Season 2025 Episode 13. Diane Christiansen tells what it was really like to be a Showgirl in the 1970s

If you have seen recent movies or shows about being a showgirl, it could seem  pretty depressing. Diane Christiansen is here to tell you that it was exciting and uplifting and a way for a young woman in the 1970s who could dance and perform well to see the world! 

Showgirls were powerful women in charge of their own careers — and well-paid, valued players in the flashy world of sequins, feathers, step-kicks, and lavish productions. Most were classically trained dancers who traveled the globe and planned their post-showgirl futures well in advance. They were nothing like the forlorn characters in recent movies.  

Diane tells us what it was really like to be a showgirl and how she pivoted after "retiring" in her early thirties. 

She captured it all in a book "The Last Real Showgirl--My Sequined Life Onstage" available on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Showgirl+Diane+Christiansen&i=stripbooks&crid=3S1YE2W0LIK1B&sprefix=showgirl+diane+christiansen%2Cstripbooks%2C189&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

 or at McFarland:

https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/The-Last-Real-Showgirl/

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Original music "Saturday Sway" by Brendan Talian (for all interviews before 2025)

Transcript

Speaker 2  0:20  
Diane. Hello and welcome to The Storied Human. My guest today is Diane Christensen, she was 17 when she left Illinois to become a show girl. She wound up performing on the world's showiest stages, from Paris to the Bahamas to Las Vegas. Her career was packed with adventures, celebrities, jet setting, 70s style, excess and intense friendships. Her racy new memoir tells all in her candid, rollicking memoir, Diane Christensen recounts her years as a showgirl, an iconic symbol of sexy, top shelf entertainment, rarely seen today, she offers an insider's view to the alluring world of elaborate costumes, dance routines, the meaning of semi nude and nude and life backstage, on stage and off stage, she delves into loves, losses and her high flying life. Showgirls were powerful women in charge of their own careers and well paid, valued players in the flashy world of sequins, feathers, step kicks and lavish productions, most were classically trained dancers who traveled the globe and planned their post show girl futures well in advance. They were nothing like the Forlorn characters in recent movies. Well, there's a million things I want to unpack there. Welcome Diane, it's so good to talk to you.

Speaker 2  2:01  
Oh, it's great to be here. Lynne, thank you for that lovely introduction.

Speaker 1  2:05  
It's exciting. I started your book. I didn't finish it, but I was really, really into it. So fun, and I was kind of on pins and needles when you were talking about auditioning at 17 for the Rockettes. That's so incredibly young. I could never have done that. You were amazing, and you made it. You got on the rockets at that age, and I'm, you know, I'm in New Jersey, so it's especially meaningful.

Unknown Speaker  2:32  
How in the world did you do that?

Speaker 2  2:35  
Well, the I believe it was really because of my mentor and a lot of planning and preparation. Obviously, when I was 13, I was acting in a classical company near Chicago, near my hometown. And as an actor, I met a lot of people, and I met a fabulous dancer who was an amazing actor too, who had studied with with my mentors, and he I knew I wanted to dance, and I didn't start like at five, like a lot of people did. So I started at 13 with my mentors, and I realized that they would be my ticket out of my small town, because they were placing girls in the rocket Lynne, they were placing acrobats in with the roots dancers worldwide. So my mentors, who had been a duo back in New York in the day, in their day, doing kind of a Fred and Ginger routine. So Mary, Lou and Larry were they had resources. Let's put it that way, and I recognized that, and I was very resourceful myself at a young age. So I committed myself at 13 to two dance classes a week and a private lesson every week, religiously, no matter what I was doing, and learned to tap, learned ballet, jazz, tap and started to prepare myself to audition for a rocket when I was a senior in high school. So that preparation took four years.

Unknown Speaker  4:10  
That's what did it, and it

Speaker 1  4:11  
was That's amazing at that age, really, that's amazing,

Speaker 2  4:18  
because tap dancing requires patience, but I knew, I knew we could do it. And she was able to secure a semi private audition for one of my best dance friends and I with the original creator, Russell Marquette, and the original choreographer and company manager, Emily Sherman, at that time. These days, rocket semi private or private auditions are unheard of. They audition people in droves, in 100 at a time.

