hand account of things I have only read about.
The only thing I am nervous about is
the possibility that she gets bored of me.
Which, I don’t see happening, but anyone who assumes everyone will like
them is kidding themselves. So I always
think about that. I think I’m going to
do some research and prepare some things I want to know about her early life,
what I want to know about her life now.
A woman in her 60’s who still runs an adult site must have an
interesting perspective on life.
Present Day Kitten
All in all I am excited and eager
to start this project and learn all that I can about the life of a showgirl. I also plan to seek out other legends to
supplement my hours. Perhaps I can even
expand the project to include bad girls in general. My grandmother has proven to be quite the bad
girl, based on stories I have heard. I love
any opportunity to ask her strange and probing questions (on my birthday I discovered
she has breast implants).
