Rita: Did you find camaraderie on the road?
Tura: Oh sure, when I traveled with my own show, I had Harry Clutch and Billy Zutereid as comedians, we had Al Anger as a straight man, Barbara Curtis was one of the follow up dancers. We had a ten-girl chorus line; we had 8 parade girls, and a singer. When you gals do your shows, what does it consist of?

Michelle: Well, we have 14 features, give or take, a band, comedians, jugglers, a contortionist, blackouts, tableaux vivants, oh and we have a wonderful female emcee.
Tura: Good, good!

Michelle: We encourage the audience to heckle and shout, join in. Miss Astrid just nails everything left and right. We have these twin French maids that come out and pick up the discarded costumes - they're just really dead pan and spooky. Kind of like kinky Edward Gorey cartoon characters come to life.
Rita:It's really great because the maids are really, really covered, very modest and they have the biggest growing fan base!

Tura: You know, that's what I try to tell everybody! Burlesque was soooo good, until they started taking off too much. Because, guys always wonder what's under there? You could put a guy into a room with a hundred naked women, and one dressed and he will always wonder what that ONE has got.
Michelle: When we interviewed Anton LaVey that's exactly what he said. You could be in a strip club, mixed crowd, and there might be a girl with her date, just enjoying the show fully dressed, prim & proper, and he would notice guys not paying attention to the girl on stage giving it her all, but wondering what that girl was hiding under her clothes.

Rita:When did you start dancing?
Tura: I started dancing in 1954. I started out in Calumet City, Illinois, and from there I went down to New Orleans. In Calumet City, I started out as a legitimate dancer, and wound up going out as "Galatea, the statue that comes to life". The girl that was doing it before decided she didn't want to work in Calumet City anymore, which I could understand, as it is the cesspool of the world. But, she went someplace us, and they needed a dancer. I started with that, then went into my own routine. When I decided to leave Calumet City, of course, they didn't want me to leave, but I said, "I'm going". And he says, no your not, your gonna stay here. And I said, "You call my friend Louie and see if I'm gonna stay here or not". He called Louie, then he gave me his blessing. Louie owned several clubs in downtown Chicago. He owed me several favors so it was very easy for me to do what I wanted. I hooked up with a guy named Tiger Dupree. Tiger was a guy that had a girlfriend, Tiger Lil, and his wife was Tiger Lilly. I was waiting for him to tag a tiger onto me! Anyway, he took us to New Orleans. I was only 15 at the time.

Rita:So this was the mid fifties New Orleans - Did you meet Lilly Christine?
Tura: Lilly Christine, Lili St. Cyr. They both worked there as a matter of fact. One was working down the street from the other.

Rita:Were they nice ladies?
Tura: Very much so. Lili St. Cyr was definitely a total lady, and her sister was married to Minsky. They were both very big fans of mine, and I used to work for Minsky a lot.

Rita:I have a "Cabaret" Magazine where Minsky picks his 10 favorites, and you're one of em!
Tura: Aaah! Yes, he was such a sweet man, and his wife was just so pretty. She was even prettier than Lili. She had this long, flaming red hair. When she married him, she decided to quit. Lilly Christine was a very sweet, sweet person. She'd give you the shirt off her back.

Michelle: Judging by the photographs, she must've been a phenomenal dancer.
Tura: Oh yes. Some of the poses she could get into! She was really good, and that's why she and I got along so well. I used to do a lot of acrobatics in my routine, too. She and I used to trade secrets.

Michelle: You never get to read much on Lilly Christine, so this is really great.
Rita:We've heard conflicting stories on her demise - one story has it that she had a Jean Harlow-style Christian Scientist ending.

Michelle: But Dixie told us she committed suicide because she was told that she was too old for Hollywood and was devastated.
Tura: I think what happened, is that Lilly found out she had cancer, and she just ended it. I think rather than die a slow death, she just ended it. She wound up living in Texas for awhile. We used to talk about stuff like that - like if anything like that ever happened to us, that’s how we'd handle it.

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