Legend: Ricci Cortez

Ricci Cortez: Featured Legend for Red Hots Burlesque

This week’s legend of the week at Red Hots Burlesque passed away five years ago tomorrow, but her legacy lives on…

RICCI CORTEZ
November 3, 1924 – September 3, 2008

One of the first burlesque performers of the 1940s, Ricci Cortez was known as the “Sleepy Time Girl” in her performing days. She grew up in foster homes as a child, but moved out on her own by the age of 16. Her burlesque career began as a cocktail waitress and bartender, but when she saw an ad for exotic dancer, Cortez knew she fit the bill since she knew how to dance and according to a friend, “figured it was exotic.” For 20 years Cortez danced all over the country on some of the largest burlesque stages. Into her 80s Cortez was known to hop on stage and light up under the spotlight. In 2005 at the Miss Exotic World pageant, a well-tanned and coiffed Cortez stripped unexpectedly and unrehearsed from her pantsuit, raunchily inviting audience members to come hither to the utter delight of performers that could be her grandchildren. Besides her burlesque career Ricci Cortez was also a pioneer for the lesbian community: she and her long-time partner Rita Wanstrom, called Papa Bear – Cortez was Mama Bear – opened an all women’s bar in Houston, Texas called the Roaring Sixties. The bar experienced numerous raids from local law enforcement who demanded that women quit cross-dressing by wearing pants with zippers in the front, but patrons fought back in court until the officers dropped the charges. Cortez passed away in 2008.