Unknown Speaker  4:50  
Even see who's good.

Speaker 2  4:52  
Well, they it's their job. That's what they do. A choreographer knows who has it and who doesn't, and it's even. More strict now, and it's only the Christmas Spectacular. They don't even work all year round anymore. Well, that's right, I know so, but it's sad, because that's all there's an audience for. Yeah, yeah, they've taken that Wurlitzer organ that used to be in the in the ceiling, away that doesn't exist anymore in the days of, you know, the rockets when I was there, and about five, six years ago, I was in New York visiting one of my students, who's an actress, who was also a Rockette. And at the time, I think maybe it was seven years ago. And I said, How many days a week do you work? And she said, we work two shows a day, four days a week. When I was there in 1969 it was four shows a day, four shows,

Speaker 3  5:51  
seven days a week. That's insane. Yeah, yes, but you know what?

Speaker 1  5:58  
When you said, I'm sorry to me to interrupt when you started, you set your sights on that goal four years before and you were only 13. What you remind me of, and I think this is totally applicable, reading about the training that you all have to have, is that you had that dedication of an athlete. Dance is very athletic, and you had that dedication, and you had that discipline, I think that gets lost in in this kind of story, sometimes people don't understand how serious it is.

Unknown Speaker  6:31  
Yeah, it is, and it's it's a

Unknown Speaker  6:35  
groups of very dedicated, committed,

Speaker 2  6:39  
disciplined people that winded up with those coveted jobs, yes and when I, when I, when I realized what it took. It's it wasn't. I was athletic anyway. You know, I was the cheerleader. I was on a dance team at school.

Speaker 2  7:01  
I was athletic. I played basketball, all state basketball, and I realized that I had what it took, and went for it. I remember my dance teacher in my hometown bringing the football team from her son's High School to the dance studio to take some ballet classes back in the 60s, and I remember they were horrified at how hard it was. They couldn't believe how hard it was. So even a, you know, strong football player had had trouble with the discipline of ballet, and it's very real. And you know, what's sad is there have been several movies that have come out that are fictitious stories that had some wonderful elements to them, but they they didn't really focus on how disciplined a life it is. In fact, most of the dancers and show girls that I know say I couldn't make a movie about my life. It was boring. I got it up, I went to yoga class or dance class. I had a little dinner, I went and did two or three shows that night, came home, went to bed and repeat. And for some people, that was that was their life. It was their whole life, with relationships sprinkled in between. And that was the tricky part for me managing to have a full time relationship and work under contract as a professional who traveled every year or so, or every few years, to a new country, to a new show,

Unknown Speaker  8:35  
yeah? Like you were, you were all over the place,

Speaker 2  8:38  
yeah, yeah. I was very lucky. I was very lucky. I wound up not working with the Rockettes. He had promised my friend and I, who also was accepted, that we would be called she would be called first to replace girls that left summer replacements. We were in the summer right summer we'd auditioned. In May, we went back home and finished high school. And from June 1, we were on call. And in July, they called Karen, who I knew would go first. He'd already said that, and I waited until the following February, with Nicole, sacrificing this, sacrificing, that staying in class, staying in shape, ready to go at a moment's notice, and that call never came. So I finally, in my 18 year old mind, could not have waited any longer to get into the dazzling world of professional dance. So I went to my mentor, and I said, Do you have another resource for me? Because I can't wait anymore. So she said, Sure, let me connect with the rudest dancers in Montreal. And they were, they were a company out of Perth, Australia, that were an acro ballet dance troupe. So they had everything from acrobats to show girls, and he had shows. In the Chateau Champlain in Montreal, which was brand new in 1970 he had shows on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. And he had a show he would he was part owner of the show at the Tropicana. So he had three shows that he could cast. And he always needed people. So the wonderful thing about that is I started in Montreal, but as it began to get chilly in the fall, he sent me to the Bahamas, and

Unknown Speaker  10:29  
I thought it

Speaker 2  10:31  
was fun. So, yeah, I got to go live in paradise island for a few years. And that was remarkable, and it was very exclusive. Back then, 1970 the Bahamas, Paris Island, was not accessible like it is now. It was very exclusive. We had celebrities, and people came in gowns and, you know, tuxedos, to the casino and to the shows. It was. It was very exclusive, and not like now, where people don't have a show anymore, they have a theater these when they get there, and a casino, of course, and an arcade, but they don't have the big shows anymore.

