Angel Carter - I left home at 16. Dad was killed in WWII, Mum worked in a circus and I was raised by Grand ma. I wanted to be a nurse in the military. I started at the Body Shop, then at Friars in Vegas, as exotic dancer, the club where Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin could be seen. In the old time we had class, we left somethings to imagination. © Marie Baronnet

Georgette Dante - At 5 my mother made me a midget stripper. And, occasionally, a pick pocket. I became a magician. One of my favorites: looking through a scope, people were watching me lying underground with hundreds of rattlers. The snakes were stuffed with food, me with marijuana. Me and the snakes we were happy. © Marie Baronnet

Ellion Ness - At 15 I lost my cashier’s job and got hired by Minsky, as chorus line dancer. Dixie Evans, Tempest Storm and Lili St Cyr were head liners. I went work crazy. Shows, rehersals, days and nights. I had a miscarriage. My daughter arrived. And the pill. With psychedelics, sex, drugs and rock’n roll. Alcohol and marijuana. My husband became abusive and was not allowed to see the kid, we did therapy and then we did time. I lived ten years homeless in Cadillac, til I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. Now I do counsel for alcoholics and I am proud of it. © Marie Baronnet

April March - I was cigarette girl at the Oklahoma Derby. I started to dance I was 16, not quite the legal 21. Hired in Dallas, I told my parents I was going to do tap dancing. More than taking off my cloths, I wanted to be a movie star. Lili St Cyr, Gypsy Rose lee were my inspiration. I joined the American Guild Variety Artists Union for some protection. The mafia owned most of the clubs. I starred in Minsky’s “ This was Burlesque” in NY. When the girls started dancing around poles in the 70s I retired. I was 42. I miss the dance but not what it became. © Marie Baronnet

Delilah Jones - I came from Berlin, after WWII. We were all dancing at the Palomino. I did contortions, and a nudie “ Not tonight Henry”. North town and downtown Las Vegas were a world apart. One block down and girls were totally nude. In the 60s big boobs were the thing, the bigger the more money. I kept the beauties nature gave me. I was prudish, never showing nothing for free. Like Jane. Manfield. She knew that, she was from Vegas. © Marie Baronnet

Viva La Fever - I was playing saxophone tenor in clubs. I left Pittsburg for San Francisco and became a hippie Burlesque. The theaters were in the Mission district. I worked at the Follies with live bands. I later managed it. I was making $ 1,000 a week, no benefits. I stripped in a Midwest air force base at the far end of a landing strip . In 1980 I got a job at a newspaper and became involved with unions. When the guys asked me if it was true I had been a stripper I told them “ I was The Stripper”. © Marie Baronnet

Terry Star - I was born in 1931. I started dancing at forty. Before that I was a hairdresser. I danced for eight or nine years and then I lost my mind. I have been abducted and beaten up. I don’t have my common sense anymore. I remember that I was always talking to the audience while I danced, and loved it. © Marie Baronnet

La Savona - I emigrated from Czechoslovakia with my husband in 1947. He was in the military. We met in Prague in a cabaret where I was acting. We moved to Indianapolis where I had my son. My real name is Svetlana but my agent, Trixie Rogers, a woman, gave me that stage name, La Savona. I loved dancing even though my dad was against it, he wanted me to be a book printer. Nothing could stop me, I would do anything as long as I was getting paid. I had a gorgeous body but what got me famous was my hands gestures. I did it all, ballet at 15, solo dancer in Russian movies, Broadways shows, oriental and exotic dancing, funny sex movies, even modeling for crystal glass. Nude or semi-nude it didn't matter, nobody could touch me, except for my husband. I had so many admirers. I danced until the age of 60, nobody knew my age. © Marie Baronnet

Lottie the Body - I tap danced from Syracuse NY through Senegal, Liberia, London, Paris. I loved Paris, they love black women over there. Eartha Kitt, Josephine Baker. “Chocolate bar”, the name a little girl gave me in Quebec. I made Detroit my home. $ 600.00 a week, I had a name and a body. I was married four times. I was very independent, men are afraid of that. I was 62 when I stopped, nobody knew my age. I have grand kids, I don’t want to show my old butt no more. © Marie Baronnet

Val Valentine - I came from ballet and started in 1955 in Burlesque . I loved the road. To be a different person in different towns. I’d take my kids with me. I opened a lingerie store. I am a queen of Burlesque and never swung on a pole. We were in control of our lives. Men castrated by the women’s lib came to see us dance. I never mixed with customers. They were sending flowers. I was always by myself. © Marie Baronnet

Holiday O'Hara - I grew up in a farm. I was a good girl with braces who became a "biker chick". In 68 I was in the street of San Francisco. To be topless then was a big deal, we were never fully nude, we put stocking on our G strings and we looked like a store mannequin. The hard core shows were fast replacing the Burlesque and the Forbidden City. It was the Go-go revolution, all about tease and trance, men wanted more pink. I left for NY where I became dominatrix.. I did phone sex and cross dressing but no prostitution. I see it as consensual submission, my world is not ruled by male orgasms. © Marie Baronnet

Isis Starr - When Reagan was elected I left for Europe. Could not make it just with stripping there so I was a working girl too. When I came back to the US I kept doing it. Here men don't treat women with respect, they only think about their pleasure. I come from a Southern Baptist family, couldn’t date before 17 and got pregnant the first time I had sex. I became a stripper at the legal age of 21. I see myself as a feminist, I never was a victim, I did it all “eyes wide open”. On stage I am a goddess and fuck them if they can’t take a joke. © Marie Baronnet

