Praise for Goddess of Love Incarnate
"With tireless detail, Zemeckis brings an enigmatic and forgotten star back in the limelight
and raises tough questions about beauty, sex, womanhood, and success in this fascinating, lavishly (and racily) illustrated biography."—Booklist
"In her dazzling new book, Leslie Zemeckis captures the life and times of one of burlesque's true legends. A magnificent portrait of a complicated woman who once captured the fascination of America." —Karen Abbott, New York Times bestselling author of Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War
“I remember hearing my mother, who had seen many beautiful women working for my father, saying that Lili St. Cyr had the most beautiful body of any woman on stage. She did indeed.” —Barbara Walters
“What’s most resonant in Leslie Zemeckis’s biography of Lili St. Cyr is how utterly human this Goddess of Love truly was. This is the story of a disciplined artist, a deeply generous woman, a girl who loved and lost (and loved and lost again and again), and a lady committed to living a determined life. This book, like its subject, is seductive and absolutely captivating.” —Jill Alexander Essbaum, New York Times bestselling author of Hausfrau
"The book is well-written and loaded with photos"—Kirkus
Praise for Behind the Burly-Q documentary:
“Utterly entertaining Behind the Burly Q is a painstakingly researched love letter to the women and men who once made up the community of burlesque performers…its treasure trove of vintage photographs and performance footage is enough to make historians and fans of classic erotica swoon…insightful, fascinating.” –Ernest Hardy, The Village Voice
CRITICS’ PICK! “Intriguing…fans of theatrical history are well advised to check it out”
-New York Magazine
“Charming, entertaining…a delight!” –Manohla Dargis
“Provides a privileged front-row seat to sample several of the form's most memorable practitioners… stories run from raunchy to touching to funny to flat-out incredible.” –Ronnie Scheib, Variety
“Taps into a world of burlesque as we've never seen it before.” - Linnea Covington, New York Press
“Affectionate and engaging…wonderful vintage footage, a fascinating glimpse into a corner of American history.” –New York Daily News
“Fascinatingly strips away at the myths surrounding the most popular American entertainment form of the first half of the 20th century.” –Michael Musto, The Sundance Channel
“Quickly paced, absorbing.” –Kyle Smith, The New York Post
FOUR STARS(EXCELLENT)! “A fun-filled tribute which elevates the Golden Age of Burlesque to its rightful place in history.”-Kam Williams, The Leader
“RUN, DO NOT WALK, TO SEE THIS MOVIE! It is the most thorough, balanced, rich and probing documentary possible about the history of classical burlesque.”-Trav S.D., Travelanche
“History done right: informative, entertaining, funny and finally rather moving…jam-packed with juicy detail, and most of that jam is tasty indeed.”-James van Maanen, Trustmovies
“Delightful, engaging…A veritable who's who of the grande dames of the burlesque stage…for sheer fun, this is a winner.”-George Robinson, Cine-Journal
“Fascinating, colorful and yes, tantalizing… progresses with a peppy pace and lighthearted demeanor probably apropos of a Burly Q show.” –Ross Anthony, The Hollywood Report Card
“Any fan of burlesque will no doubt find it thoroughly enjoyable.”-Adam Schartoff, Film Forward
“A fun and affectionate look at a subject that continues to fascinate generations.” –The Diva Review
“Enjoyable — brassy and loud and thoroughly unapologetic. A lot like its subjects.” –NJ.com
“Intimate and surprisingly interesting …BEHIND THE BURLY Q” is a highly recommended and very important cinematic endeavor… a form of entertainment that has been left out of our cultural history and one that many should know about.” –Andrew Johnson, Black Cat Media
“Burly is the only oral history recorded by many of burlesque’s greatest stars… an interesting look at some unheralded theater history.”-Joe Bendel, J.B.Spins
“Offers a delightful portrait of that bygone era, featuring an extensive roster of veterans of the scene…a well-rounded history of the era.” -Alex Roberts, TV Soundoff
“(Zemeckis) has preserved for us a lively, lovely corner of American life.” - Richard Schickel
“An absorbing, moving and cleverly constructed look at the tradition of American burlesque... the stories are rollercoaster rides!” - Emily Hourican, Irish Independent
09/01/2015
Film producer, director, and author Zemeckis (Behind the Burly Q: The Story of Burlesque in America) continues to explore burlesque in this illustrated biography of striptease dancer Lili St. Cyr (1918–99). At the height of her career, St. Cyr earned $7,000 a week, included among her lovers Orson Welles and Yul Brynner, and was more famous than Gypsy Rose Lee. The author describes how the enigmatic, creative, unconventional, narcissistic, and disarmingly beautiful woman was an entertainment icon with a troubled private life. As a teen, she dropped out of school, was discovered while working at a restaurant, and her career as a showgirl began. She revolutionized stripping and brought legitimacy to it by appearing in high-class Hollywood nightclubs, with an act that was sexy and sophisticated. Statuesque and graceful, she elegantly commanded the stage, dazzling her audiences with the vignettes she created. Notoriety came with indecency arrests. She lived lavishly and married six times, but at the end of her life was a recluse, using drugs and being supported by friends. Zemeckis admirably reveals the many sides of this complicated woman. VERDICT Readers with an interest in dance, theater history, the adult entertainment industry and the law, and women's history will be intrigued.—Joan Stahl, Research and Instruction Univ. Libs., Th Catholic Univ. of America, Washington, DC
2015-06-17
Zemeckis (Behind the Burly Q: The Story of Burlesque in America, 2013) chronicles the life of Lili St. Cyr (1918-1999), by all accounts the queen of the strippers. St. Cyr, like so many in her business, scrabbled to break out of poverty. Luckily, her grandmother Alice remained a stabilizing influence in her childhood. She taught St. Cyr and her sisters to sew, an art they used in making costumes for the burlesque acts. What Alice also taught her was to go after what she wanted and forget whatever didn't work. Unfortunately, St. Cyr never learned how to say no. She accepted every job offered to her, which kept her in the limelight. She also accepted marriage proposals, six of them. She didn't have the nerve to break up, though, waiting for her husbands to tire of being Mr. St. Cyr. Her work, her body, and her beauty were all she ever cared about. She was private, enigmatic, even shy, always emulating Greta Garbo. She never played to the audience, maintaining her air of mystery. The author has difficulty showing the inner St. Cyr because feelings were the one thing she never exposed. There were loves along the way, but an ex-hockey player was the only one she kept going back to, and he never proposed. St. Cyr loved meeting gangsters and marveling at their swagger; they adored and adorned her, and she ate it up. Friends were few, certainly no women (she never trusted them). Her dance routines played to packed houses, and it was her bathtub scene, using a well-placed towel held by her maid, that brought her lasting fame. The book is well-written and loaded with photos but tends to be repetitive—for which the author receives only partial blame: St. Cyr's life was one gig, one man, and one marriage/divorce after another.
