WOMAN TO WOMAN:

ANN CORIO AND THE REHABILITATION OF AMERICAN BURLESQUE

by

Julie N. Vogt

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

(Theatre and Drama)

at the

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

2010
© Copyright by Julie N. Vogt 2010
All Rights Reserved
 i

Acknowledgments

This study is the result of a professional, avocational and personal journey. The process

has been aided by my community of mentors, friends and family members. Foremost thanks are

due to my advisor, Mary Trotter, who supervised this dissertation and launched the investigation

with the simple question, “Who is Ann Corio and is everything she wrote true?” She is a master

gardener of graduate minds; pruning, shaping and bringing to fruit tangential tendrils of inquiry.

She shepherded this study through periods of unparalleled personal challenges and her

mentorship was invaluable in my own rehabilitation. My committee members have incubated

this work at different stages: Preeti Chopra’s class on “Taste” was one of the finest of my

graduate career; it informed every stage of this research and I am grateful for her contributions

to this study. Michael Peterson supervised my earliest graduate work in bawdy women and

sexuality in the suburbs; his ability to cultivate multiple perspectives in a single classroom

informed the structure of this dissertation. Manon van de Water nurtured my awareness of

embodied learning by accepting me as her Teaching Assistant for Drama in Education. Andrea

Harris provided crucial support by joining my committee from a distance; I am honored to have

her participation as a representative of the dance-education tradition at UW-Madison.

Special thanks are due to Carole Nelson, who not only provided access to her aunt’s

collection of memorabilia, she became remarkable friend. She has generously shared her time

and her insight and I am inspired by her respect for all creatures “great and small.” Our

collaboration on Corio’s legacy has been one of the most unexpected and rewarding aspects of

this journey.

My passion for this topic was fueled by the women of the neo-burlesque community who

have worked to preserve, document and revive the rich history of the genre. I owe particular
 ii

thanks to Michelle Baldwin (Vivenne Vavoom), who first introduced me to burlesque in 2000 and

is the epitome of classic grace and wit. As a performer, author and generous individual she has

nurtured the revival across the country. Lynn Sally (Dr. Lukki) is the diva of praxis, combining

scholarship, teaching and performance. The personal histories which informed this study are due

to her tireless efforts, with Tigger! Ferguson, to preserve the living memory of burlesque through

the oral history project of the Burlesque Hall of Fame. The observations of Jo “Boobs” Weldon

added untold dimensions to this study; she sustains lively conversations about burlesque history,

representation and community through her school, web pages and book. Finally, the lonely hours

of writing were brightened my burlesque pen-pal Elsa Sjunneson (Lydia Ransom); thank you for

the countless chats about law, coverture, bodies and burlesque.

Although this study is based primarily on print and visual sources, several burlesque

legends animated my understanding of the live performance. I would like to particularly thank

Marinka, Queen of the Amazons, for her warmth, humor and unparalleled recollection of

accurate details; Satan’s Angel for the most lively conversations about burlesque as an art form;

April March and Joan Arline for their insights into the dynamics of “talking women” in

burlesque skits; and Lillian Keirnan Brown for her fearless book and ebullient spirit.

The aforementioned individuals had the most direct effect on the research, but credit for

sustenance through the personal journey is due to my husband, Todd. He gave his respect and

support to a topic that many would regard as frivolous. With patience and gentlemanly grace, he

encouraged me through long and unprofitable journey of graduate school. I am grateful to share

in his love, magnanimity and humor.

 iii

This dissertation is dedicated to my mother, Patricia A. Chase. As a leader and innovator

in her field, hospital pharmacy, she taught me to always question what was said and assumed

about women.
 iv

WOMAN TO WOMAN:

ANN CORIO AND THE REHABILITATION OF AMERICAN BURLESQUE

Julie N. Vogt

Under the supervision of Professor Mary Trotter

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison

For nearly seventy years, Ann Corio was a star performer and successful producer in

burlesque entertainment. Corio began her career in the burlesque circuits of the 1930s and 1940s

and returned to the genre with her nostalgic variety show, This Was Burlesque, which ran from