Fannie Annie - In a world of thin I was the first stripper to perform at 450 pounds. I was a novelty and commanded top pay, $ 3,000 to $ 4,000 a week for two shows a night. Cops and big men loved me. My family owned a carnival. That’s where I learned dancing, costuming, speaking to the crowd. At 17 I started Burlesque. It was classy, a real tease, it took half an hour to take a glove off. That’s lost today. Under Reagan the administration said each municipality could chose its own morality so clubs started to close and that's one reason Burlesque went down. © Marie Baronnet

Bambi Jones - As a child my mum would take me to the factory and I would have to dance, that was during the Depression. They would throw coins at me. Burlesque is not sex, it's making fun of sex. The lower class making fun of the higher class. Hinda Wassau, in 1928 Baltimore was dancing between the comics as a chorus line and her strap broke. The public went crazy so she did it again and she became a star. And that was strip tease. Erroll Flynn hit on me big time, I met his wife, she was a sweetheart, I just didn't want to be with a married man. I had three husbands and they all left with a smile on their faces. © Marie Baronnet

Miss Toni Elling - I was working in the phone company I was so unhappy there. I did stripping for the money I didn't "pass" for a white girl, unlike Latinas. If you said I was something else then they would accept looking at your "blackness". I didn't want to pretend. My blond wig was a rebellious act because I wasn't supposed to be a blond. I was a "pioneer" I made a name for myself but never made any money. In Japan they treated me royally. In Washington, our capital, I couldn't sit at the counter. I didn't think I was going to make it to 40 I am 84. Now that’s a blessing. © Marie Baronnet

Madame E - Go-go dancing started during the Vietnam war. I danced in Honolulu where the sailors came for a break. We kept the G string for them. I did Burlesque, then the business got nasty. I did belly dancing. I got my tattoos in Hawaii like the sailors. In the 80s I became a prostitute to get drugs, I did heroin for fifteen years. I came to Monterrey to a program, prostitution stopped when I stopped the drugs. I raised my two daughters and became a social worker in child protection services and later in a shelter for beaten women. I had a breast cancer the Burlesque community paid my bills. So far I am in remission. © Marie Baronnet

Kitten Natividad - I am from Ciudad Juarez, I'll never go back there. I always wanted to strip, I could show anything, I loved it. I became Miss Nude Universe in 1973 and 74 and became a star. I was also famous for my "bath tub show" at the Body Shop in Hollywood and my “bikini walks” advertising for the club where I danced down-town. Men were staring at me in the streets. In the 70's we would put mascara on our pussy's hair to make it thicker. Russ Meyer and I fell in love, I became his Muse. Later I did porn. We didn't use condoms, didn't get any disease, we got tested every week. I needed the money. I was making $ 2000 a day. © Marie Baronnet

Judith Stein - I come from Canada, I was a tomboy, working the farm with my father. I went to Oregon to study Art history, I ran out of money to finish my degree, a male friend told me to try Go-go dancing. As a feminist, I thought I couldn't do that but I became good at it and I wanted to see the world. I went Go-go dancing in Alaska for 3 months. I made enough money to pay for my costumes, my photos and my music. I danced for tough guys working on the pipelines, trappers and bikers but it was fun. As I got better I tried  different acts, I went to any Honky Tonk bars that had strippers. I like small joints, friendlier crowds and couples coming in. Once I went to Princeton BC, the town was shut down by a strike, I danced for workers on picket lines with boots and hard hat, music coming from speakers on a truck. I danced to keep their spirit high, to be supportive. I believe in solidarity. I danced from 24 to the age of 40. I was big in Canada but the business became too explicit, it was all about spreading legs when I left. I was on top of my game. I love to entertain and make people smile. Give heart, receive heart. It's OK to look at a naked woman. Stripping is a form of social healing. © Marie Baronnet

Camille 2000 - I come from the Bible Belt. Alabama. I wanted to be an artist. My mam was a minister. At 16 I wrote my first song, "Nicotine Weed". They thought I was possessed. They beat me all the time. I just wanted to be a rock star. At 17 I got married, to escape the spanking. At 18 and 19 I got my two sons. I left and never looked back. At 21 I joined the carnivals, the Burly shows, the girls were looking like movie stars, I wanted to be one of them. It was "sink or swim". It beat waiting tables. I was tall and pretty. I got hired at "The Gaiety", a burlesque theater. First as house girl then headliner. I traveled. I did what it takes to become a star. I had a choreographer: Paul Markoff, who taught me how to walk, talk and pose. I had costumes made for me, pictures by Maurice Seymour, a famous burlesque photographer. Later I joined the Screen Actors Guild. I always wanted to be an actress. My mam kept saying they were whores. My first role was in Miami Vice, I played Velvet, a dominatrix. Acting on the side I kept working in burlesque. I would send to the back row the guys jerking off in the first row. That and cigarettes I wouldn't allow. I had offer for porn movies. I declined. I never turned tricks. I am too religious. That's why I am poor today. © Marie Baronnet

Dixie Evans - My career really took off when I did the Marylin show in the 1950's. We had the same body type you couldn't have Monroe but you could have the next thing: Dixie. I worked seven days a week even with a broken wrist, veterans loved me, they wanted Dixie, they sent me letters. My best stripper friend was Jennie Lee she started the Burlesque collection in a goat farm as we called it, in the desert of Helendale, it was a shelter for strippers. In 1990 Jennie died and I took over. I turned it into a Burlesque museum and an exotic world contest. When the museum closed I moved to a trailer in Las Vegas. Like Blues music I used to perform with I believe strip tease is a pure American art form. © Marie Baronnet