Tempest Storm, the ‘Queen of Burlesque’ who wowed Las Vegas and had affairs with Elvis and JFK – obituary
Plucked from the chorus line, she became the highest paid dancer in America and worked into her ninth decade
Tempest Storm in the mid-1950s
Credit: Graphic House
Tempest Storm, who has died aged 93, was known as the Queen of Burlesque; she shot to fame in the 1950s with a risqué act in Las Vegas and was still strutting her stuff in her 80s.
Burlesque performers are often described as strippers, but their art has little to do with the in-your-face silicone-enhanced excess of modern strip clubs. The origins of burlesque date back to a time when total nudity was against the law and the art of adult entertainment lay in the coy tease and the saucy seduction, not the revelation, with dancers mostly (though not entirely – Tempest Storm was arrested several times for nudity and topless dancing) retaining their modesty behind feathers or fans.