Evelyn "$50,000 treasure chest" West: death rumor confirmed. St. Louis Dispatch story
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window of a cream-colored duplex at 708 Columbus Parkway on Nov. 14, he
found the body of a St. Louis legend.
Amy Charles had not been seen for several days. Friends from Tampa,
Fla. - those who had known her in her heyday - had called and e-mailed
repeatedly but got no response. They called the police, who found the
door locked and no one to answer the knock.
As it turned out, Charles had died in her sleep. Nearby were
medications for thyroid and heart problems. Officer William Comeford
filed his report - death apparently from natural causes - and returned
to business as usual.
He ignored the clues that this 83-year-old woman once had been famous.
They could be found in the stacks of provocative photographs all about
her quarters; three bedrooms stacked with boxes that made it impossible
to walk through the rooms. Some contained the outfits she donned
backstage and then discarded onstage to the cheers of hundreds each
night.
Amy Charles was known in St. Louis as Evelyn "$50,000 treasure chest"
West. Her chief claim to fame: her 39 1/2-inch bust that Lloyds of
London insured for the $50K. She performed twice nightly in a
striptease act at the Stardust Club on the old DeBaliviere Strip, just
north of Forest Park and its Jefferson Memorial. In St. Louis in the
'50s and '60s, her name was as familiar to male adolescents and young
adults as that of Stan Musial, though, of course, the two inspired
different forms of adulation.
Evelyn West performed before as many as 1,500 customers a week at the
Stardust, earning 90 cents for each patron. She enjoyed a national
reputation, appearing in clubs from Los Angeles to Miami Beach and in
50-cent magazines with names like Blush, Wolf Bait and Fever for Men.
She starred in a movie, "A Night at the Follies," and you could find
her posing on a deck of playing cards and in color photos suitable for
a barracks or a frat house wall.
She may be best remembered for the ads that appeared in this newspaper
and the old Globe-Democrat, touting her treasures and their ties to
that very dignified London insurance agency.
And yet, Evelyn West's death went unnoticed for months. She had no next
of kin to make her funeral arrangements or to call the newspapers. Her
body was cremated, and the disposition of her remains is still a bit of
a mystery.
Her landlady, Muriel Kirschner, got possession of her property when no
one made a claim. But now the material found is in some dispute as a
distant relation has emerged to make a claim, and the case may go to
court. In any event, there seems little over which to battle. No one
can be sure, but the insurance policy - if it was ever in force - has
probably lapsed.
What remains are the pictures, personal effects and a computer that was
a lifeline for West. It connected her to a dwindling following of fans
and to the online auction house eBay, which provided a meager income
with the sale of the pictures.
Kirschner said that until West's death, she had no knowledge that her
tenant had been a famous stripper. "I didn't know a thing until after
she died, and we found all that paraphernalia," she told a reporter who
paid a call on her this month.
Though the name Amy Charles had never rung a bell with Kirschner,
Evelyn West brought back a memory or two. "My daughter-in-law's dad
used to skip school in Danville, Ind., to go see her," she said.
The Post-Dispatch learned of West's death from an ardent fan, Terry
Klasek of Hazelwood. A Vietnam War veteran, Klasek had caught West's
act many times in his youth and actually was invited to take part in it
on a few occasions. He would play a doctor with a stethoscope - and,
well, it would go on from there.
Klasek reconnected with West in August through eBay. There she was
selling the photographs and offering to sign them for a few dollars
more. "Item #6121662519 Evelyn West Super Bosom and Legs in Bedroom:
$20.73, add $9 for autograph and shipping."
Klasek began a correspondence that demonstrated that while the
octogenarian was no longer stripping, she still knew how to tease.
"Hello dear Terry," she wrote. "It's your Bosom Buddy. You will get
pictures you enjoy and that will bring back memories from the Stardust.
Yes, I think Red and Black are the two sexiest colors. Glad you liked
me putting the Red stockings on."
When West stopped responding, Klasek began sending e-mails to others
familiar with burlesque. He got the bad news in January, then contacted
STLtoday.com two weeks later.
Klasek thought West's death deserved attention, that an obituary - even
if a few months late - should appear in the newspaper of the town where
she gained her renown.
And so here it is.
Evelyn West was born Amy May Coomer in Adair, Ky., and grew up on a
farm in Petersburg, Ill., (population 2,400) just northwest of
Springfield, Ill. When it comes to performers like West, it can be
difficult to separate truth from legend. One story has it that her
husband and promoter, Al Charles, discovered her in a farm field in
Petersburg, immediately appreciated her potential and put her on the
circuit. Another story has it that the two met much later in the San
Francisco Bay area when West was already in the business.
Raymond Montgomery, a longtime Petersburg resident and contemporary of
West's - they both went to the one-room Brush School - recalls that she
lived with her family for a time in a three-room house and that "she
had a sad life as a child." He remembers Amy's mom taking a stick and
"switching her all the way" from school to her house.
No one was particularly surprised to learn that Amy got into the
profession. Petersburg was home to circuses and people who worked in
the carnival business. Soon enough she was performing in a sideshow at
the Illinois State Fair.
Her career was first recognized in newspaper clippings in the 1940s
when she performed in Calumet City, south of Chicago. That was back
when it was a mob-controlled striptease town with steamy B-girl joints
up and down the main street.
In many respects, West was a kind of crossover artist. Burlesque, in
the words of Francine du Plessix Gray writing in The New Yorker, was a
"venerable American genre." It included music, dance and comedy, with
the stripping just one aspect. Jimmy Durante, Milton Berle, Lenny Bruce
and Rodney Dangerfield all honed their acts in burlesque theaters.
