#4: Raven
FROM HELLS ANGELS TO BURLESQUE.
A Columbia Presbyterian nurse, then a drug counselor in the California prison system, Raven de la Croix busted loose as a burlesque star at the age of 32. She’d also spent eight years with the Hells Angels and starred in several Russ Meyer films. Here in the headliner’s dressing room of the Melody Burlesk, in 1982, the stripper prepares.
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- A stripper prepares. Raven de la Croix and Josh, Melody Burlesk, 1982
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- Money in the bank. But trouble x 2 (photo: Russ Meyer)
Josh interviews Raven at Melody Burlesk, 1982
#3: Mr. Burlesk
WELCOME TO THE BACK OFFICE OF THE MELODY BURLESK.
Frank Sinatra’s boyhood pal and first bodyguard, Bob Anthony, also became a big band singer. Tougher than Frank, but devoid of hit records, he went on to found the Melody Burlesk in Times Square. Like the Heimlich maneuver, you might assume a lap dance occurred somewhere through the millennia, but apparently not. They began at the Melody, as well as the first stage appearances of porn stars. Bob Anthony fought vice raids and roughnecks, running Times Square’s foremost burlesk theater.
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- Annie Sprinkle, Bob Anthony, Bob’s son, Josh, unidentified stripper
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- Bob Anthony in 1945, fronting Bob Chester & His Orchestra
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- Need a light, big boy?