“I feel sad for anyone who didn’t get to experience it. Because you can talk about it, but you can’t really explain it.” 

Dita Von Teese describes Jubilee, known as the last classic showgirl production on the Las Vegas Strip, as one of her “favorite things to do” when she would visit Vegas in the ‘90s and 2000s.  She recalls a scene that reenacted the sinking of the Titanic, and I nod politely. 

I’m too embarrassed to tell her that I’m one of the people she pities. My Catholic parents didn’t see the value in exposing me to women exposing their breasts onstage. And by the time I would have been able to take myself to a show, Jubilee had closed in 2016, putting to rest a legacy of topless performers dripping in decadent costumes entertaining Vegas showgoers since the ‘50s. 

But where one era ends, another begins. Von Teese, the queen of burlesque who has brought her own inspired show to the Strip—first at the Horseshoe in the former Jubilee Theater and now at the Venetian—says the spirit of the showgirl lives on through symbolism, revived costumes and contemporary performance. 

“I never claimed to be fully creating a replica of Jubilee. I never wanted to do that. ... I have a different outlook on it. But I do respect it very much. And believe me, I would love it if the curtains opened on Jubilee and we had a time machine and could look at the Lido de Paris and see these shows again,” she tells the Weekly. 

Von Teese’s current burlesque show, which opened in September 2024 at Voltaire and has been extended through October of this year, might be the closest we can get to a showgirl spectacular given that it uses the original, ridiculously expensive and elaborate costumes that were worn in Jubilee (more on that later). 

Topless revues on the Strip—like Fantasy at Luxor and X Burlesque, X Country and X Rocks at Caesars Entertainment properties—also bring us closer to one of the essential characteristics of the classic showgirl, her bare chest sans pasties. A few variety shows like Vegas! The Show at Saxe Theater maintain her presence in a supporting role.

Honorary recognitions also keep showgirls on our minds and lips. Fantasy producer Anita Mann successfully petitioned the National Day Archives in Washington to designate May 24 as National Showgirl Day, which was celebrated by generations of showgirls this year with a Champagne pop at Luxor’s Atrium Showroom. And the iconic Crazy Girls statue—a bronze lifecast of seven thong-clad dancers that used to grace the entrance at the Riviera—recently came out of storage to be installed at Circa Downtown. 

Showgirl symbolism is alive and well in Las Vegas and pop culture, as seen in YESCO’s 2022 installation of 50-foot showgirls near the Las Vegas Boulevard Gateway Arches. The Golden Knights have the Vegas Belles. And showgirls appeared in the Killers’ music video for “The Man” well before Taylor Swift summoned their spirit for the name of her next album. 

There’s no doubt the showgirl is revered and remembered. But are we remembering her correctly? 

THE AUTHENTIC VEGAS SHOWGIRL

Gia Coppola’s 2024 film The Last Showgirl, set in Las Vegas and inspired by Jubilee’s closing, captures what purists were holding onto during the closing of the last classic showgirl revue on the Strip. After learning that the fictional Razzle Dazzle will be closing in two weeks, the younger showgirls are trying out for other shows. Pamela Anderson’s character, Shelly, a more seasoned showgirl who has been with Razzle Dazzle since its early days, calls those other shows “low class.” 

The younger girls ask what sets Razzle Dazzle apart. 

“This show’s famous. It’s just tradition. It has roots in France. It’s the last remaining descendent of Parisian Lido culture. ... The glamor is undeniable,” Shelly says, lamenting contemporary Vegas’ flouting of its heritage. 

But to younger people who never experienced any of the classic shows, what does that tradition entail?

In the beginning, the concept of showgirls were an invention of white men like Jack Entratter (who hand picked the Copa Girls at the Sands) and other male entertainment executives at casinos. If you look at photos from the shows in the ’50s, you’ll notice showgirls were all white, with the exception of the Black showgirls who performed at the Westside’s short-lived Moulin Rouge. Even after Vegas’ desegregation in 1960, performers of color were still separated from white performers in shows like Hallelujah Hollywood, and until the early 2000s, Jubilee. 

Physical requirements had a dual purpose—to satisfy the status quo beauty standards of the time, and to ensure that the showgirls could wear and carry the massive, heavy costumes. 

To be hired, women had to be at least 5-foot-8. Scars, tan lines and tattoos were not allowed. Employment applications often included lines for their age, weight, hair, eye and skin colors, and measurements of bust, waist and hips. As one 1981 “personal appearance notice” preserved by Nevada State Museum advises, “a weight reduction” was required of dancers who didn’t maintain the standards.

Grant Philipo, CEO of the Las Vegas Showgirl Museum, is well versed in the history and traditions of showgirls in Vegas and has strong convictions about the definition of that word and the vocation it describes. 

“She had to be topless. ... Technically, if you look up the history and follow it from the 1800s until now, that was the requirement,” he says. “If you want to say, ‘She’s showing and she’s a girl, [so] she’s a showgirl,’ that is a different category. ... It was a big decision for a lot of women to make. They had to think hard about, do I show my breasts or don’t I? And there was the stigma that if she did, she was somehow tainted.” 