A typical joke cited in the New Yorker: (Minister approaching a pretty
woman): "Do you believe in the hereafter?"
Woman: "Certainly I do."
Minister (leering): "Then you know what I'm here after."
West embraced the comedic aspects, too. But at some point, burlesque as
art form began to veer off into what many consider pornography and an
increasing focus on the female anatomy, lust and prostitution. Over the
years, West would get in and out of trouble with the law.
But it was her bust that drew the most attention and became a part of
her legacy. In fact, she went to the Menard County Circuit Court in
Petersburg in 1953 to have her name changed to Evelyn "$50,000 Treasure
Chest" West.
"Evelyn is the girl generally credited with making burlesque
bust-conscious," wrote Lou Felice, a writer for Sir!, a men's magazine
from the 1950s. "Before she entered the strip picture, burlesque
movements emphasized a sexy walk with the bumps and grinds. Relatively
little importance had been attached to an eye-stopping bosom."
As West's fame increased, she began to market her wares. "The Post
Office Department banned her pin-up pictures from the mails," Felice
wrote. "Postal examiners ruled that 22 of her photos, which were
advertised for sale at one dollar, had a 'lewd' aspect. They also
charged that other pictures of Miss West were being offered at rates
that went up as the exposure increased. This is probably the first time
a dancer has been accused of performing a striptease by mail."
Felice's account was found online. His reporting could not be
independently verified, and it's probably safe to say the reporting
standards at Sir! were not up to, say, The New Yorker. So the
discerning reader might consider this part of the lore.
A known fact is that West starred in a "A Night at the Follies," an
hour-long black-and-white movie, apparently filmed shortly after the
end of World War II, although the video box says 1956. Coming out in a
skimpy dress and a fur, she opened by saying: "I know you're looking at
my shoes."
By the 1950s, West had married Al Charles, the club promoter, and the
two found their way to St. Louis and the Stardust Club on the old
DeBaliviere Strip.
The DeBaliviere area had as many as five strip clubs - including the
Stardust, Tic-Toc and Little Las Vegas - the Apollo Theater, bookie and
gambling joints, and a famous old Garavelli's restaurant. They are all
gone now. The old strip district is now a strip mall.
Police raids and arrests were frequent occurrences on the strip, and
West was occasionally taken to the pokey. Her longtime bondsman, Bob
Block, said they never put her in a holdover. "We went to a judge and
got the bond. I got her out six or eight times," said Block, 79, who is
still working the courthouses, with an office in Creve Coeur.
Even given the numerous police raids, retired Deputy Police Chief James
Hackett, a St. Louis police legend, admired West's moxie and her moves.
He called her "the Babe Ruth of stripteasing."
The Stardust Club thrived in the '60s, when hundreds of young men
flocked to see West and a bevy of other dancers entertain in pasties
and g-strings.
Rodney Dangerfield performed there once. Briefly. Pete Johnstone, then
a drummer at the Stardust and now a jeweler in Crestwood, remembers it
this way: "Al Charles was operating the green spotlight, and
Dangerfield said, 'The green spotlight makes me look dead.' And Charles
said, 'Why don't you take your junk and get out of here?'"
The Stardust remained open until 1977, but business had fallen off well
before then. West and Charles left St. Louis in 1977, with the headline
reading: "Stardust's End Brings Strip Down To Nothing." The club had
been declared a "bawdy house," and St. Louis Circuit Judge Gary M.
Gaertner ordered it padlocked. Charles later admitted that the club was
used for prostitution.
(An ironic footnote: The judge acted on a complaint filed by Circuit
Attorney George Peach. In April 1992, after 16 years as a vigorous
opponent of prostitution and pornography, Peach was arrested at a hotel
near Lambert Field after offering a woman he thought was a prostitute
$150 for sex. She was a St. Louis County decoy detective.)
Online friends
West and Charles moved to Florida, and West gradually retired from the
stage. After Charles died at age 95 in 2001, acquaintances said, West
led a rather reclusive life. But she kept in touch with old friends in
the burlesque business through e-mail. Among them was Eugene Hanlon of
Tampa, whose wife was a stripper named "Candy Baby" Caramelo. It was he
who called the Hollywood police when he hadn't heard from West for
several days.
"The last time I talked to her on the phone, she said, 'I'm pooped,'
and that was the last I heard from her," said Hanlon.
Klasek, the Hazelwood fan, said his online relationship with West was
all too brief - from August until a few months before her death in
November. Even so the two exchanged memories. Klasek sent her some
brassieres (size 42D); she sent back pictures and warm thoughts.
West wanted to know what had become of the DeBaliviere Strip. She said
she still kept up with the Cardinals and told Klasek, "You are tops on
my list!"
Now Klasek has only his pictures and his memories.
"I learned that all fame is fleeting as I mourn my friend," Klasek
wrote in his e-mail to STLtoday.com. "The end of an era for sure."
Or as her Florida landlady, Muriel Kirschner, said: "I have to tell
you, she was a beautiful woman. The strip-geezers were right - she was
quite an attraction."
Bill Schenley
> through a rear bedroom window of a cream-colored
> duplex at 708 Columbus Parkway on Nov. 14, he
> found the body of a St. Louis legend.
Very cool obit. Thanks.
Here's some photographs of Evelyn West:
http://javasbachelorpad.com/ewest.html
http://www.imagemakers.mb.ca/pinups/burlesque/west/west1.html
<snipped>
> "Evelyn is the girl generally credited with making
> burlesque bust-conscious," wrote Lou Felice, a writer
> for Sir!, a men's magazine from the 1950s.
Lou Felice's article in Sir! ...
http://www.javabachelor.100megs4.com/nudewest.html
Juan
strip geezers? LOL!