| Vintage Pulp | May 10 2021 |
St. Cyr escapes her gilded cage.
Above is a poster for Runaway Girl, a starring vehicle for burlesque queen Lili St. Cyr. In the film, Randy, played by Jock Mahoney, runs a family vineyard, and imports low wage harvest workers every year, all of them women, all young. This year his flock of seven laborers includes an extra woman in the form of Edella, played by St. Cyr. The grape grower starts to have randy feelings toward her, and pretty soon the two are canoodling in town and country. But Randy isn't actually a member of the wine making family by blood. He was taken in by the patriarch when young, and dating the help quickly causes this fault line to open. St. Cyr doesn't belong either. She's beautiful, glamorous, and has clearly never worked hard in her life. What is she doing there? How did a glamorous blonde end up picking grapes in a vineyard? The title of the movie tells you.
Runaway Girl is a low rent drama with only St. Cyr to distinguish it, but there are two versions—a cinematic release, and a racier adult version with three nudie cutie segments. There's a group shower sequence, a skinny dipping sequence, and a striptease. These sequences are jarring because they were spliced in to heat up the stew for an adult oriented re-release that played in nudie cinemas. St. Cyr also does a little medley of her most famous burlesque numbers, as she explains in a flashback that she's—shockingly—really a nationally famous peeler running away from the overwhelming demands of life as a paid exhibitionist. This revelation doesn't sit well with the old fashioned Randy. Can he overlook St. Cyr's racy past?
Runaway Girl is a product of classic Hollywood thinking—i.e. any famous pop culture personality can be harnessed for profit. The same holds true today, as a succession of singers, rappers, reality stars, and comics trickle into movies every year. We're not putting them down. Some can actually act, particularly the comics. But St. Cyr can't. Emotively, she's flatter than a fruit roll-up. It pains us to admit that, because we think she's a celestial wonder. But there you have it. Even worse, this was her seventh full length film, so it probably represents the height of her acting skills. Woof. You have a choice. You can either avoid this turkey or watch it expressly to see St. Cyr with motion and sound, rather than merely as an amazing pin-up. We have some nice production photos below to help you make up your mind. Runaway Girl premiered in the U.S. today in 1965.
| Vintage Pulp | Feb 14 2020 |
Thank you for your service, girls.
We have a special treat for you on Valentine's Day (which doesn't exist where we live, but we're living up to the International part of Pulp International). Above is the cover of a 1951 photo magazine called G-Eyefuls, which was marketed in the U.S. to the Korean War generation, specifically soldiers. We suspect it was sold in drugstores in military towns, possibly in military base exchanges, and the like. It's credited to a guy named Bill Boltin, who also authored a little-known 1952 novel called Witch on Wheels. Boltin didn't write much for G-Eyefuls, just a foreword and some cheesy captions for the pix.
We consider it unfortunate that Boltin took time to write captions for nearly every photo, but identifed no models. Since the photos are almost certainly handouts, it's possible Boltin had no idea who most of the models were. However, burlesque queen Lili St. Cyr appears twice, which suggests he at least recognized her. We assume you do too, but if not she appears in panel seven below, with a close-up in panel eight, and she recurs in the third-to-last panel, with another close-up below that. At sixty-four pages, we ran out of patience to upload this entire magazine, but we have a representative selection of forty scans. Happy corporate holiday, Valentiners.
| Femmes Fatales | Nov 23 2019 |
Lili St. Cyr immeasurably improves ancient Spanish tradition.
We recently showed you two Marilyn Monroe life-sized posters from 1953. That same year a poster was published featuring burlesque performer Lili St. Cyr, which you see above. The matador theme is cool, and also fitting, because she often wore similar costumes on stage. Most images of St. Cyr are black and white, so this one bursting with color is a rarity.
| Femmes Fatales | Jan 23 2019 |
You ever had a vision Cyr itself into your brain?
This nude image of burlesque queen Lili St. Cyr brings to mind classical paintings. At least it does to us, but since it isn't a painting, we guess it's just porn. Funny how that works. The shot appeared as Cabaret magazine's centerfold this month in 1957 with a logo and text, but we wiped it to get a clean image. Wiped her pubic hair too. Actually, that wasn't us. We are tireless in our retouching efforts, but that's part of—or actually, isn't part of—the original image. But if you ask real nice maybe we'll give her a big ole bush, just for fun.
| Femmes Fatales | Aug 15 2018 |
My hands are registered as lethal weapons. Just imagine what the rest of me can do.
Burlesque queen Lili St. Cyr, looking lovely and shiny in this rare promo photo, practices an unusual brand of martial arts. Basically the way it works is she strips and everyone nearby falls stunned to the floor. It's a lot harder to master than it sounds. Mid-1950s on this image.
| Intl. Notebook | Nov 24 2017 |
Lili St. Cyr and a side of El Rancho undressing.
These three very nice promotional postcards featuring legendary burlesque dancer Lili St. Cyr were put out by the El Rancho Vegas casino-hotel in Las Vegas, an establishment that was one of the city's first, predating iconic places like the Flamingo and the Last Frontier. St. Cyr peeled at El Rancho Vegas beginning in 1951, and these items were issued over the next several years as she returned to showcase there often. The rear of these are basically identical, which is why we've uploaded only one image below. You can see it has impresario Tom Douglas's signature on it, and management offers to shell out a few pennies by mailing it for you. Class acts all the way. And speaking of class acts, you can see plenty more of St. Cyr in the website. Just click her keywords below.
| Hollywoodland | Sep 20 2017 |
St. Cyr tells all for the cheapie tabloid Midnight.
