Burlesque legend Tempest Storm celebrates ‘21st’ birthday

By John Katsilometes

Wednesday, Feb. 29, 2012 | 6 p.m.

Tempest Storm is turning 21, and this can only mean one thing:

Party.

But Storm is not exactly partying it up in the sense that she is shedding her gown sashaying across a stage while twirling a feathered boa. Rather, for the vaunted burlesque queen, dinner with a few friends will mark this occasion.

One of my favorite figures in Vegas for a long time, Storm is actually 84 years in real years but has celebrated the actual natal date 21 times because she is a leap-year baby.

So, 21 it is.

“I am finally old enough to drink!” she said during a phone conversation today. “The problem is, I don’t drink! I guess I’m missing out.”

Storm has been interviewed for a segment on “Entertainment Tonight” to air today at 7 p.m. on KLAS Channel 8, in which she will talk about how her life will change now that she is 21. Sadly, Storm’s dancing career has been curtailed after she fell onstage at the Burlesque Hall of Fame reunion show at the Plaza in June 2010. She suffered a broken left hip in the mishap, but her spirit is left intact.

Storm is as busy as ever, making personal appearances, visiting guitar gods in Detroit and talking with syndicated entertainment shows. We honor her with a list of 21 fun facts about Tempest Storm on her “21st” birthday:

21: She has recorded an interview with modern-day rock legend Jack White at White’s Third Man Records studio in Detroit. The record is to be released on vinyl in the spring as part of White’s “Green Series” of spoken word/instructional records, all on vinyl.

20: She was featured during a taping of the antiques and collectibles show “American Pickers” that aired on the History Channel in January. White was the subject of a transaction involving a stuffed elephant head and was visited by the “Pickers” team at Third Man Records, and coincidentally (or so it seemed), Storm was on site posing for her album cover.

19: She does not drink and has never taken drugs.

18: When she was a little girl, Storm used to go to the movies telling herself that the performers were actually backstage, behind the screen.

17: She worked as a carhop at Simon’s Drive-In in Hollywood until she got her first job as a cocktail waitress at the Paddock Club in Huntington Beach, Calif.

16: Her current measurements are 40D-21-34, about what they were when she launched her career as a burlesque dancer.

15: Her measurements have often been misstated or exaggerated. She once told interviewer Roger Ebert, “I was playing a theater in Florida, and they had a big banner in front of the theater advertising 48-22-36. Good Lord, can you imagine? I exercise and diet to stay in shape, and then some idiot theater manager comes along and gives me eight extra inches.”

14: In 1956, she signed a 10-year contract at $100,000 a year with the Bryan-Engels burlesque production company, becoming the highest paid stripper in the business.

13: She first performed in Las Vegas in 1951, at Embassy nightclub in North Las Vegas. She also headlined at Hacienda and Dunes.

12: Her one vice has been slot machines, and she stopped playing years ago. She estimates she lost $30,000 at the machines in 1980 alone.

11: She once dated Elvis Presley and says that, romantically, “He really was the King.”

10: She was born Annie Banks Blanch. She started using “Tempest Storm” as a stage name in 1951 at age 17.

9: She changed her name legally in 1957.

8: In 1952, she helped orchestrate a publicity stunt during a Hollywood awards show at Barney's Beanery, a show that spoofed the Oscars called the Mickey Awards. She arrived at the event in a Rolls-Royce and was given a citation by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis for boasting “The Biggest Props in Hollywood.”

7: In the 1950s, she referred to her breasts as her “moneymakers” and insured them for $1 million.

6: In 1999, she stripped at the famed O’Farrell Theatre to celebrate the club’s 30th anniversary. Then-San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown honored her on Tempest Storm Day in S.F.

5: Before heading to Hollywood, one of her jobs was as an inspector for the Archer Hosiery Company in Columbus, Ga.

4: Her first husband was the brother of one of her co-workers at the hosiery plant.

3: She was 15 when she first married.

2: She made $40 a week as a chorus-line dancer but agreed to strip when Folies Theater talent coordinator Lilian Hunt offered her a $20-per-week raise.

1: The most important rule in burlesque, she says, is, “No matter what happens, keep moving.”

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWithTheDish.