A name like Fannie Belle Fleming wasn't suitable for a woman who could blow the stage up in smoke and make the crowd sweat while she sashayed in front of them.
Blaze Starr, a flirtatious and kind-hearted burlesque dancer who was known to be able to seduce any man in the audience with her "fiery red hair and ample bosom," has passed away.
She died at her home in Wilsondale, West Virginia, after experiencing heart issues during the past few years, according to her nephew Earsten Spaulding, Fox News reported.
The voluptuous stripper often performed at the Two O'Clock Club in Baltimore, earning her the nickname, "The Hottest Blaze in Burlesque." The strip joint was located on "the Block," a street lined with the most famous adult venues and entertainment stores.
Starr had an affair with Louisiana Gov. Earl K. Long, who served in the 1940s and 1950s, shortly after she arrived at the Sho-Bar club in New Orleans.
Her relationship with Long caused such a scandal that it became the basis of the plot of a film called "Blaze," which starred Lolita Davidovich alongside Paul Newman. The film drew on Starr's memoir, "Blaze Starr: My Life as Told to Huey Perry," published in 1974, according to the New York Times.
Ted Jones, an 81-year-old former aide to Long, said Long's affair was the reflection of "a 60-year-old man trying to reinvent his life."
As part of her stage routine, Starr would tuck a rose between her breasts and blow the petals across her chest, in an effort to excite the audience. She also would stretch out on a couch and slowly undress herself.
After performing for 30 years, she decided to pursue other opportunities in the 80s, mostly because doing burlesque became "too raunchy," she told People back in 1989.
She became a gemologist and made jewelry, which she sold at a mall in suburban Baltimore.
Reflecting on her career as a stripper, she told a reporter for The Baltimore Sun in 2010: "Honey, I loved it. But everything has its season."
"She was a stripper on The Block, which for a long time was Baltimore's only tourist attraction, really, from the Second World War and after, that was why people went to Baltimore. I still think she was the best tourist attraction that Baltimore ever had," filmmaker John Waters said.
The family is still working out funeral arrangements.
