"Miss Spontaneous Combustion"
Blaze Starr (born Fannie Belle Fleming; April 10, 1932 – June 15, 2015) was an American stripper and burlesque comedian. Her vivacious presence and inventive use of stage props earned her the nickname "The Hottest Blaze in Burlesque"
EARLY YEARS
She was born Fannie Belle Fleming in 1932 in rural Wilsondale, Wayne County, West Virginia. Fleming left home and moved to Washington, DC when she was sixteen, where Red Snyder discovered her either working in a doughnut shop (according to her autobiography) or as a hat-check girl (according to other sources).
Snyder became Fleming's first manager, encouraged her to start stripping, and gave her the stage name Blaze Starr. After he attempted to rape her, however, Starr left Snyder.
Starr moved to Baltimore, Maryland, eventually becoming a headliner at the Two O'Clock Club nightclub. Starr rose to national renown after she was profiled in a February 1954 Esquire Magazine article, "B-Belles of Burlesque: You Get Strip Tease With Your Beer in Baltimore." The Two O'Clock Club remained her home base, but she started to travel and perform in clubs throughout the country.
ONSTAGE PRESENCE
Starr's striking red hair, voluptuous figure and on-stage enthusiasm were a large part of her appeal. The theatrical flourishes and unique gimmicks she used in her stage show went beyond established burlesque routines like the fan dance and balloon dance.
For example, Starr trained a panther to remove her clothes onstage. After it died unexpectedly, she decided to imitate a panther onstage instead, snarling at her audience while writhing on all fours. This performance, which she made a regular part of her act, eventually got her arrested for obscenity in Philadelphia.
Perhaps her most famous prop was a couch that she rigged to smolder and then appear to burst into flame as she sat on it and undressed.
Two of Starr's performances, including the combustible sofa, are among the burlesque routines featured in the 1956 compilation film Buxom Beautease, produced and directed by Irving Klaw.
Director Doris Wishman's 1960 film Blaze Starr Goes Wild, a nudie-sexploitation film, features Starr's one lead movie role. As the title suggests, she plays herself. The film is also known as Back to Nature, Blaze Starr Goes Back to Nature, Blaze Starr Goes Nudist, Blaze Starr the Original, Busting Out and Nature Girl.
Diane Arbus photographed Starr in 1964. The photo "Blaze Starr at home" was included in the book and traveling exhibit Diane Arbus: Family Albums.
RETIREMENT
Starr eventually bought the Two O'Clock Club, which she owned and managed. Some of her costumes and other memorabilia have been displayed at the Museum of Sex in New York City and the Exotic World Burlesque Museum in Helendale, California. She retired from stripping in 1983, per a Los Angeles Timesinterview she gave when her movie autobiography came out in 1989, and became a gemologist who spent several holiday seasons selling hand-crafted jewelry at the Carrolltowne Mall in Eldersburg, Md., near Baltimore.
