unicornmeat

Jayne Mansfield, originally uploaded by Truus, Bob & Jan too!.

it’s been awhile!

Omega418 on Flickr

[b.1883 - circa 1967]

“I was picking up pennies dancing in front of the candy store when I was ten,” she recalled. “Before I started traveling, I was dancing all around the streets for money all the time, begging and hustling. Later on I danced for money. They asked me to dance, I said, ‘How much you goin’ give me?’ I was a real hustler!”

Ida’s first act on the road was at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. Ida, along with other child performers, traveled long distances, supporting themselves on the road with impromptu performances. In 1897 when Ida was fourteen, she hit the road performing in a tab show, which was a variety show of performers each with a specialty act, called The Black Bostonians. When the show went broke in Butte, Montana, Ida earned money singing on the train ride home. Ida’s mother gave her consent for her tours and Ida helped the family out financially with her earnings. “My mother was very understanding. She let me go on these tours. She was a maid, and my father had left her when I was two years old.”

Ida joined with Black Patti’s Troubadours in 1898 and stayed with them until 1903, touring San Francisco and New York. In 1903 Ida joined with another troupe, led by singer Abbie Mitchell, and went to Britain. Abbie Mitchell and Her Tennessee Students would tour Europe and Britain until the second decade of the century.

By 1907, she was touring her solo dance act throughout Russia and Austria. Bringing the Cakewalk with her from America, she soon incorporated Russian dances into her act and became known for her version of the Cossack dance. Settling in St. Petersburg Russia, Ida toured Europe for nine years.

“Everywhere I went I was lauded. I was paid good money and I had a ball. Everything I ever wanted I’ve had it,” she recalled. “I bought it with my good money in Europe … I enjoyed every minute.”

When Ida returned back to America, she could not find work. Also she was considered too dark for the Harlem nightclub circuit, which tended to feature lightskinned women. She explained, “When I got back from Europe I couldn’t get a job in any of the cabarets because I was too dark, I didn’t know how to shake and I never did anything vulgar,” she stated. “They used to boo if you did anything aesthetic.” Refusing to shimmy, to sexualize her performance style, Forsyne began work as a domestic.

She couldn’t go back to London due to the war and says “it was really hard to go from star status to nothing in a blink of an eye.”

By the early 1920s her career had stalled, although she toured with Sophie Tucker as her personal maid as well as part of her act. “I got $50 a week and did the maid part on and off stage. I was dressed in a black dress and white apron,” Ida recalled. And in1927 she toured in the chorus that accompanied Bessie Smith’s TOBA act.

She was also cast in several minor film roles including, A Daughter of the Congo in 1930 and Green Pastures in 1936. In 1951 she was an assistant choreographer for the New York City Ballet’s performance of The Cakewalk.

Little is known about her life after her theatrical career except that for a brief time she worked as an elevator operator in a hotel in upstate New York. She spent the remainder of her life in a nursing home.

-’Babylon Girls: Black Women Performers and the Shaping of the Modern’ by Jayna Brown

This is exciting!

To kick the New Year off right, Bachelor Pad Magazine has another special Twitter give-away just for you. It’s really easy. First, make sure you’re following Bachelor Pad Magazine (twitter.com/bachelorpad). Then come up with your best answer to this question:

* Tell us your swingingest New Year’s resolution!

Details…

I pulled this 10″ 33 1/3 compilation out of a box of records I haven’t looked at in a long time. It reminds me of record shopping, and when I used to get really thrilled in record stores and seek them out in my travels. I believe I got this at Rock & Roll Collectibles in New Orleans but that’s just a hunch. The best thing about discovering old music was knowing nothing about it… I had no idea quite what I actually liked, so any venture to buy music would result in some random purchases. Those times may be behind me, but this is the kind of record I get excited to find even still. I’m sure it’s not rare. It’s not really that great. But it’s got this.. essence. It’s a 10″, so it resembles a 78. It must have been promotional – it has a press clipping pasted onto the sleeve. That’s probably the clincher for me.
And here I am turning it into a cluster of heartless mp3s. As if it still has some value without the motion of setting a needle on it. I left it nice and scratchy so we can pretend.
Download:
Curtain Call Series Volume 4
Marlene Deitrich – Ben Bernie – Libby Holman – George Jessel

I don’t think I’ve expressed my love for Lady Gaga on unicornmeat, so I thought I would make it known.
I enjoy a fun pop song, and some of her songs are decent or have good parts in them.
But anyone who may know about my past obsession with burlesque costumery, fetish wear, glitter, wigs, lace and high heels could surmise that I’d be all over this one.


Amplified beauty to the point of ugliness and back again.
Thank you for existing Lady Gaga and please stick around and don’t do anything too stupid for me to keep liking you.

I don’t know why I didn’t make a post here… so here it is, belated, for the end of 2008.
I may not have agreed with her personal beliefs, but her career impact
and talent and beauty still impress me nonetheless.
She was kind of an inspiration way back when I did some pin-up modeling myself..
A shared fascination in her career put me in touch with some interesting folks, some of whom I still have the good fortune of
being in contact with.

Bettie Page
New York – The Klaws (excerpt)
The Complete Interview

From the Wikipedia Mandopop entry:

1930s-1940s: The Seven Great Singing Stars era

The original “Seven Great Singing Stars” of the Republic of China essentially paved the way for the industry. Their individual style was unique to any Chinese music before it. The young film industry benefited greatly with their acting and soundtrack roles. Zhou Xuan is generally considered the most remarkable Chinese popstar of the era due to her successful dual singing and film career. By the end of this generation, female singers went from “song girls” to “stars”. The era, however, would be short lived as Shanghai became occupied with the Second Sino-Japanese War and eventually World War II.

I’ve downloaded some compilations and tracks of these glamorous “1930s Shanghai Lounge Divas.” I’ve uploaded the 2nd CD from this one. I believe the first CD is just a bunch of “remixes for today,” which I am not too interested in.
This is uploaded into two zips because of megaupload restrictions.

Various Artists: Shanghai Lounge Divas
part 1
part 2

As Clouds Drift By
Jayne Mansfield

This does not sound like the voice of Jayne Mansfield as I know it. But it’s on both the Too Hot To Handle collection, and the Jayne/Marilyn compilation Dyed Blonde.
Anyway, whatever. I shall supplement it with this photo from the Modern Man 1957 Yearbook of Queens, a spiralbound girlie mag featuring a LOT of boobs.

women’s thighs should touch in the middle, like Jayne’s.

Great Motion Picture Themes From Jean Harlow Films (Side 2)

later in the article she talks about her planned boob job