Legendary burlesque dancer Tempest Storm lived for the stage, says friend
Storm — known as 'the last queen of burlesque' — died this week at the age of 93
Tempest Storm was quiet and shy. But when she walked onto the stage in front of a crowd of adoring fans, she was a force to be reckoned with, says her friend.
The globe-trotting, world famous striptease dancer — known as "the last queen of burlesque" — died at her Las Vegas home on Wednesday, the Washington Post reported. She was 93.
Toronto filmmaker Nimisha Mukerji got to see both Storm's personal and professional sides. She directed a documentary about her called Tempest Storm, which premiered at the Hot Docs festival in 2016. It's currently free for anyone to stream online.
Mukerji spoke to As It Happens host Carol Off about Storm's incredible life and legacy. Here is part of their conversation.
What was it that made her the queen of burlesque?
I think she had found her purpose, and I think that everyone who met her or ... had the privilege of seeing her perform, knew it.
She was 100 per cent about spreading joy, having fun, and she loved being on stage. She loved live performance. She lived for it. She lived for her audiences.
She said in [an interview] that she was very shy of taking off her clothes in front of people, coming from a small town. How did she go from that to, I guess, being the queen of burlesque and clearly enjoying it tremendously?
When I met her, that's what struck me as well, that she was so incredibly shy and she didn't seem to seek out the spotlight in that way. Even in the film, she didn't seek out a documentary being made about her life.
When she stepped out on that stage, she owned it, and I think she was her best self.- Nimisha Mukerji, director of the documentary Tempest Storm
But how she described it to me was that something came over her when she was on stage and she became, she said, like another person. But I think that the person within her would come out on stage, and she was happy.
In an interview in 1969, she said that she had never taken off all of her clothes because it was not only immoral … but she said it was boring and that something had to be left to the imagination.
It was the art of tease, and I think she was a master at that. And for her it was about the journey to get there, not just stripping. There's nothing wrong with that. But for her, it was about the dance of it, the music, the performance, the engagement with the audience, telling a story. She was a performer.
In the 1950s, she was apparently making $100,000 a year, which is a very big chunk of change in the '50s. It's said that she once caused a stampede of male students at the University of Colorado. She was said to have had romances with Elvis, with John F. Kennedy. What did she tell you about all these parts of her life when you talked to her?
It was the perfect person to have been in a film, you know, as a director, having an interview subject like that … From humble beginnings in eastern Georgia … she was 100 per cent self-made.
Of course, there were these sort of celebrities that she had relationships with, and she was very hesitant to give too many details about them.
I think she never sought that out as a reason for her own fame. You know, she was known in her own right as a performer. And so I think she … would recall these memories and it would bring her a lot of joy. And especially Elvis…. I mean, when she talked about Elvis, she said she taught him everything he knew, because she was older than he was. She was 27; he was 22.
She had that gorgeous hair, that flame-red hair, and this amazing figure, gorgeous figure, very large breasts that she was said to have insured with Lloyd's of London for $1 million. All of these things. Did she see herself as a sex symbol?
She saw herself as a sex symbol in the sense that she was a very smart businesswoman. She understood how to market herself, promote herself and … stir up a storm, as she would say.
But her favourite part was the actual performing.
You drew her out on some other parts of her life that she didn't talk about very much. Can you tell us a bit about her personal life?
What interested me about Tempest was … she was born in 1928, she was a self-made, enormously successful woman in her field. And there was a cost to that.
She had alluded to the fact that she had regrets in her life. And then, you know, through the years of interviewing her, more and more sort of came out about the estrangement from her daughter, which she really regretted, her divorce from her husband, [singer] Herb Jeffries … you know, the fact she never knew her birth father.
She had a list of things she wanted to revisit and to look at. And we were lucky enough to see her go through that process. And sometimes it worked out, and sometimes it didn't. But I think in the end of the day, she felt that she had tried her best to reconcile with those that she loved.
What did she think of your film? I know she sat beside you at the premiere.
It was quite nerve wracking because [producer] Kaitlyn [Regehr], and I had decided that we would show her the film at its premiere at Hot Docs.
We hadn't shown her the film before on purpose because we knew that for Tempest to really to not get lost and fixate on just one thing, she needed the audience reaction, and we knew that. So we were sort of balancing anxiety for two things. One, how was the audience going to react? And then how was Tempest going to react?
I sat next to her for the entire film. And when the credits started rolling, you know, she turned to me and she smiled and she said, "You did good."
And and after that, it was just sort of like we were off to the races. We were able to sort of unleash the film on the world together. And we made the film together. So that was something I really value, especially right now, that we had to go through that together.
I understand she gave you some advice.
She said, "Know your own worth."
As a woman, as a female director, I think she would see me and she would say, "You can't ask for permission. You know, you have to just go do what you want to do."
And she was right. And it's words of wisdom I carry with me.
Written by Sheena Goodyear. Interview produced by Katie Geleff. Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
