Tonight HBO will be airing the documentary Pretty Things, which is all about the burlesque stars of the 1940s through 1960s such as Zorita, Betty Rowland, Sherry Britton, Dixie Evans and Lois de Fee. Dont be afraid, its not airing as part of HBOs Real Sex series. This is a very serious but still fun look at this wonderful time that set the standard for all things on stage.
I got a chance to talk to the director of Pretty Things, Liz Goldwyn who worked on this film for over eight years.
Pretty Things premieres Tuesday, July 19 at 10:30 p.m. ET/PT on HBO
Daniel Robert Epstein: How did you decide to do this documentary?
Liz Goldwyn: Since I was 11 years old I had always collected clothing and from then on I have had a lot of careers. I helped start the fashion department at Sothebys and when I was at Sothebys, it gave me an opportunity to really look at my collection seriously and I found that there was no museum that had a collection of burlesque costumes. Burlesque died in America and no one documented this last generation of burlesque queens. So my mission was immediate and I set about doing that. I always knew about burlesque because I grew up in an entertainment family. Originally I started out to write a book on burlesque costumes so I researched where burlesque had its in such things as Shakespearean comedy, Greek tragedy, London music halls, Berlin Cabaret and sexual transgression. When I saw the glamorous photos of burlesque queens of the 30s and 40s, there is a confidence in their sexuality that they seem to radiate. I really began the search for these costumes, which is how I met the women.
DRE: What made you decide to try on the burlesque costumes in the documentary?
LG: When I met the women the first thing I wanted to do is try on their clothes.
DRE: How was it wearing the dresses?
LG: I think that thats what I first understood that I didnt feel sexy. I realized that for the first time the clothing was not allowing me to assume the character. I started this film when I was 18 and it really raised a lot of personal issues for me such as having been raised by feminist mother and working in corporations with men who are you know 20, 25 and 30 years older than me. Before that was always something I was trying to subvert. The dress wasnt bringing it out of me, it was really these women that did that.
DRE: Is that how you decided to put so much of yourself into the documentary?
LG: I got pushed very much by other people who saw raw footage into being more in the film. It wasnt something that I was setting out to do. I was concerned that it would take away from the story but I got so much feedback from both men and women who felt they could identify with me because I was an everywoman. I could show how difficult what they did was such as the training, the choreography, the music, the costume and getting their entire act right. By doing that I could help make a modern audience understand that these women were not just getting up on stage and taking their clothes off but that there is so much more behind it.
DRE: How did this get to HBO?
LG: I funded the entire movie with grants and I used my own money as well. I also got really huge starting grants from the New York State Council for the Arts. I got approached by a lot of different kinds of TV programs; I wont name names, but lets just say ranging from more sexually explicit cable channels to one that wanted to put black bars over the archival footage of the women. But because there was a personal movie and because I had made the decision to put myself in it, I felt that I wanted to own the film 100% myself which HBO let me do. I took them the rough cut and they really liked it and then they gave me the completion money. The most rewarding thing that came out of this is for people to recognize and write about these women again because I think its really important to remember what came before.
DRE: What do you think of all these women in the documentary had in common?
LG: Its really difficult to generalize. A lot of people want to point out abuse in childhood or negative sexual experience although there is Betty Rollin, the Ball of Fire, who had a really innocent family upbringing. I dont know that you can generalize it about all the women and say that there is something they all have in common. Because some of them gained confidence through being on stage and some of them had their psyches ripped apart.
DRE: What surprised you most about them?
LG: Well it took like at least a year and a half of letters and phone calls before I met anyone in person because a lot of them, similar to the Bettie Page syndrome, didnt want to ruin the image of themselves. It was difficult to convince them to meet me in person or appear on film. I already had a really good sense of their personalities because we had developed friendships through phone calls and letters. I wasnt expecting to be so challenged by them particularly with Zarita; the one who dance with the snakes. She is so candid and she didnt care about what anyone else thought of her and I really admire that. She definitely challenged me to look at my own ideas.
DRE: Did you see these women as feminists?
LG: Lois de Fee was 6'4 and she told me that she went where she wanted to, did what she wanted to do and did whatever she wanted with whoever she wanted to. Feminist is such a loaded word and when you look at a feminist like Gloria Steinem she was very anti Playboy bunny girls, that overt female sexuality. I think these women of burlesque were feminist in a way that they were in control their sexuality. They didnt subvert it in order to be taken seriously which I think is the luxury that we are enjoying now.
DRE: What else are you working on?
LG: Im almost done with a script of a new feature film thats set in 1897 in Los Angeles in the world of madams and prostitution. I am writing and I will be directing it. I had been working with the LAPD a lot last year. Its pretty interesting to write storylines and then go and research court records and find that the realities are actually much more messed up than any story I can write.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
I got a chance to talk to the director of Pretty Things, Liz Goldwyn who worked on this film for over eight years.
