Image from New York Public Library Robinson Locke Collection of Dramatic Scrapbooks
Is Cincinnati the home of striptease? More than one historian of burlesque has suggested exactly that. While there are any number of theories out there on just how striptease originated, a handful of historians have pointed to Cincinnati and, in particular to a publicity-hungry ecdysiast named Millie De Leon and her Cincinnati manager, James Fennessy.
Millie De Leon was what was known around 1900 as a “cooch” dancer. Cooch (or cootch or hootchy-kootchy) was an erotic but ersatz style of belly dancing popularized at the Chicago World’s Fair of 1892-93. There were several women who built profitable stage careers by cooch dancing, the most famous being Fahreda Mazar Spyropoulos and Ashea Wabe, both of whom performed under the stage name of “Little Egypt.”
Born in New York as either Elizabeth or Maude or Amelia Lawrence, Millie De Leon was brought to Cincinnati by James Fennessy, manager of Hubert Heuck’s People’s Theatre on Vine Street, as part of a resident company of burlesque performers who would entertain between the headline acts. Robert Heuck, son of the theater owner, in a 1958 memoir, described Fennessy as “a pistol-packing colonel from the South, an extrovert, a real showman, a spotlight seeker, and father’s front man and manager. He made all the announcements before the audience, made all the public appearances, and held the public eye.”
Fennessy was, indeed, a publicity hound. As manager of Heuck’s Opera House and the Lyceum on Plum Street in addition to the People’s Theatre, Fennessy was mentioned in the papers a lot, and quite often for pushing the boundaries of accepted good taste.
Antique Postcard Digitized by Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County
When Millie De Leon arrived in Cincinnati around 1901, she was almost 30 years old and already known as “The Girl In Blue.” At that time, “blue” had a risqué connotation, the same sense that later applied to “blue language” and “blue movies.” Millie certainly did her best to maintain that “blue” image. While appearing at People’s, Millie had a local photographer snap a selection of nude images so she could sell them to her fans.
Fennessy recognized Millie’s thirst for fame or infamy, whichever arrived first, as a red-hot attraction. All Millie needed, as Anne Fliotsos described it in her Journal of American Culture [Winter 1998] article, “Gotta Get A Gimmick,” was exactly that—a gimmick. For Millie De Leon, the gimmick was a garter. Actually a half-dozen garters.
As Millie performed her act, she unclasped a series of garters from her naked calf and tossed them into the audience. The crowds went wild, especially because Millie conveniently “forgot” to wear her stage tights. The sight of a bare leg was the height of obscenity at the time, and Millie found herself hauled off to the hoosegow in cities across America. Each arrest garnered headlines—and bigger ticket sales at her next stop.
Image from "Cincinnati Post," November 19, 1904
James Fennessy realized he had created a phenomenon beyond his control one night in November 1901. A group of 75 young men in Over-the-Rhine had organized themselves as a social club named “the Micks.” To mark their first anniversary, the Micks planned a midnight dinner with a special entertainment—the “Girl In Blue” herself. Millie De Leon agreed to present a very exclusive show for $35—darn close to $1,000 in today’s money. The Cincinnati cops showed up, but Millie was spirited away. Once the police were gone, she was smuggled back into the building, and:
“. . . carried out her part of the programme to the letter. It was long after midnight when the performance was finished, and the statement was made yesterday that everybody went away satisfied ‘that he had got his money’s worth.’”
Fennessy was apoplectic.
“I explicitly contracted that the ‘Girl In Blue’ should appear at no stag entertainments and I want her to keep that agreement.”
Millie went on to national stardom regardless, mostly on the vaudeville circuit managed by Fennessy for the Heucks, titillating audiences well into her mid-forties while earning $4,000 a week. She died in 1922, around 50 years of age, in New York City.
In his book, Burleycue: An Underground History of Burlesque Days, author Bernard Sobel speculates that the “willful removal of one’s clothes” on stage began with Millie’s Cincinnati garter-tossing.
Millie was extolled as “the first real queen of American Burlesque” and “burlesque’s first truly national sex symbol” by Robert C. Toll in his book, On with the Show: The First Century of Show Business in America.
Rachel Shtier, author of Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show, notes Millie’s pioneering act and specifically credits Fennessy:
“Although her name is French (Millie looks suspiciously like Mlle.), she built her early career in Cincinnati and was first tutored by western circuit manager James Fennessy.”
Shtier acknowledges that Millie composed her act around sexuality rather than classic good looks.
“Some photos show De Leon as corpulent, jolly and bespangled. She is not highbrow feminine in the wispy beauty standards of the day. She is cheery, takes up a lot of room, and lacks the Gibson girl’s cherubic neatness. But when De Leon undressed, she manifested a bad-girl erotic power.”
A description of Millie’s scandalous dance is recorded in detail by the Philadelphia North American in 1914. After removing most of her outer clothing and tossing several garters, Millie began to “cooch.”
“From knee to neck she was convulsive. Every muscle became eloquent of primitive emotion. Amid groans, cat calls, and howls of approval from the audience, she stopped. Standing suddenly erect, with a deft movement she revealed her nude right leg from knee almost to waist. . . Streaked and sweaty, her face took on the aspect of epilepsy. She bit her lips, rolled her eyes, pulled fiercely at great handfuls of her black, curly hair. Indescribable noises and loud suggestions mingled in the hot breath of the audience. Men in the orchestra rose with shouts. A woman—one of six present—hissed. Laughter became uproarious. And then, sensing her climax, Millie De Leon gave a little cry that was more of a yelp, and ceased.”
Oh, my!
The old People’s Theatre is still there at the northwest corner of 13th and Vine in Over-the-Rhine. That old building has a reasonably good case to be recognized as the birthplace of striptease.