1962 to 1991. Throughout the twentieth century, burlesque producers targeted heterosexual male

audiences by featuring semi-nude female dancers. Ann Corio’s burlesque products, which

included the show This Was Burlesque (TWB), three LP recordings and a history book, challenged

the assumption that erotic dance and humor served exclusively male desires. Corio marketed her

brand of burlesque products to female consumers, “woman to woman.” Instead of catering to

male scopic pleasure, dances and sketches in TWB echoed the feminist legal-reform agenda of

the 1960s and 1970s.

This dissertation addresses deficits in the documentation and analysis of twentieth

century burlesque. As a culturally-devalued form of performance burlesque has not been

comprehensively archived or evaluated. Corio’s consistent burlesque aesthetic serves as a vector

for the delineation of theatrical burlesque from competing entertainment industries including

stand-up comedy, topless dance, Broadway theatre and film. The trajectory between Ann Corio’s

early career and her revival illustrates a generational migration in which narrative and visual

archetypes (rich with bigotry, misogyny, and class elitism) are recycled and recuperated by
 v

performers. This study interrogates the implications of rehabilitating pernicious stereotypes into

positive models and seeks to identify a spectrum of gendered “gazes” in which the spectatorship

of erotic bodies is influenced by class tensions, censorship, intellectual property and laws

governing female autonomy. I argue that the strains of feminism which regard public expressions

of sexuality as patriarchally (and pathologically) exogenic - arising from a constrictive male gaze -

occlude the intangible currencies of the female cooperative culture operating in the Corio brand.

These ephemeral currencies include inter-class and intercultural exchanges, public domain

creative products, theatrical personae, the esteem of other women, and sexual confidence. In

burlesque,these valuation systems operate in tandem with regulated commercial transactions.

The study concludes with recommendations for the applications of burlesque content and

technique in higher education.

 vi

Table of Contents

One Circumstantial Evidence: An Introduction to Scope and Methodology 1

Purpose of the Study and Objectives 4

Research Hypotheses 4

Key Terms 6

Literature Review 14

Structure of the Study, Methodology and Theoretical Model 21

Two Long Live the Queen: Ann Corio’s Early Burlesque Career 37

Literary Burlesques and Ballerinas 41

Burlesque Grotesques 44

The Leg Business 48

Class and Scratch Burlesque 55

Three Me Tondalayo: Conscripted Bodies on the Burlesque Stage 73

Retiring to the Jungle 78

The Minstrel Afterglow 85

Gags and Gimmicks 96

The Politics of Mammy Palaver 108

Four Burlesque for the Ladies of East Cupcake, OH 120

On Tour In Frying Pan, Iowa 125

Sex and Laughter 138

No Professionals 153

Five Merrier Marriages: Striptease and Sex Education 174

Sex Ed in the BurlyQ 179

 vii

Burning Bras and Women’s Bathrooms 195

Sex After Comstock 209

Conclusion T
here’s Always Something More to Reveal 242

This is Burlesque 243

Power Tools 245

Ephemeral Currencies and Pirate Feminism 250

The School of Burlesque 255

 viii

List of Figures

1. Promotional photograph from Girls in Blue 3

2. Stock headshot of Ann Corio 9
3. Illustration of Corio 22
4. Publicity photograph of Corio 49
5. Corio performs “Mr. Striptease is Dead” 65
6. Corio posing in front of the Old Howard 71
7. Candid photograph of Corio at the Old Howard 72
8. Corio as Tondalayo in This Was Burlesque 76
9. Theatrical make up for racial caricatures 88
10. Lew Fields in character roles 89
11. Corio as Tondalayo in White Cargo 109
12. Corio in Sultan’s Daughter 111
13. Corio in Call of the Jungle 112
14. Corio as Tondalayo in “White Cargo” in This Was Burlesque 119
15. Corio in an unknown scene 127
16. Harry Conley in “Minnie” in This Was Burlesque 236
 1