The mislabeling of clothed dancers as “showgirls” partly stems from how the productions were marketed, he adds. “Walkers,” who were extremely tall, fully clothed women, were photographed more widely for ads and news. 

Arguing for a more inclusive definition, some may cite the El Rancho Girls or Copa Girls of the ’40s and ’50s who weren’t topless, but did expose a gratuitous amount of skin (by those days’ standards). “They were chorus girls,” Philipo says. Not every cast member in a showgirl production was actually a showgirl proper. 

In The Last Showgirl, Shelly mentioned glamor, which was largely signaled through extravagant costumes and sets. Philipo, a costume designer and former performer, estimates that some of the  backpacks (steel-framed accessories typically with feathers, crystals and other decorative elements radiating outward) in Jubilee cost as much as $50,000. The shows themselves cost millions to produce. 

Shelly also mentioned the French influence on the brand of the Las Vegas showgirl, but before discussing that, the influence of New York’s burlesque scene should be noted. It was New York burlesque producer Harold Minsky who brought the first topless show to the Strip with Minsky’s Follies, which opened at the Dunes in 1957. 

Then came the large productions, which often boasted on their marquees that they were “direct from Paris.” The dancers of Lido de Paris (opened in 1958 at the Stardust) were trained at the famed Madame Bluebell’s Paris headquarters, and the costumes and sets originated from the city as well. At Folies Bergere at the Tropicana, the famous Parisian can-can line was adopted. And Casino de Paris (opened in 1963 at the Dunes) featured French singer Line Renaud. 

The traditional Las Vegas showgirl had many rules. She had to be “beautiful,” young, tall, French-inspired. And shows were spectacular with intricate sets and sometimes more than 100 cast members. But as tastes changed over time, the showgirl and her shows also changed. To survive, she couldn’t stay the same.

TO BREAK THE RULES ...

Philipo recalls a time when stage productions were more abundant in Las Vegas. 

“I came here in ’76. ... That’s when they used to have lounge shows that went until 8 a.m. So you could plan your entire night by maybe going to one or two of the really big shows. And then you would just go to different casinos and go to their lounge shows. ... They were just small versions of the big shows,” he says.

From the originals of the ’50s and ’60s to Hallelujah Hollywood in the ’70s to Jubilee and Crazy Girls in the ’80s to Enter the Night in the ’90s, Vegas revues evolved. New music, new costumes and new acts circulated throughout new productions and editions. Fantasy’s Mann, who has choreographed countless Strip shows including Minsky’s Follies in 1974, recalls how her show changed through the decades. 

“When I started Fantasy in 1999, it was more of the traditional showgirl. And as it kept evolving, and the music that I felt I wanted to put into the show, you can’t do it in those headdresses. You can’t do full-out dancing in those costumes,” she says. “So I started changing a number every few weeks, changing choreography, putting in more dancing. And now it’s evolved to still pay tribute to showgirls.”

Eventually, the showgirl spectacular—the one with the headdresses—was deemed obsolete and too expensive. It’s no coincidence that Folies Bergere, the longest-running show in Las Vegas history, closed in 2009 during the global financial crisis.   

“That era of spending millions of dollars on costumes is finished,” Von Teese says. “You’ll never find somebody investing that much in beautiful costumes with 40-ply ostrich [feathers] ever again. It would be very hard to imagine somebody caring enough to do that in this day and age.”

The exact formula for a showgirl spectacular might be something of the past. But that doesn’t mean the ingredients have expired. The “rules” for what makes a showgirl inspired Von Teese’s show at Voltaire inside the Venetian. 

“I actually really love all of the different rules that the showgirls have. I did go very deep into the history to understand where I wanted to break the rules and where I wanted to respect them,” she says. 

Although burlesque at its core, Von Teese’s show nods to the Las Vegas showgirl with the “unbelievably decadent” Bob Mackie and Pete Menefee-designed costumes dripping with crystals and swelling with feathers, 20-pound headpieces included. A staircase—a staple in revues like Jubilee—appears as well. And she nods to “cliches” in Vegas history with a big-band version of “Viva Las Vegas” playing in opening and closing numbers, in which she and 15 performers gracefully saunter across the stage in costumes once worn in Jubilee. 

Before she encountered them, the prized costumes were simply forgotten and shoved in a basement, according to Von Teese. When she was scoping the Jubilee Theater at Horseshoe as a potential spot for her show, she asked what happened to them. 

“I walked downstairs and it was crazy—dead cockroaches everywhere. There was a massive liquid soap spill that looked like it had been there for years. ... So we revived the costumes,” she says. “It was fun for me to see how they’re made. Because we see a lot of modern reproductions of showgirl costumes. And it’s usually like, let’s glue some rhinestones on a bra or bikini and call it a day. But it’s very different. The bras are made with incredible soldering work. If you got to see any of it up close, it’s really a heavy duty [job].” 

Bringing the costumes back to life is about much more than the costume itself. Von Teese says she feels the weight of “generations of women” who wore them before her—their skill, strength and perseverance. She brings that each time she puts the costume on. 

