But I think people will always be very intimidated by women and their eroticism, especially as they get older.” “The more examples we see of sensuality and beauty at every age the better. Her most captivating co-stars in the film, the voluptuous Dirty Martini and Perle Noire, are not young women, but they are gloriously entertaining, sexy and fun, and guaranteed to bring the house down. On the strength of Night of the Teese, there’s no reason for her to stand down. “Yeah, holy crap, I’m turning 49 in a week!” she laughs. Previously Von Teese said she might stop performing when she reached 50. In the 1940s, I would’ve had to quit by the time I was 30.” It’s a great time to be a burlesque dancer. There are trans performers and people who are really challenging the stereotypes. We have a very empowered community which has become a place to celebrate different bodies and skin colours and politics. “But actually, it wasn’t the golden age then – it’s the golden age now. “How do we evolve burlesque into something that it wasn’t really in the golden age?” she asks. With her longtime creative collaborator Catherine D’Lish, Von Teese is always trying to find something nobody’s done before. “That’s my speciality.”Ĭlam glam … in Night of the Teese.

“I love trying to come up with the most complicated striptease costume,” she smiles. It’s a land of satin, ostrich feathers and diamanté nipple pasties, with each of her many-layered outfits drenched in sparkle. Von Teese is all about the showbusiness, from the giant clam shell she emerges from in her opening routine to the finale bathing in a fizz-filled champagne coupe. “When I was watching a certain famous talkshow host doing his show from his backyard, I thought, ‘Oh, you really do need some showbusiness,’ you know?” While others rushed out online content during the pandemic, Von Teese took her time to get the details right. The reason for our conversation is a new film, Night of the Teese, made with director Quinn Wilson and featuring some of Von Teese’s classic routines alongside guest performers from male burlesque artist Jett Adore to hula-hoop virtuoso Marawa. It’s easy to see traces of Heather Sweet, the “super shy” girl from small-town Michigan who transformed into Von Teese. So it’s surprising to discover quite how normal she is: chatty, self-deprecating, not very vampish. Only knowing Von Teese from her femme fatale image, her teasingly aloof burlesque performances, and her time in the tabloids as former wife of goth rocker Marilyn Manson, you might expect an icy demeanour, an impermeable mystique. Her lips are that signature red, she’s wearing 1950s cat eye glasses, and her black hair falls in a thick wave across a Snow White skin – and all this on the unglamorous stage of a glitchy Zoom call.

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