Chapter 1

Circumstantial Evidence: An Introduction to Scope and Methodology

July 11, 2010 10:46:00 PDT

Just a few moments remain in ebay auction 220622428124, “Burlesque Stripper Ann

Corio 2 original sexy photos.” This dissertation is due in under three weeks, but I am still,

compulsively, chasing evidence. The Google alerts function informs me when new items appear

on the Internet with the term “Ann Corio,” a burlesque dancer who performed for nearly sixty

years, and the focus of this study. Most of the Google notices are duplicates of items I own, but

this listing is unique. It includes two photographs from Corio’s early career. Corio began

performing in the 1926-1927 theatrical season, at age fifteen, but most of my photographic

evidence comes from the revival show she launched in 1962, This Was Burlesque. Images such as

this are uncommon; Corio’s own private archive contained few items from her career as a

teenager.

One of the two photographs I have seen reprinted. A young Corio stands arms akimbo,

revealing the lace body suit she wears which is tied in four places along her torso. She looks

offstage and not directly at the camera. The other item is a particularly rare specimen. Corio sits

on a black box, nude except for the lace shawl she clutches over her torso. Her bare back is

revealed, as are her un-stockinged legs which end in satin heels. Her youthful face smiles directly

at the camera, framed by a tight bob of pin curls - an emblematic look of the jazz era. The

photograph captures not only her youthful presence, it also provides a stark challenge to her

legendary persona as the queen of clean burlesque. Corio was famous for what she didn’t take

off, somehow surviving as a headliner when burlesque began to feature more revealing striptease

acts. The photo might have been a publicity stunt, an image that would have hung outside
 2

theatres to entice men inside. It tantalizes as one of those bits of evidence that hint at cracks in

Corio’s carefully crafted public persona.

I clenched my teeth as I increased the bid to fifty dollars for the two photographs. In five

years of researching Corio, only one other photograph from her early career surfaced at auction.

I was outbid on that item (in the middle of the night) by quite a bit of money. Fifty dollars is the

most I can’t afford. Four seconds, three; the screen countdown hiccups at three seconds and I

know in that instant I’ve lost the auction. Professional memorabilia traders set their preferences to

bid higher in the last seconds, so amateurs such as myself have no option to increase the bid. The

ending price for the two photographs is $77.61; three other bidders were involved in the last six

seconds of trading. I never really had a chance.

Fuming, I imagine the scurrilous motives of the man who outbid me. What perverse

desires lead him to collect images of half-naked young starlets? I fume at the injustice that a right-

thinking feminist scholar such as myself has lost, by virtue of the open marketplace, to some

misogynist who objectifies women. Then it occurs to me - are my motives really more pure than

his? Do I not collect (nay, horde) all Corio-related objects? Haven’t I turned her into an object of

study? And why do I assume it was a male bidder who won? I make assumptions because I have

been trained to view objects and artifacts of erotic history through the frame of the male gaze -

the perception of the most misogynistic representative of patriarchal power who seeks to reduce

women to their sexual functions. But then I remember, my project is an attempt to identify the

spectrum of the female gaze - the admiration and emulation of other women - as well as other

perspectives in the male gaze, moments when erotic bodies are emblematic of strained marriages,

periods of conscription and covert forms of sexual education. The winning bidder could have

easily been one of the many other women who prize burlesque memorabilia. Leslie Zemeckis is
 3

working to turn her recent documentary, Behind the Burly Q , into a book; she has the funds and

personal research assistants to win any auction she chooses. Perhaps I didn’t lose to a monied

viper with pedophiliac tendencies; perhaps bidder y***a is another female burlesque enthusiast,

or an operative for a photography licensing site, scooping up images with weak copyright

provenance for sale to the burgeoning industry in burlesque documentaries and books.

