An EBay vendor has listed two undated articles on performers at the Follies Burlesque, 337 S. Main St. Blaza Glory (a name I hadn’t encountered before) seems to have been performing in the early 1950s. Myrna Dean (identified as Deane in the article), performed from about 1939, was quite active in the 1940s and performed as late as about 1951. She appeared at the Follies in Los Angeles in 1947 with Peaches Strange (one of the great stripteuse names).
Bidding on the articles begins at $7.98.
Blaza Glory appears in “The ABCs of Love” at a drive-in theater in Meade County, Ky., October 1954.
Myrna Dean in an undated article
Myrna Dean and Peaches Strange at the Follies, Aug. 25, 1947.
Off topic, but have you ever encountered an L.A. stripper–whose name I’ve forgotten–who was billed as, “____?____ and her Twin Fifties”
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I haven’t, but possibly a member of the Brain Trust might be able to shed light on your question.
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There are a number of references on the Internet to a Busty Russell and her Twin 50s. Would that be her? One newspaper ad bills her as Rusty Russell. I suppose newspapers were wary of the word Busty. She was apparently also known as America’s Dairy Queen.
The IMDb has a page for a 1992 movie called Inside Out II, and the cast list makes three references to a segment called “Busty Gusty and Her Twin 50’s”, which I would imagine was inspired by Ms. Russell’s name and epithet.
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It was a fellow worker at Central Library (L.A.) who metioned this performers name to me in conversation over twenty years ago. I assumed he was talking about someone from the local burlesque scene, but perhaps it was just a memorable name that travelled. Russell seems to have been active in Ohio.
My father was in the Army Air Force during the war and within the context of a heavy bomb group flying B-17s, twin-fifies was a referece to machine guns of that caliber mounted in pairs as defensive armament. That that term would later be ‘repurposed’ in the way it was has always amused me. Who knows? It may well have made its first appearance on nose art during the war itself. Busty women were a dominant theme.
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We were next door neighbors of Myrna Dean and her husband before their passing. she was wonderful and sweet. Myrna was very tall with dyed blond hair in sort of a 40’s style. When she smoked, she also did it with a holder. A very interesting person.
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