She was beloved by men. She married six of them and divorced as many. She was a complicated woman in a supposedly simpler time. She was the queen of the burlesque stage and a goddess to its patrons. Her name was Lili St. Cyr and her legend would likely have smoldered and died out but instead, she has become immortalized in the pages of a new biography from author, actress and documentarian Leslie Zemeckis.
Zemeckis, the wife of renowned filmmaker Robert Zemeckis, spent five years researching her subject. The result is a deftly handled and intimate account of a celebrated body and a troubled soul.
The St. Cyr biography, “Goddess of Love Incarnate: The Life of Stripteuse Lili St. Cyr” (Counterpoint Press), is a backstage pass into the private life of the world’s most famous burlesque star. Zemeckis uses St. Cyr’s own photograph collection to recreate the roller coaster life of the Minnesota-born chorus girl who rose to unimaginable heights only to fall just as far. The tall elegant performer known for taking bubble baths on stage, had among her many affairs, a recurring one with pills.
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During the 1940s and 50s, St. Cyr revolutionized the world of stripping, elevating it from a bawdy flesh trade into an erotic and glamorous art form. She portrayed historical and fictional characters from Cleopatra to Cinderella. She incorporated elaborate sets, gilded cages and designer gowns into her well-choreographed act and made famous a routine she called “The Flying G,” in which her undies would fly off into the balcony after a dance, prompting the lights to dim. The trick involved a stagehand and a fishing pole.
Celebrities of stage and film were among the throngs who gathered around the block to see her performances. Her love life was full, though her marriages were ultimately empty. She spent her fortune and attempted suicide. She lived a life that was both fairytale and cautionary tale. And it is that life that Zemeckis has resurrected for us to behold.
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St. Cyr retired from the stage in the 1970s only to launch a lingerie business called “Undie World of Lili St. Cyr,” the catalogs of which featured the star herself modeling the items. She lived out her days modestly in a not-so-glamorous Hollywood apartment with some cats.
The story of St. Cyr is a reflection of the society that worshipped her. Like the gaudy vanity mirror of her ornate dressing room, St. Cyr recasts the image of a repressed culture with lust flooding through its veins. The Sexual Revolution would years later provide relief to those latent urges, but before that day would come -- and perhaps ensuring that that day would indeed come -- there was Lili.
And thanks to Zemeckis, Lili St. Cyr at last receives her curtain call.