I am confronted, again, with the limits of research into a genre that was culturally

illegitimate and until recently, not the subject of serious investigation. Most of my evidence is

circumstantial - objects, oral histories and biased newspaper reviews that do not contain facts, but

from which facts (or probabilities) must be inferred. As this chapter will document, the history of

burlesque has been plagued by weak reporting, self-aggrandizing promotions and an inconsistent

archive. There are few facts, only a mosaic of pieces from which I try to deduce the realities of

twentieth-century burlesque. Looking into the past is always a cloudy vision; the glass becomes

murkier when valuable evidence is reduced to the thumbnail I screen capture before the auction

Fig. 1 Corio, circa 1927, provenance unknown.

record becomes inactive on the Internet. Is this micro picture evidence? It enters into the mental

repertoire of stories heard, pictures seen and performances witnessed. But I still have no

photographic proof of Corio’s debut in burlesque, only a fuzzy picture and descriptions of

circumstantial evidence.
 4

Purpose of the study and objectives

This dissertation addresses deficits in the documentation and analysis of twentieth-

century burlesque, particularly in the field of theatre history. As a culturally-devalued form of

performance burlesque has not been comprehensively archived or evaluated. Two centuries of

burlesque in England and North America are represented by only four footnoted books from

university presses (and a handful of dissertations).1 As a popular form of live performance,

burlesque technique infiltrated film, sound recordings, radio and television. This study aims to

nourish the impoverished library of burlesque history through a chronological study of one

significant producer-performer. The objective of this study is to parse apart the sundry business

models and performance practices of twentieth-century burlesque with the goal of identifying

the different economies and ecologies of erotic performance. The axis for this nomenclature is

Ann Corio, a dancer and director who performed and produced burlesque material between

1924 and 1991. Corio’s consistent burlesque aesthetic serves as a reference point for the

delineation of theatrical burlesque from competing modes of performance which arose from a

shared genealogy of comic-erotic performance; these entertainments include stand-up comedy,

topless dance and Broadway musicals.

Research Hypotheses

This study was guided by one hypothesis which tested claims in Ann Corio’s brand

products and advertising and a second hypothesis relating to the larger field of theatre history.

Ann Corio persistently used the word “authentic” in her shows, publicity and souvenir materials.

1I count as the footnoted studies works by: Robert Allen, Rachel Shteir (Striptease), Becki Ross and
Lucinda Jarrett, Stripping in Time: A History of Erotic Dancing, Pandora (London: HarperCollins Publishers,
1997).Biographies with chapter notes, but not in-line footnotes include books by: Rachel Shteir (Gypsy),
Noralee Frankel and Kelly DiNardo. Books with bibliographies but no chapter notes include the works of
Michelle Baldwin, Jessica Glasscock, A.W. Stencell and Kurt Ganzel, Lydia Thompson: Queen of Burlesque
Forgotten Stars of Musical Theatre (New York: Routledge, 2002). See bibliography for full citations.
 5

Because many modes of performance are sheltered by the word “burlesque” it is problematic to

declare one variant as authentic or uncorrupted. Research for this dissertation interrogated

Corio’s claim that her show was the only authentic reproduction of early-twentieth century

burlesque in the period 1962-1991. The research was initiated with the hypothesis that Corio’s

version of burlesque history and performance diverged from the material conditions of the

industry in the first four decades of the twentieth century. Ann Corio’s pictorial history book,

This Was Burlesque is frequently cited in monographs about the topic but no author or reporter has

thoroughly investigated the content of the book. As a consequence minor, unintentional errors of

the book have been reprinted and Corio’s taradiddles continue to be repeated.

This study was initiated with a second hypothesis which interrogated the denigration of

burlesque through legal and critical censure. A persistent theme in Corio’s brand marketing was

the suppression of burlesque by powerful cultural elitists who lacked the egalitarian humor of

burlesque’s loyal audiences. Why did performances bearing the title “burlesque” invoke censure

and critical disdain while performances with similar theatrical elements were performed without

harassment? Did variables other than class antagonisms affect the cultural reception of burlesque

entertainment? As part of the wider field of entertainment history, this study interrogates the

mechanisms by which established character archetypes and lines of business are reincarnated in

emergent cultural products. Artists build original work from established terms and materials. In

the case of burlesque, the genre first assimilated, and then re-cycled, character types and comedic

structures from minstrelsy. Can tropes which dehumanized and denigrated human subjects be

rehabilitated into narratives which celebrate and lionize? Is it possible to rehabilitate racist, sexist

caricatures into a models for racial and gender equity?

