We lose track sometimes of where our stuff comes from because we’ve been collecting it for so long, but we think we picked up this copy of Revudeville last time we were in London. It’s a twenty page magazine put together by impresario Vivian Van Damm (a guy) and Anne Mitelle, dedicated exclusively to burlesque shows at the city’s Windmill Theatre, which opened in 1931.
Located on Great Windmill Street, as you see in the inset, it was a storied locale, managed by Van Damm, hosting drama, burlesque, and comedy. It was a pioneer in tableaux vivants, which were individual women or, more often, groups of women, posed in scenes of motionless nudity.
The Windmill became so famous there was even a 1949 Rita Hayworth movie based on it called Tonight and Every Night. You notice the “we never closed” legend on the magazine’s cover, as well as in neon on the building? That references the fact that the Windmill stayed open during World War II—hence tonight and every night. At least until 1964, when it closed. There’s something on the spot now called the Windmill Soho, but it’s a combined restaurant, cabaret, and nightclub under different ownership. Anyway, this issue of Revudeville is from 1958, and features Sallie Dorey, Brenda Gilbert, Irene King, and many others, in assorted scans below.
