Lili St. Cyr

Marie Frances Van Schaack (June 3, 1918 – January 29, 1999), known professionally as Lili St. Cyr, was a prominent American burlesque dancer and stripper. Early years St. Cyr was born Willis Marie Van Schaack in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on June 3, 1918. Her maternal half-sister Rosemary Minsky (married to Harold Minsky née Van Schaack; born 1924) was also a burlesque dancer and stripper under the stage name Dardy Orlando, appearing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2004. The sisters, and Barbara Moffett, were raised by their grandparents, the Klarquists. Having taken ballet lessons throughout her youth, she began to dance professionally as a chorus line member at the Florentine Gardens in Hollywood. St. Cyr had to beg her manager at a club to let her do a solo act. From her self-choreographed act, she eventually landed a bit part at a club called the Music Box in San Francisco, with the Duncan Sisters. It was here that she found a dancer's salary was only a small fraction of the featured star's salary: the difference was that the featured star was nude. Burlesque career In the 1940s and most of the 1950s, St. Cyr, Gypsy Rose Lee and Ann Corio were the most recognized acts in striptease. St. Cyr's stage name is a patronymic of the French aristocracy, which she first used when booked as a nude performer in Las Vegas.