Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Dallas Burlesque Legend Candy Barr Dies

The Dallas Morning News reports that Candy Barr, perhaps the most famous stripper in Dallas history, died last Friday in Victoria, Tx. of pneumonia at age 70.

Born as Juanita Slusher in 1935, Barr first came to prominence at age 16 as the star of 1951’s Smart Alec, a well-circulated stag film she allegedly made at gunpoint. Barr wowed patrons at Abe Weinstein’s Colony Club on Commerce St. during the Fifties and was friends with Jack Ruby, who owned the Carousel club two doors down. She also took a stab at “legitimate” theater, portraying Jayne Mansfield in a local production of Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? in 1957.

Before gunning down Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV, Ruby gave Barr a dachshund puppy and offered to get her parole terms changed so she could work as a stripper again. She served three years on a draconian marijuana conviction and was charged but not convicted of assault to murder in the shooting of her estranged second husband. Barr was also romantically linked to Las Vegas mobster Mickey Cohen and Hugh Hefner.

Click here for more photos of Barr. Tame stuff by today's standards, but probably NSFW just the same.

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