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A showgirl is a female performer in a theatrical
revue who wears an exotic and revealing costume and in some shows may appear
topless. Showgirls are usually dancers, sometimes performing as
chorus girls,
burlesque dancers or
fan dancers,[1] and many are classically trained with skills in
ballet. The term showgirl is also sometimes used by
strippers and some
strip clubs use it as part of their business name.[2]
History
This section needs expansion. You can help by
adding to it. (November 2020)
In eighteenth century
England the term showgirl meant a young woman who acted in a showy way to attract male attention, but by the mid-nineteenth century the term had come to mean a singer and dancer in
music hall acts.[1] Showgirls as we now understand them date from the late 1800s in Parisian
music halls and
cabarets such as the
Moulin Rouge,
Le Lido, and the
Folies Bergère which first featured a
nude showgirl in 1918. A popular showgirl dance was the
can-can.[2] The trafficking of showgirls for the purposes of prostitution was the subject of a salacious novel[which?] by the nineteenth-century French author
Ludovic Halévy.[3] The Ziegfeld Follies revue on
Broadway introduced showgirls to the United States in 1907, and
Busby Berkeley included them in his
Hollywood films in the 1930s. The Bluebell Girls, a dance troupe created by the Irish dancer
Margaret Kelly in 1932, performed at the Folies Bergère and Le Lido. By the 1950s there were permanent troupes of Bluebell Girls in Paris and Las Vegas and touring troupes that travelled around the world.[2]
The first casino on the
Las Vegas Strip to employ dancing girls as a diversion between acts was the
El Rancho Vegas in 1941.[4] Showgirls with expensive costumes were presented in Las Vegas in 1952 at the
Sands Casino for a show with
Danny Thomas.[5] Initially opening and closing for
headline acts, sometimes dancing around the headliner, showgirls later moved on to being the main attraction and stars of the show. During the 1950s and 1960s showgirls performed in every hotel and casino on the Las Vegas strip. Competition between casinos led to increasingly lavish shows and costumes.[2] Major shows of the late 1950s included
Donn Arden's Lido de Paris show at the
Stardust,
Jack Entratter’s Copa Girls at the
Sands Hotel, and
Harold Minsky’s Follies at the
Desert Inn. Minsky introduced topless showgirls and these were then incorporated into The Lido de Paris, a show that ran for 31 years.[6] The popularity of showgirl shows in Las Vegas slowly declined after the 1960s, with all of the major shows closing by the early 21st century.[2]
Several showgirl cars are seen at the
Dinoco booth during the animated film Cars; former
Motorama show car
Flo displays vanity licence plate SHOGRL as a "Motorama 1957 showgirl".
Rover Dangerfield a 1991 film features showgirl Connie, Rover's kind-hearted owner.
The Simpsons episodes "138th Episode Spectacular", "Homer's Night Out", and "Bart After Dark" feature showgirls, the last two include recurring character Shauna "Princess Kashmir" Tipton.
Family Guy opening first has background showgirls then later (Season 9) features main female characters Trish Takanawa, Bonnie Swanson, Jillian Russell-Wilcox, Joyce Kinney and Barbara Pewterschmidt as showgirls, in "Whistle While Your Wife Works" Peter Griffin falls on and crushes a background showgirl, only to complain about hurting his foot, and in "Lottery Fever" one showgirl confronts him about getting her pregnant and ghosting her.
Pokémon episode "The March of the Exeggutor Squad" features showgirls at the Kanto carnival, and magician Melvin's assistant Darla is dressed in a Vulpix themed showgirl outfit, while later Misty Williams wears a Goldeen themed one.
Rock-A-Doodle features showgirl/chorus girl Goldie Pheasant
South Park episode The Death Camp of Tolerance has Herbert Garrison dress up as a showgirl at an award ceremony in an attempt to get fired and then sue for discrimination.
I Love Lucy episode Lucy Gets into Pictures has Lucy Ricardo attempt to play a showgirl who gets shot in a movie, but the oversized headdress keeps knocking her down.
My Little Pony Tales episode And the Winner Is... shows Clover Bloom singing "The Choice I Ought to Make where her friends Melody, Starlight, Patch, Bright Eyes, Sweetheart and Bon Bon dance in a kick line and form a pyramid, wearing garters and feathers in their manes.