THE GRANNY OF ‘EM ALL!
LOVE Island stars who are snapped with dildoes up their minges or Z-list celebs baring all on OnlyFans may reckon they’re breaking new ground. PAH! Today Midweek Sport pays tribute to legendary stripper Tempest Storm, who was getting ’em off before most modern celebs’ GRANDFATHERS were born!
The burlesque performer, star of early Russ Meyer films and later rock generation icon, died last week in her Las Vegas apartment. She was 93.
Storm was born Annie Blanche Banks in Eastman, Georgia, and at the age of 20, already married twice, moved to Hollywood.
At first working as a cocktail waitress, she soon found work as a striptease performer with the Follies Theater.
She adopted the stage name Tempest Storm in 1950 and, shortly after her arrival in L.A. became friends with neighbour Marilyn Monroe.
By the mid-1950s, Storm had become an internationally famous nightclub performer and was featured in the early Russ Meyer sexploitation films French Peep Show (1950), Paris After Midnight (1951) and Striptease Girl (1952).
Cult
In 1955, she shared the silver screen with Bettie Page in Irving Klaw’s destined-for-cult-status classic Teaserama.
In 1956 Storm became the highest-paid burlesque performer in history with a 10-year contract for $100,000 a year with the Bryan-Engels production company.
She first performed in Las
Vegas in 1951, and in 1957 began performing at the Dunes Hotel and Casino. She headlined on the Strip until the late 1980s.
Among her famous lovers were Elvis Presley, Mickey Rooney, Louis Armstrong, Sammy Davis Jr, gangster Mickey Cohen and even U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
Storm, who moved to Las Vegas in 2005, gave her final performance in June 2010 at a Burlesque Hall of Fame reunion show.
Here are some photographs of her flashing her much-desired flesh from the golden age of stripping.