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Americana Dancing queen I Lili St Cyr shimmied her way to fame and fortune. But once her star \ faded, she fell into obscurity. Now, the author of Gilded Lili: Lili St. Cyr and the Striptease Mystique dishes on the burlesque dancer's surprisingly wide influence on pop culture over the last 50 years. BY KELLY DiNARDO IN THE BROADWAY musical Pal Joey, reporter Melba Snyder sings about meeting a Gypsy Rose Lee esque character who skewers her competition in song. “Zip! My artistic taste is classic and dear,” she sings. “Zip! Who the hell is Lili St Cyr?” Who is she? Try the most influential burlesque dancer in the second half of Decade ST. CYR COY GIAMBONC. MONROE ED CLARK. TIME IKE PICTURE VGE TTY, NVL MADONNA COURTESY EVERETT COLLECTION. VON TEESE ETHAN MR If A. GETTY IMAGES TOR MGM Icon Claim to fame Link to Lili Marilyn Monroe Movie star and 20th century sex symbol Monroe, right, Mj studied St. Cyr, Jmi attending several of her shows and examining , jj/n proof sheets from the JB dancer's SBf Tjj sessions with their shared photographer, Bruno Bernard. "Her curiosity was strictly of a professional nature, as she apparently wanted to refine the waddling walk," Bernard has noted. "Marilyn was an expert mimic ... [and] her study of Lili St. Cyr put her in good stead." Lili's impact 26 USA WEEKEND • Nov. 2-4,2007 the 20th century. And, as I reveal in my just-out biography, Gilded Lili: Lili St Cyr and the Striptease Mystique, her hip swiveling ways swayed pop-culture si rens for decades to come. St Cyr shimmied across the country with inventive routines well-suited for the posh nightclubs in w-hich she per formed. She amassed legions of famous fans, including Humphrey Bogart and 'sos '6os Anais Nin Writer known for her sensual works Nin, right, saw St Cyr perform several times and j once VI brought jjjf Forbidden 'CiJf • I Planet W 4 I composers I Louis Ss3§s||, .vjHj B and Bebe 4i§Bspy|||||S Barron to a show, r, jOTllC^litr^ "She uses her body with enormous grace and skill, to invite, to expose, to suggest, to respond, but it is always a gift, an offering,” Nin once wrote. "She is a great artist. She is never vulgar." Wjt' T A new biography V* ' profiles Lili St. Cyr, a burlesque dancer ..■■L ' -4« who inspired the likes of Madonna kjlf 4 * KVf; s /).\ r and Marilyn Monroe. I Ronald Reagan. Her notoriety and fame brought financial and commercial suc cesses, with roles in movies like Howard Hughes’ Son of Sinbad and Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead. “I had never seen a more beautiful woman,” says journalist Mike Wallace, who interviewed her in 1957 after watch ing her perform. “She was absolutely glorious to look at.” Fifty years later, he '7os The Rocky Horror Picture Show Madonna Cult classic 1975 film _ 1 is i \ n\ wM JH. is. > ■ Wmi V Nfc ’ iMt 5 fjß m* t * I w.. M Janet, played by actress Susan Sarandon, splashes around a pool singing Don't Dream It, which a ends with "God jobless Lili ( l&St. Cyr." I "The element of playfulness that Lili had the scenes she would create really speak to the play people find in Rocky Horror ," says Jo Weldon, who runs a burlesque school. says the interview remains one of the more interesting ones he has conducted. St Cyr died in 1999. A recluse during the two decades before her death, she has become largely unknown. Yet, her el egant dance moves and va-va-voom ap peal influenced pop culture and its icons for half a century. Read on: Frequent USA WEEKEND cont ributor Kelly DiNardo urites our annual babies report 'Bos Singer, actress \ and author Madonna, left, donned a black l bustier from I St. Cyr's lingerie I store for the \ promotional I materials for ] her 1989 ’ album, Like A k Prayer, and her shelved A Pepsi ad. "Madonna is part of what sparked the new burlesque movement," says Michelle Baldwin, author of Burlesque and the New Bump-n-Grind. "She was doing things that were shocking, revealing and high glamour." '9os and today Dita Von Teese burlesque^^^^^^^^ queen HHF Von Teese, above, credits St. Cyr as one of her inspirations and pays homage to her in a re-creation of St. Cyr's famous bubble bath routine. "Lili St. Cyr was one of the most glamorous and most revered striptease artists of all time," says Von Teese, who kick-started the neo-burlesque movement in the'9os. C 3