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Key Terms

BURLESQUE

The word burlesque appeared in Thomas Blount’s Glossographia in 1656. The English term

derived from the Italian and French terms burlesco and burla, which were both words for a joke,

jesting or parody.2 In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries burlesque was a literary and

dramatic technique; tragic, romantic and epic works of literature were adapted into humorous

pieces through grotesque exaggerations of the stylistic attributes of the source material. The

definition of burlesque in post-colonial America is historically-contingent and has perpetually

shifted as the genre merged with other forms, diverged into different talent pools and defined its

self in opposition to competing entertainments. (A brief history of burlesque in the United States

will be provided in chapter 1 as context for this term.) Although the definition of the word is

historically contingent there is a basic formula, durable elements that reside even as performers

adapt performances bearing the title burlesque in order to remain competitive. The genre

persistently takes a comic-grotesque approach to: class antagonism, performances of race, female

bodies circulating in the public domain, marital contracts and family structures, gender

comportment and reproductive education. The association between burlesque and eroticized

female bodies took root in the 1860s. Striptease - an act which features partial or full disrobing on

stage - was not an element of burlesque until the 1920s at which time the word became nearly

synonymous with performances which included erotic, semi-nude dances.

BRAND

For this dissertation, Ann Corio’s burlesque products will be examined as a brand, defined

by Graham Hankinson and Philipa Cowking as:

2"burlesque, a and n." The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. OED Online. Oxford University
Press. 5 April, 2010 <http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50029715>.
 7

a product or service made distinctive by its positioning relative to the competition, and by

its personality ... Positioning defines the brand’s point of reference either by price or

usage. Personality consists of a unique combination of functional attributes and symbolic

values with which the target consumer identifies. 3

Marks to identify ownership or manufacture pre-date the Roman empire but a legal code

regulating marks in the United States did not evolve until the eighteenth century. In 1791

Thomas Jefferson advocated for the establishment of trademark laws based on the commerce

clause of the constitution; legislation to protect trade marks was not adopted (without repeal) in

the United States until 1881. Company branding became a more sophisticated process in the

twentieth century as mass production expanded the distribution of goods, mass-media advertising

diversified the options for product promotion and scientific metrics such as advertising-impact

studies generate data which measured the efficacy of a brand’s image and personality. A

company may register marks with the United States Patent and Trademark office to protect a

brand from competitor infringement. Registered marks may include a name, a two or three

dimensional image, a melody, fragrance, product color and internet domain name. Brand

identity is so central to the distribution of goods and services in the United States that a brand’s

value is considered part of a company’s assets. Brand value is a bundle of tangible and intangible

attributes which may include the financial worth of name recognition and consumer trust in the

mark, the durability and cost of the good, the aesthetic qualities which appeal to a consumer

3Graham Hankinson and Philippa Cowking, "What Do You Really Mean by a Brand," Journal of Brand
Management 3, no. 1 (1995): 47.
 8

demographic, the perceived need addressed by the product or service and a consumer’s

expressions of personal identity through conspicuous consumption.4

Corio’s name and image graced each of the products connected to This Was Burlesque.

Her identity served not only as a visual trademark, it was the brand personality: conveying a

sense of historical authenticity and the values of the product through Corio’s stage persona. The

concept of product brands and branding consumer choices in a marketplace will be used to

differentiate between sub-genres of burlesque in the entertainment industry. By examining

aspects such as iconography, language, production, distribution and target consumers, the

intangible values of the Corio brand will be identified.

