Burlesque dancer struts at 83 on NBC
Asked how she should be billed, Penny Starr of Palm Bay suggests “the oldest working burlesque dancer.”
She turns 84 on July 31, but she’s getting an early present: a showcase on “Little Big Shots: Forever Young” at 8 p.m. today on NBC.
After 60 years of strutting her stuff, she has a succinct explanation for her longevity: “I love to dance.”
She talks enthusiastically about her time on the national TV show. “I thought it was wonderful,” she says. “I really enjoyed that — everything, the studio, the people, looking up at the cameras and the lights”
Asked about host Steve Harvey, she starts giggling and calls him “something else, funny, great. He’s a great guy. He had fun with me.”
When she finished her number, he was supposed to put a housecoat on her. Instead, he told her she looked like his mother and performed some physical comedy with the garment.
“I told him, ‘You’re supposed to put it on me, Steve. It does have arm holes,’ ” she says.
NBC says she chats with Harvey about the “art of the tease” and teaches him a few signature moves, which should mean more physical comedy.
In her long career, Starr has danced for Rat Pack pals Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. “They were all great guys, all of ’em,” she says.
She moved to Florida three years ago from Allentown, Pa. How does she like the Sunshine State? “Oh, I love it,” she says. She says her husband, who is 73, loves her dancing and is “very gracious” about it, never critical. “He was in show business, too. He used to manage the Allman Brothers,” she adds. (Starr has two children, ages 67 and 62.)
Starr continues to perform by going to Las Vegas every year for the Miss Exotic World Pageant, which brings attention to the Burlesque Hall of Fame.
“I dance,” Starr says. “I’m a legend, of course. I’m in the hall of fame.”
But she never won the pageant. “They didn’t have that when I started. They had nothing like that,” she says.
Starr says she enjoys being around the younger burlesque dancers.
“They’re excited when I’m around. They ask me a lot of questions,” she says. “I teach a bump-and-grind class in Vegas.”
Also on the calendar: a trip next month to Pennsylvania Burlesque Festival, where she will perform.
She speaks sympathetically about the challenges faced by younger dancers.
“Oh, my. I don’t know if I’d want to go out and work in lounges now, because they’re not paying the girls anything,” she says. “I wouldn’t work for $40, $50 a night. I got $500 a night when I worked.”
She would work three nights in a row and collect a $1,500 check without any problem, Starr says.
“It’s hard to make money now,” she says. “Most of the girls work at daytime jobs, I didn’t have to do that. Most of it goes for their costumes. Costumes are very expensive.”
Because you need glitz with the bump and grind.