By Elissa Strauss December 31, 2009

According to the recent obituaries of Alice Schiller, co-owner of Los Angeles’ legendary burlesque nightclub the Pink Pussycat, was a prudish Midwestern gal who cried when her husband told her he was turning his Hollywood club into a strip club.

The Orthodox Jewish-reared Schiller, the daughter of a deli manager, eventually came to terms with her husband’s vision, and was instrumental in turning the Pink Pussycat into most high-profile burlesque spots around. The club attracted such regulars as the Rat Pack and other members of Los Angeles glitterati. It was also the kind of spot where husbands where often joined by their wives — certainly not the norm for today’s strip clubs. Schiller, who had apparently never smoked, drank, or cursed, had a reputation for treating her workers with respect, and designed a show that was sexy and suggestive, rather than vulgar.

The club — now called Club 7969 — also gained notoriety for its College of Strip Tease, run by fellow Jewess Sally Marr (née Sadie Kitchenberg), mother of comic Lenny Bruce, who died in 1997. Marr taught classes such as “The Psychology of Inhibitions,” “The History and Theory of the Striptease,” and “Applied Sensual Communication.”

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The legacy of these Jewish matriarchs of striptease certainly seems to live on in the playful attitudes of the modern burlesque movement (as written about by The New York Times here), which includes the evolution of the pop group Pussycat Dolls from a Los Angeles lounge of the same name, and even Jewish groups like the Schlep Sisters and Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad (written about in the Forward here).

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount