Charles Rammelkamp

THE INTELLECTUAL STRIPPER

I was already at the top of my career,
moving on from the striptease ghetto
to a full-fledged burlesque act,
to the Ziegfeld Follies, Hollywood,
the New York World’s Fair,
now I could pursue my dream
of being a successful writer.
Gypsy Rose Lee was already a star!

When I moved into 7 Middagh Street
with Carson McCullers, Wystan Auden
and my friend George Davis,
I was all fired up to write a murder mystery,
The G-String Murders, the murder weapon
a chorus girl’s G-string.

When I didn’t have to attend a meeting downtown
or make an appearance at a charity event,
or attend a Broadway opening,
I spent afternoons in my third-floor rooms
working with George on the plot,
the death of Lolita La Verne and the rest.

But the trouble with writing?
It’s hard work, and not having a contract
with a publisher was like being all made up,
ready to go on stage...
and not knowing what theater you’re playing!

So just before Christmas, I told George
I was going to Chicago to join Mike Todd
I worked on G-String in my dressing room,
writing revisions while starring
in several shows a day at Todd’s Theatre Café,
collaborating with my editor, Lee Wright.

But you know what? It paid off!
After The G-String Murders came out,
by winter it was the best-selling mystery
since Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man!


Charles's YouTube video reading of "The Intellectual Stripper":



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Charles confesses: "I’ve recently become interested in the lives of the famous burlesque stars of the first half of the twentieth century – Sally Rand, April March, Candy Barr and the rest. My research took me to Sherill Tippins’ book, February House, about the time Gypsy Rose Lee, Carson McCullers, W.H. Auden and others lived in a house in Brooklyn together, in 1940. Gypsy’s story was fascinating! I had never heard of The G-String Murders before, but it sounds like a gas! I’m getting a copy!"

CHARLES RAMMELKAMP's latest poetry collection, The Field of Happiness, has just been published by Kelsay Books. Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books. He contributes a monthly book review to North of Oxford and is a frequent reviewer for The Lake, London Grip and The Compulsive Reader. A collection of flash fiction, Presto!, will be published in 2023 by Bamboo Dart Press.