ANN CORIO

Ann Corio is the narrative core of this research; she was a vibrant, creative person, not an

inanimate research term. But this dissertation is an examination of her burlesque brand, not a

biography of Ann Corio the individual. An expository biography is presented here as in order to

introduce the reader to the primary subject and to provide background information for the study.

Ann Corio was born in Hartford, CT to Italian-immigrant parents on November 2,

1909.5 She was a younger member of a large family. Newspaper items recorded that her siblings

numbered nine, twelve, or fourteen. The inconsistency may have been inaccurate reporting or

4A Seetharaman, "A Conceptual Study on Brand Valuation," Journal of Product and Brand Management 10,
no. 4 (2001); Michael Beverland, "Brand Management and the Challenge of Authenticity," Journal of
Product and Brand Management 14, no. 4 (2005); Wade Jarvis and Steven Goodman, "Effective Marketing of
Small Brands: Niche Positions, Attribute Loyalty and Direct Marketing," Journal of Product and Brand
Management 14, no. 5 (2005); Leslie de Chernatony, "Modelling the Components of the Brand," European
Journal of Marketing 32:11-12, no. 1074-1090 (1997); Walfried Lassar, "Measuring Customer Based Brand
Equity," Journal of Consumer Marketing 12, no. 4 (1995).
5 This is the birthdate recorded on her final passport. She may have been born a few days earlier. Corio’s
niece, Carole Nelson, recalled that Corio had two “birthdays:” one was the date of her home birth and
the other was the date the local midwife entered records of recent births at the city clerk’s office. The
Broadway Internet Database lists her birthdate as November 29; the provenance of this data has not been
identified.
 9

changes in the family (some male siblings perished in the First World War), but Corio surely came

from a large and impoverished family who were rendered more destitute by the death of her

father. Corio began dancing at age fifteen in the chorus of a “tab” (for tabloid) show, the abridged

versions of Broadway musicals which toured

to smaller cities.

Unlike most burlesque performers,

who selected a stage name, Ann Corio never

used a pseudonym although her known

name might not have corresponded to her

birth certificate. Fiercely protective of her

real age when she launched her revival in

1962, it is possible that her birth date was

undiscoverable because it was filed under the

true spelling of her family name - Coiro. The

entire family changed the pronunciation of

their name to the inflection used by their Fig. 2 White Cargo souvenir program, collection of the
author.

predominantly Irish-immigrant neighbors.6

By her account, she did not know what burlesque was when she was recruited into the

chorus of a show. Although her mother initially objected, Corio was determined to be a

performer and “Mamma” Corio became convinced that her daughter was not under imminent

6 Fr. Julius L. Licata, "The Queen of Burlesque: An Interview with the Legendary Ann Corio," Abbott and
Costello Quarterly 1992. This is a particularly forthright interview which reveals more personal information
than any other interview with Corio. I find it probable that Corio volunteered more information because
she was being interviewed by a priest for a newsletter which celebrated the work of her close friend, Lou
Costello.
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threat of vitiation on the burlesque stage. Corio quickly rose to the rank of feature performer,

headlining burlesque circuits by 1927. She married her first manager, the theatrical producer

Emmett Callahan in 1933; the couple separated in 1938 but Corio did not file for divorce until

1943. In 1944 Corio married the vaudevillian and Ed Sullivan Show guest-star Bob Williams in

Ensenada, Mexico. (It is likely that the Catholic Ann Corio sought out a civil marriage following

her much-delayed divorce). Friends attest that Williams was a manipulative husband; he divorced

Corio after convincing her to sign over the deed to her beach-front home in Malibu, California, a

property Corio purchased with her own earnings. After spending much of the 1950s performing

in legitimate plays, Corio returned to burlesque in 1962 with the show This Was Burlesque, which

was co-produced with Michael Iannucci, a novice producer who turned to theatre endeavors

after failing to make the Pittsburgh Steelers professional football team. The much-younger

Iannucci became Corio’s third and final husband in June of 1965; the pair remained married

until her death in 1999. Like her marriage to Williams, Corio’s wedding to Iannucci was discreet

and did not include family members.

