The new acts' major influences were movies and their curvy queens Brigitte Bardot and Marilyn Monroe. With their big blonde hair, ample breasts, and highly fertile hips, these bombshells inspired women everywhere to exxagerate their own voluptuousness.

Every one of my products - my lingerie, my perfume, and everything that I do beauty-related with regard to building my burlesque shows - is just me.

Physical beauty isn't so impressive to me.

When I started performing, there was no Internet; I didn't really have anything to copy. I kind of had to just make up what I thought burlesque was, based on photographs of Sally Rand or whatever.

My beauty icons are women whose images are self-created.

Me personally, I want to entertain people above all. When you look back at burlesque in history and the real golden age of burlesque, those entertainers were there to entertain, and there wasn't usually some big political message behind what they were doing.