Calendar girl

Hairdresser happy to tell the tale of her colorful history

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They called her Marilyn, the Calendar Girl, and her performance was for the appeal, not so much to reveal.

Georgia "Marilyn" Marzette grew up between here and Southern California. She was 18 when she decided to follow in the footsteps of her predecessors, like Gypsy Rose Lee, Little Egypt and Sally Rand.

Marzette won't give her age, but it's safe to say that around the time Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe were the favorites on the silver screen, she was one of the favorites on the burlesque stage. She was billed as a featured performer, with her name on nightclub marquees.

She graced the cover of magazines like Billboard and Tattler. Men lined up past the door to get into clubs when she was booked.

Back then, burlesque was an art. Sure, she peeled off a glove here, a panel there, but the tiny 5-foot-3 Marzette kept things G-rated by today's standards. Well, maybe PG-13 rated.

"In burlesque, we didn't go down to nothing like they do now, those girls on the poles. You didn't do that," she said. "Why, we were more covered up than what you see on the beach nowadays."

She expressed contempt for skimpy bathing suits, saying women have no idea how bad they look in them.

"Even the ones with good figures look better when a little more is hidden," she said.

Although she had dance lessons and acrobatic training throughout her childhood, Marzette needed to learn the art of burlesque for her new job. At first, she was one of the girls "dancing the line," the equivalent of a chorus line dancer.

Mickey Rooney's father, Joe Yule, advised her to bypass that aspect and learn to disrobe in a provocative way, as dancing the line only paid $75 a week. So she learned skits, how to improvise and which dance steps best complemented her tease.

"But it wasn't so much dancing as it was gyrating," she said.

When the other burlesque performers would break between shows to go grab dinner, she stayed at the theater and went downstairs to practice.

Marzette recalled the first time she was to go on stage solo.

"I was just scared to death," she said. "I stood there (backstage) and shook."

But something clicked and all her preparation paid off. From then on, she was one of the industry's favorites.

Whether she was working under contract in Los Angeles or on the East Coast, she kept her act fresh with new costumes, which cost about $800 per ensemble, or new props. She was known for getting on top of a drum -- roughly three feet tall and four feet in diameter -- to perform.

Marzette balanced working the burlesque circuit -- Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Cincinnati -- with nightclub work in Niagara Falls, Boston or Long Island.

She followed acts like Jerry Vale and Dakota Staton and worked with other notable names of burlesque like Lili St. Cyr, Ann Perri and Rusty Russell. Marzette said anyone working the circuit was seen as part of one, big family. She tells stories of haunted theaters where she arrived early only to hear "very strange noises" of a backstage tabby cat someone named G-string, and of the camaraderie the dancers enjoyed.

She credited Ginger Jones with making her feel welcome early in her career by taking her hand and walking on stage together because "she knew I was the next star to come on the circuit," she said. "I'll never forget her doing that."

Marzette made about $2,500 a week and seldom had a day off. Between that and all the traveling involved, she never settled down and got married. But she did invest.

The petite Marzette said she never had to work out to maintain her 34B-22-34 figure.

"Tempest Storm, she had 48s," Marzette said. "In burlesque circles, we called girls like her a freak attraction because of those bombs."

At about age 35, Marzette saw how nightclubs were a fading part of America and she danced her last tease. She studied hairdressing and now operates a little shop that simply goes by the name Haircuts $5, located on the northwest corner of Cheyenne Avenue and Rainbow Blvd.

On the walls are 8-by-10 glossies of her in her glory days.

She was cutting the hair of Marvin Levin, a retired service manager for a car dealer. "These pictures are of you?" he asked. He put on his glasses to better take in the display.

"Ah, the days when you and I were younger," he said. "They're very nice."

The following week, another patron, Angela Motsch, a snowbird from Chicago, was surprised to learn Marzette was the woman in the pictures.

"She's so beautiful," Motsch said. "And she still is. She was a liberal woman in a different era."

Marzette said the photos are only up to appease the store owner, a longtime friend. Sometimes, when patrons ask about them, she denies knowing any details about them. No one suspects anything because, these days, she goes by her real first name.

Does Marzette have any regrets?

"Hell no," she said. "I had a good time."