The romantic and business partnership of Ann Corio and Michael Iannucci was so

collaborative that it is difficult to identify their individual contributions to the incorporated

businesses which held ownership of This Was Burlesque (TWB). On the most superficial level

Corio was the performer, interlocutor and curator of burlesque content in the show and Iannucci

was the business manager. For convenience, I refer to their burlesque products as the Ann Corio

brand, but Michael Iannucci is an implicit, silent partner in all references to brand content and

development. Interviews with Iannucci after his wife’s death suggest that he was the partner who

gathered information about burlesque history; Iannucci spoke with exacting detail about the

literary and theatrical antecedents of the form. However successful Corio and Iannucci were in
 11

their burlesque collaborations, their non-theatrical business investments were not optimal.

Iannucci invested profits from TWB into high-risk ventures such as oil fields, fashion designers,

and race horses. None of these investments were profitable and it is possible that the duration of

TWB touring can be partially attributed to the couple’s need for continued income. But evidence

of destitution is non-existent; the couple owned properties which served as their homes when not

on tour and they lived comfortably in their retirement. Like most of the comedians cast in TWB

Corio continued to tour well after the age of retirement because she apparently loved performing

and she was determined to distinguish the burlesque industry of her early career from the erotic

dancing and pornography of the later twentieth century. “I think that I will defend burlesque

until the day I die,” Ann Corio wrote in a souvenir program for This Was Burlesque. Although she

retired from public performances in 1991, eight years before her death, she did indeed defend

her industry for most of her professional life. Her later career, which is the focus of this study, was

a sustained campaign to improve the cultural memory and reputation of burlesque.

It is worth noting that in the course of thorough investigation a researcher expects to

encounter testimonies which reveal a subject’s human frailties and moments of weakness. In the

case of Ann Corio, all witnesses consulted were eager to testify to the integrity of Corio’s

personal mettle and her ability to sustain loyal friendships despite extensive touring. She is

remembered fondly by friends, business associates and employees as generous, professional,

nurturing, tolerant and unfailingly kind. Although Corio and Iannucci were not always prompt

with their payroll, I never encountered an associate who cast aspersions on her personal or

professional choices.7 The consistency of character witnesses was surprising. Corio did encounter

7 It should be noted that Corio quarreled with Sherry Britton over similarities in their revival shows (which
will be addressed in chapter three); Britton passed away before this research into Corio’s career was
initiated, as was the case with other business rivals.
 12

significant personal obstacles - poverty, harmful spouses, health concerns and libelous claims

about her profession - but these did not detract from the resolve she brought to her career. While

this study does not document Corio’s personal challenges or the strength of her character, she

was a women who succeeded through quiet integrity.

Histories and documentaries disproportionately favor creative agents with obstreperous

private lives; their intimate dramas become the informing sources for interpretation of creative

work. (This is particularly true for stripteasers; recent biographies of Lili St. Cyr and Gypsy Rose

Lee emphasize their personal lives and romantic affiliations rather than descriptions of their

performances).8 The preponderance of books which reveal the intimate details of a subject’s

personal life raise methodological questions about the ethics of human subjects research among

deceased persons; does the subject’s mortality absolve the researcher of obligations to protect that

individual’s privacy?

This study is modeled after the professional choices of its subject, a woman who did not

publicize her personal tribulations for gains in media exposure. This is not to suggest that Corio’s

moral and personal fortitude were unique in the burlesque industry, that she did not have

enemies, nor that she is an unparalleled figure of influence in burlesque performance. Corio is

one of many great female producers who are worthy of more extensive study and

documentation. Rose la Rose, Lillian Hunt, Jennie Lee and Dixie Evans had long burlesque

careers as creative entrepreneurs, mentors and advocates for unionization and historical