This Midnight published today in 1964 has the usual clickbait on the front cover—I Ripped My Baby To Pieces. Why? Because she hated her husband. Very interesting, but today we're drawn to the banner and Lili St. Cyr's “Torrid Life Story,” in which, for the most part, she talks about her sexual attitudes. The interior header screams that she seduced a 14-year-old boy, and that's again the equivalent of today's internet clickbait. St. Cyr was sixteen herself, which is an age difference we'd hardly call scandalous. The clickbait worked, though. It made us quite eager to read the story. It's written in first person and touted as a Midnight exclusive.
Ordinarily we'd be skeptical a cheapie tabloid could score an exclusive with a world famous celebrity, but in this case we think Midnight is telling the truth. We have a few reasons: Midnight was a Canadian rag, headquartered in Montreal; St. Cyr was from Minnesota, but spent her early years dancing in Montreal; and Midnight was too well known a publication to get away with lying about the source of the story. Thus we can be sure St. Cyr wrote the piece. She eventually authored an autobiography in French, which makes us suspect she wrote this article 
for the Canadian Midnight—which was called Minuit—and it was translated and printed in the U.S. later. Just a guess. It was apparently part of a series, by the way, but we don't have the other issues of Midnight. Now on to the juicy stuff.
for the Canadian Midnight—which was called Minuit—and it was translated and printed in the U.S. later. Just a guess. It was apparently part of a series, by the way, but we don't have the other issues of Midnight. Now on to the juicy stuff. On virginity: “When you have it you try like hell to keep it. You lose it with an unconscious sigh of relief, and once you've lost it you wonder why you tried so hard to keep it in the first place.”
On her first: “Right now, as I write these lines, [all I] can recall about him is that he was blonde and his first name began with an R. As a matter of fact, I don't remember any of my first intimate boyfriends.”
On her others: “I've been called a child snatcher dozens of times because that is the way I like my men. I can't help it.”
On Hollywood star Victor Mature: “One bad thing about Vic though. Liquor and sex just don't mix for him. If he makes love, he's got to be cold sober or he can't perform.”
On Las Vegas: “There is something dead and decadent about the town. It builds to nowhere. It accomplishes nothing. And the people in it are infected with this live-for-today attitude.”
Those are the highlights. Except that readers also get three photos with the article. We already shared a much better version of one of those way back in 2009. The other two are in this post—the shot of St. Cyr as a child, when she was still Willis Marie Van Schaack, and the one below of her in goddess mode. Midnight was printed on cheap-ass paper, but the scans still look pretty good. Willis Marie's tale is interesting too. She was ahead of her time. What she writes could have been written by a character on Girls. It's impossible for us to not respect her boldness and determination to have exactly the life she wanted, particularly during the age in which she lived. We have plenty on St. Cyr in the website. Just click her keywords below.
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 9 2016 |
Who needs an entire bouquet when you already have a Lili?
We've talked before about Horwitz Publications' habit of using celebrities on its Carter Brown paperback covers. Previous examples include Elke Sommer, Joan Collins, and Senta Berger. Above you see another borrowed celeb—none other than Lili St. Cyr—fronting Brown's 1965 thriller Homicide Harem in a cone bra outfit that brings to mind the fashion of Jean Paul Gaultier. There's no doubt it's her. We've spent a lot of time on her and recognized her high arching eyebrows and cleft chin immediately. But just to assuage any doubts you may have, we found a photo of her wearing the same outfit (though with different shoes), which you see below. We think Horwitz used unlicensed handout photos of moderately famous stars to create their covers. Lili was pretty famous by 1955, but perhaps not in Australia, since she wasn't really in movies to the extent that anything she'd done would have played there. Possibly 1955's Son of Sinbad made it there, but we have no data on that. Anyway, we're still a bit baffled why Horwitz didn't just use local models. It isn't as if there has ever been a shortage of beautiful women down under. This will remain a mystery, we suspect.
| Vintage Pulp | Sep 19 2016 |
Miniature magazine packs its pages with maximum cheesecake.
Above and below, the cover and interior scans from pocket sized Dare magazine published this month in 1954, with several photos of Italian actress Sophia Loren—weirdly referred to as a "spaghetti-eating starlet"—as well of images of American burlesque dancers Lili St. Cyr, June Randy, Marjorie Vann, and Lee Sharon. Dare was launched as a normal sized magazine in May 1950 by New York City based Career, Inc., quickly switched to mini format, and lasted until the late 1960s. The cover promises shots of a Martian, but we're just showing you the girls. Enjoy.
| Hollywoodland | Jul 8 2016 |
It's the single life for St. Cyr... again.
This photo shows burlesque icon Lili St. Cyr today in 1964, leaving the Los Angeles courthouse where she had just divorced her sixth and final husband, Joseph Zomar, a special effects technician who had worked on such films as Space Probe Taurus and The Addams Family. The grounds for the split? St. Cyr said her man was drunk every night and always angry. Once knowledge leaked out to American women that drunkenness and anger were legit grounds for a split, the divorce rate shot up 50%. It's totally true—look it up.