Pretty Things premieres Tuesday, July 19 at 10:30 p.m. ET/PT on HBO
Daniel Robert Epstein: How did you decide to do this documentary?
Liz Goldwyn: Since I was 11 years old I had always collected clothing and from then on I have had a lot of careers. I helped start the fashion department at Sothebys and when I was at Sothebys, it gave me an opportunity to really look at my collection seriously and I found that there was no museum that had a collection of burlesque costumes. Burlesque died in America and no one documented this last generation of burlesque queens. So my mission was immediate and I set about doing that. I always knew about burlesque because I grew up in an entertainment family. Originally I started out to write a book on burlesque costumes so I researched where burlesque had its in such things as Shakespearean comedy, Greek tragedy, London music halls, Berlin Cabaret and sexual transgression. When I saw the glamorous photos of burlesque queens of the 30s and 40s, there is a confidence in their sexuality that they seem to radiate. I really began the search for these costumes, which is how I met the women.
DRE: What made you decide to try on the burlesque costumes in the documentary?
LG: When I met the women the first thing I wanted to do is try on their clothes.
DRE: How was it wearing the dresses?
LG: I think that thats what I first understood that I didnt feel sexy. I realized that for the first time the clothing was not allowing me to assume the character. I started this film when I was 18 and it really raised a lot of personal issues for me such as having been raised by feminist mother and working in corporations with men who are you know 20, 25 and 30 years older than me. Before that was always something I was trying to subvert. The dress wasnt bringing it out of me, it was really these women that did that.
DRE: Is that how you decided to put so much of yourself into the documentary?
LG: I got pushed very much by other people who saw raw footage into being more in the film. It wasnt something that I was setting out to do. I was concerned that it would take away from the story but I got so much feedback from both men and women who felt they could identify with me because I was an everywoman. I could show how difficult what they did was such as the training, the choreography, the music, the costume and getting their entire act right. By doing that I could help make a modern audience understand that these women were not just getting up on stage and taking their clothes off but that there is so much more behind it.
DRE: How did this get to HBO?
LG: I funded the entire movie with grants and I used my own money as well. I also got really huge starting grants from the New York State Council for the Arts. I got approached by a lot of different kinds of TV programs; I wont name names, but lets just say ranging from more sexually explicit cable channels to one that wanted to put black bars over the archival footage of the women. But because there was a personal movie and because I had made the decision to put myself in it, I felt that I wanted to own the film 100% myself which HBO let me do. I took them the rough cut and they really liked it and then they gave me the completion money. The most rewarding thing that came out of this is for people to recognize and write about these women again because I think its really important to remember what came before.
DRE: What do you think of all these women in the documentary had in common?
LG: Its really difficult to generalize. A lot of people want to point out abuse in childhood or negative sexual experience although there is Betty Rollin, the Ball of Fire, who had a really innocent family upbringing. I dont know that you can generalize it about all the women and say that there is something they all have in common. Because some of them gained confidence through being on stage and some of them had their psyches ripped apart.
DRE: What surprised you most about them?
LG: Well it took like at least a year and a half of letters and phone calls before I met anyone in person because a lot of them, similar to the Bettie Page syndrome, didnt want to ruin the image of themselves. It was difficult to convince them to meet me in person or appear on film. I already had a really good sense of their personalities because we had developed friendships through phone calls and letters. I wasnt expecting to be so challenged by them particularly with Zarita; the one who dance with the snakes. She is so candid and she didnt care about what anyone else thought of her and I really admire that. She definitely challenged me to look at my own ideas.
DRE: Did you see these women as feminists?
LG: Lois de Fee was 6'4 and she told me that she went where she wanted to, did what she wanted to do and did whatever she wanted with whoever she wanted to. Feminist is such a loaded word and when you look at a feminist like Gloria Steinem she was very anti Playboy bunny girls, that overt female sexuality. I think these women of burlesque were feminist in a way that they were in control their sexuality. They didnt subvert it in order to be taken seriously which I think is the luxury that we are enjoying now.
DRE: What else are you working on?
LG: Im almost done with a script of a new feature film thats set in 1897 in Los Angeles in the world of madams and prostitution. I am writing and I will be directing it. I had been working with the LAPD a lot last year. Its pretty interesting to write storylines and then go and research court records and find that the realities are actually much more messed up than any story I can write.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 7 of 7 COMMENTS
desmondking:
I would have loved to have seen it. In the late 1970's some folks in Baltimore did a tour of the ladies of Burlesque and I saw the show in Arlington,VA at an old porno theater which is now a post office. I wish I could remember the name or could find the program because I think that was the last time a lot of them performed. The show was pretty good and it was kind of wierd because it was full of young Punk rock guys in the audience ( Me included).
misstrouble:
I wanted to see that, I missed it but I have to check my OnDemand to see if it comes on again. 