G-strings, crystals, eyelashes and the longest legs: the life and death of the Las Vegas showgirl
- Since the 1950s Las Vegas casinos have put on extravagant shows with statuesque, scantily clad showgirls
- Tastes have changed and many former showgirls have trouble finding work
It cost a lot of money to dress a topless woman.
A showgirl costume could rival the price of a new car, and dancers changed costumes eight or nine times a night. Jubilee, the last of Las Vegas’ last pull-out-all-the-stops showgirl spectaculars, packed up its feathers and Swarovski-crystal-encrusted G-strings in February 2016 after a 34-year run – a victim of financial excess and changing tastes that currently favour epic Ibiza-style pool parties, EDM-convulsing clubs and so much Cirque de Soleil.
“They’ve Cirqued us to death,” says Lisa Malouf Medford, who appeared in six Vegas extravaganzas. She misses the old days, the 1950s and 60s, when she sashayed in the Tropicana’s Les Folies Bergere, in the golden age of the showgirl.
“I loved the mob,” she says. “I loved those days. They protected you.” (You hear this a lot in Vegas.) Folies closed in 2009, several months shy of its 50th anniversary.
At 81, Medford is a former showgirl. Then again, they’re all former showgirls now in a town that continues to cherish them as curvaceous mascots, as living symbols of a beloved time that’s gone.
Their images are seen everywhere.