“I  remember the first time I put [it on] ... I was like, I don’t know if I can wear this. The girls that wore this were so much taller than me,” says Von Teese, who stands 5-foot-3. “I remember it being very hard at first. But anything is hard at first if it’s worth doing.”

As for breaking with tradition, Von Teese brings in the American-style burlesque she is known for. The acts are held together by playful, tantalizing disrobing, leaving only pasties and G-strings by the end. And Voltaire’s catwalk allows performers to get up close, at times dusting audience members with their feathered costumes and thrusting pelvises at eye level. 

“Showgirls and burlesque, they need to evolve. They need to change. They need to become relevant. So for me, some of the things that needed to go out the window were the weight, age and body type stereotypes of the showgirl, and also gender,” says the 52-year-old Von Teese.  

She caught flack from showgirl “purists” criticizing her decision to use performers who didn’t fit the height, weight and age requirements of the past. She put men in costumes traditionally worn by women. And she sought and selected a multicultural cast spanning a variety of sizes.  

“You have to stand for what you believe in and not worry too much about what everyone else thinks. I think I’ve taken a good stance on reconciling the two,” Von Teese says. 

She acknowledges her show’s limits—that it’s not a re-creation of a classic million-dollar show. But above all, the showgirl’s glamor is left intact in Von Teese’s reinvention. 

“I wish there was somebody who wanted to create an amazing, fully fledged showgirl revue in the right way. But they’re going to need a  s**t-ton of money,” she says. “That’s one of the things that made it special. You can’t scrimp on this stuff. The extravagance of it all is so important. It’s part of this, ‘Look, but do not touch.’ It’s this real heightened decadence that would take your breath away. That’s the thing that’s hard to achieve.”

ETERNAL GLORY

Philipo says that since the golden age of the showgirl, Las Vegas has gone in a direction that no longer supports her existence. The family-friendly Vegas era, the dominance of nightclubs since the ’90s and the more recent appetite for interactive entertainment contributed to her decline on the city’s stages. 

In the past, casinos competed with each other for who had the biggest, best show, but today they just aren’t willing to spend as much or in the same ways to entertain guests, he says. And ironically, the hospitality capital of the world has become less hospitable to visitors across the economic spectrum.

“Fred Doumani [who owned the Tropicana from 1974 to 1979] says, back in his day ... our desire was, ‘How much can we give you, and how little do you have to pay for it?’ Now, it’s just the opposite. It’s ... how much can we get off you financially, and give you as little as humanly possible?” Philipo says. 

Losing showgirl productions is about more than just the bottom line. There’s also the loss of what she represented—beauty, glamor and, most importantly, empowerment. That’s what performers, artists and historians have held onto since the closing of Jubilee.

As Philipo seeks out a public venue to operate the Las Vegas Showgirl Museum—currently run out of a private residence that once belonged to Boy-lesque star Kenny Kerr—he also vows to bring a classic revue back to the Strip. 

“Showgirls represented the class and elegance of this town—the fact that anybody, anywhere in the world, the minute you say the words ‘Las Vegas,’ they have the vision of a showgirl. She’s the icon that everybody thinks of,” says Philipo, 67. “As long as I’m alive, I’m bringing her back, along with the showboys. ... It’s very important to me that people not forget her because of everything she did for Las Vegas. And there’s been so many people that are a part of it.”

Not only are showgirls a part of Vegas history, many of them have made significant contributions to the city’s entertainment scene. On the day celebrating the Crazy Girls statue’s return, former cast member Angela Stabile recalls working at the show in her 20s and early 30s to put herself through school. She went on to create and produce the X Burlesque family of revues. 

“We’re celebrating our 23rd year on the Strip. ... In X Rocks and X Burlesque we actually do a tribute number to the showgirl. We have full showgirl costumes at X Rocks because it’s at the Horseshoe. We use the iconic Jubilee costumes and keep them alive,” Stabile says. “It wouldn’t be Las Vegas without the showgirl. ... [And] they’re still around. They always will be.”

The showgirl is unforgettable. She’s eternally in our cultural memory. And her work has made lasting impressions and even changed lives.  

There’s a relevant scene in The Last Showgirl where Shelly is accused of devoting too much to her career and not enough to her family. Why is she so upset that the last classic revue is ending? Why is she so committed to it? 

“I love the show. I feel so good about myself in the show. And you ... can’t understand. The costumes, the sets, being bathed in that light night after night, feeling seen, feeling beautiful. That is powerful. And I can’t imagine my life without it,” Shelly says. 

She underscores how the very act of being  a showgirl is transformative and enriching—a point that Mann of Fantasy made at the celebration of the inaugural National Showgirl Day. 

“It’s a symbol of women’s strength, empowerment, beauty, courage—having the courage and the desire and the tenacity to say, ‘This is beautiful. I feel elegant. I feel beautiful. I want other women to feel beautiful when they look at me and to aspire to be as beautiful as they can be on the inside and out,’” she says. “And when they’re onstage, it’s a glory for them. They are living a moment every night or every day that gives them satisfaction. And hopefully, the audience also feels that empowerment.”

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