Burlesque icon put Baltimore on map
Stripper had affair with Louisiana governor
CHARLESTON, W. Va. — Blaze Starr, a burlesque icon and stripper who drew tourists to post-Second World War Baltimore, lent glamour to New Orleans and became known far and wide for her affair with a colourful mid-century Louisiana governor, died Monday. She was 83.
She died at her Wilsondale, West Virginia, home after experiencing heart issues during the past few years, said her nephew Earsten Spaulding.
Born Fannie Belle Fleming in Wayne County, West Virginia, Starr long performed at the Two O’Clock Club in Baltimore, earning her the nickname, The Hottest Blaze in Burlesque.
She’s better known for what happened when she landed at the Sho- Bar club in New Orleans.
That’s where Starr famously had an affair with Louisiana Gov. Earl K. Long, who served in the 1940s and 1950s.
Gus Weill, one of Louisiana’s first political consultants who got his start in politics in the 1960s, said Starr was a “knockout” beauty who gave New Orleans glamour. He did not know her personally.
“They had the romance and history, and she added a good dollop of glamour,” Weill said about her contribution to New Orleans. “She was a wonderful dancer and much loved.”
Ted Jones, an 81-year-old former aide to Long, said Long’s affair was the reflection of “a 60-year-old man trying to reinvent his life.”
Jones said the open affair lasted between 1959 and Long’s death in September 1960, but didn’t mar Long’s legacy — although it gave his political opponents something with which to “jump on him.”
Filmmaker John Waters, a Baltimore native who celebrated the city’s weirdness in movies such as Pink Flamingos and Pecker, said Starr was an important figure in the history of postwar Baltimore.
“She was a stripper on The Block, which for a long time was Baltimore’s only tourist attraction, really, from the Second World War and after, that was why people went to Baltimore,” he said. “I still think she was the best tourist attraction that Baltimore ever had.”
He said she was “never tawdry” and was able to build a diverse fan base. “She had a sense of humour, and she turned what was once thought of as a negative career, being a stripper, into a class act in a weird way,” Waters said. “No one looked down on Blaze Starr.”