8 See Kelly DiNardo, Gilded Lili: Lili St. Cyr and the Striptease Mystique (New York: Back Stage Books, 2007);
Rachel Shteir, Gypsy: The Art of the Tease (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010). DiNardo’s
emphasis was possibly shaped by her sources; she located and interviewed former associates and relatives
of St. Cyr in her research. Shteir had access to Lee’s personal correspondence, which leads to a more
personal portrait than Stripping Gypsy by Noralee Frankel. Frankel does not ignore Lee’s dramatic personal
life (or fail to research discrepancies in Lee’s memoirs), but her exploration of Lee’s romantic melodramas
is subordinate to an examination of Lee’s advocacy for labor organizations and public confrontations with
the Hays Commission.
 13

preservation; these women represent the many horizons of future research into American

burlesque and the transformation of gender comportment in the twentieth century.

EROTIC

In this study, a broad spectrum of performances with sexual themes and visual elements

will be discussed. These performances are referred to as “erotic,” borrowing from the lesser use

defined in the Oxford English Dictionary, “of the nature of, or pertaining to, sexual love.” While

the OED gives priority to the meaning “pertaining to the passion of love,” “erotic” is used in this

study to address a range of performances and products with sexual content in a large

marketplace of sexual negotiations.9 The word was chosen with the goal of introducing different

theatrical products with a minimum of qualifying judgements about the nature of the commerce,

the aesthetics of production or the motivations of the audience. While it is not possible to entirely

detach one’s analysis from moral conditioning, the term was chosen with the aim of considering

“morally indifferent sex,” as defined by Richard Posner in his work Sex and Reason. Posner

introduces the concept in order to compare sex regulations in different countries, as a means of

attempting an “economic analysis of sexual regulation” and defining those acts “that harm other

persons without their explicit or implicit consent” which require “social intervention.” 10 Because

the legal definitions of pornography have been used to suppress educational materials and

dissenting opinions about sexual conduct (as will be discussed in chapter 5), the differentiation

between pornography and erotica is too unstable for use in a dissertation which must grapple

with the mercurial social nature of commercial products with sexual content. The morally-

9 "erotic, n.b" The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. OED Online. Oxford University Press. 11
July, 2010 <http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50077643>.
10 Richard Posner, Sex and Reason (Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press 1992), 204 and 182.
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indifferent term “erotica” is intended to acknowledge the subjectivity of commercial exchanges

in which crimes against a person are not committed.

Literature Review

The entry on burlesque in the Cambridge Guide to Theatre summarizes the dominant

historiography of burlesque, in which two female performers are icons for two centuries of

burlesque performance. Article author Laurence Senelick names Lydia Thompson as the

inspiration for nineteenth-century burlesque and the “urbane” Gypsy Rose Lee as representative

of twentieth-century burlesque; these are the only female burlesque performers with separate

entries in the volume. Ann Corio appears in the article as a cipher, described as “indestructible.”

The adjective parallels the tone of the article which describes burlesque as “maculose

entertainment:” a cultural stain with a pernicious resistance to criticism.11

A handful of pictorial books are multi-century surveys of burlesque history. Ann Corio

expanded the roster of women credited with shaping the genre through her pictorial history, This

Was Burlesque (1968) which was published in conjunction with the touring show. Corio’s book, co-

authored with Joseph DiMona, amasses rare photos of burlesque performers and traces the

origins of the genre to Aristophanes and the comedia del arte tradition.12 The objective of the book

is to demonstrate that burlesque was a legitimate branch of entertainment (“it’s the lowest

branch, but that’s the limb nearest the people,” Corio explains).13 Corio and DiMona offer as

11 Martin Banham, ed. The Cambridge Guide to Theatre (New York: Cambridge University Press,1992), 134.
12 As with Corio’s collaborative relationship with her husband, Michael Iannucci, evidence of her
individual contributions to the book have not been discovered. Corio’s personal archive contained a book
proposal, without DiMona’s name, and source materials on burlesque history, but no working texts which
illuminate the collaborative process. Under current intellectual property laws, Corio and DiMona’s heirs
have shared ownership of the copyright. DiMona was a fiction novelist, author of documentaries, and co