Playboy Ann Stasia

In the late 1950s, the emergence of Playboy Magazine and the appearance of "nudie cutie" movies like The Immoral Mr. Teas had made burlesque seem passé in the eyes of many, and by 1962, the art of the striptease was far enough out of fashion to become a nostalgia item. In 1959, Gypsy, the musical about the life of burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee, was a hit on Broadway, and two years later, Ann Corio, who had been a well-known "peeler" in the '40s and '50s, launched her stage revue This Was Burlesque, which re-created the baggy-pants comedy and sexy dance numbers that were burlesque's bread and butter. The show jump-started Corio's career and was in production in New York or on the road until the early '90s; inspired by the success of the show, Roulette Records (who had released This Was Burlesque's original cast recording) teamed with Corio to produce the 1962 album How to Strip For Your Husband…