Jennie Lee (dancer)
| Jennie Lee | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Virginia Lee Hicks October 23, 1928 Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. |
| Died | March 24, 1990 (aged 61) Helendale, California, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Cancer |
| Occupation | Burlesque entertainer, model |
| Spouse(s) | Daniel Lewis Wanick (m. 1949; d. 1968) |
Jennie Lee (born Virginia Lee Hicks; October 23, 1928 – March 24, 1990) was an American stripper, burlesque entertainer, pin-up model, and a minor role movie actress, who performed several striptease acts in nightclubs during the 1950s and 1960s.
Lee's act centered on how fast she could get her pastie propellers to spin and how dizzy she could make the audience. Due to her figure (42D"–26"–37), she became known as "The Bazoom Girl," "The Burlesque Version of Jayne Mansfield," and eventually, "Miss 44 and Plenty More". By the early fifties she broke into acting with minor roles in Peek-A-Boo (1953), Abandon (1958), Cold Wind in August (1961), and 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt (1964) with Mamie Van Doren. Despite her ambitions of mainstream stardom, she found herself typecast in side roles, and never got her acting career off the ground.
In 1955, she helped start a union for dancers, The Exotic Dancers' League of North America (or EDL), acting as the club's first president. During this time in Los Angeles, dancers' pay rates were extremely low and the EDL helped fight these matters as well as pushing for improved working conditions. Lee's own salary was extremely low as well, and she was forced to live in run-down studio apartments. The dancer tried to keep this from her friends, claiming in a 1980s interview: "They would've thought I was a hooker for sure." During her career Lee appeared on the cover of several magazines, including: Stare in 1954; Risk in 1957; Frolic in 1958, among many others. She wrote an article on herself for a 1955 spread in Modern Man. Besides her life as a stripper, Lee was a noted pin-up girl throughout her career, but like most of her contemporaries, never posed nude, though in later years she did. She also wrote a monthly column on the burlesque and nightclub scene for several years that appeared in a variety of magazines.
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