Speaker 1  11:11  
They don't they went out of fashion, and I missed them.

Speaker 2  11:15  
I know they were magnificent. They were magnificent, and there's never been anything quite like them. You can still see one in Paris, even though the Lido closed in 2024 the summer of 24 you can still see the Moulin Rouge or the Crazy Horse Saloon in Paris. There are two left, but nobody in Vegas is doing it. Cirque du Soleil is taken over.

Speaker 1  11:40  
Things do change. I mean, it's hard, though. It's hard to see things go away like that. So I understand, yeah. I mean things evolve. So I mean

Unknown Speaker  11:52  
media saturated, audience

Speaker 1  11:56  
they need, and you can dream whatever you want. So how long did you stay with the Montreal

Speaker 2  12:05  
I started. I started with the rudest dancers in April. I believe March or April? I think March. Yeah, March of 1970 and I worked until September, and he sent me to his new show in the Bahamas because he had hired a principal dancer from Japan who was very short. She was five, five, and he couldn't have the tall girls in the show because it would diminish her. And so he sent the tall girls to his huge show in Paradise Island. It was called casino de Paradis, and it was a very big stage, and a very big production, three times the size of the one in Montreal. And he said, that's where I went, because I was five nine.

Speaker 1  12:58  
So how exciting was that? I mean, I can't even imagine being that young and going to such an exclusive place, seeing all those celebrities. It must have been so beyond exciting.

Speaker 2  13:09  
Well, I decided to write a book about it. It was unbelievable. I mean, it really was it. Was it? Thank you. I was it. It was so amazing to be in such a beautiful place, just flying over the islands and seeing that turquoise and aqua water that was see through from the air, it was just like, Did I die? Is this heaven? I remember my my best friend, Barbara, who's my cohort in the book, being roomed together at the Britannia Beach Hotel. And while we were getting checked in, we were standing next to Elliot Gould and Amy Amy Irving, and they looked like he had really long hair. They were such hippies. But, you know, it was 1970 exclusive, you know, movie stars checking into the hotel next to us. So I remember Barbara and I literally pinching each other saying, Oh, it's real. Are we? Are we really here? And the crazy thing is, the first day of rehearsals, we went from our room on the sixth floor. After we had the free continental breakfast, we went back, got dressed for our first rehearsal, got in the elevator, and this man was standing in the corner of the elevator, looking down, long white hair hanging down, long nails, deck shoes, a little summer suit, and just not really looking up. He was very old. He didn't look well, and we thought there's this weird old guy in the in the elevator. And we got off the elevator, and Barbara said, Do you know who that was? And I said, No. And he said, that was Howard Hughes.

Speaker 1  14:54  
Howard Hughes, I was wondering, because I remember he got really weird, and he was a recluse. I. My gosh.

Speaker 2  15:02  
Well, he owned a third of the island too. He and Huntington Hartford, oh my gosh, Island back then. And he owned the Britannia Beach Hotel. And he had the whole fifth, I think fifth or seventh floor, I think we were on the sixth. Anyway, he had a whole so, yeah, that's, that's, those are the kind of people we met on the island back then

Speaker 1  15:28  
that is amazing at that age to be exposed to all that. It seems to me such a big life for someone so young. You know, how did you handle that, the celebrities and the glitz and the glamor.

Speaker 2  15:42  
You know, I think the glitz and the glamor is more for the viewer than it is for those delivering the glitz and the glamor. But yes, it is, and yes it was, I think that the overwhelming thing when we first arrived in the Bahamas was how exotic this island felt, how how absolutely beyond beautiful it was, just taking that in. And then, of course, there were the celebrities, and there was, and I don't know if it's the matter of handling it, because our focus was very much on our job. Yes, we were so focused on what we were there to do and how to participate in this company of incredibly talented people from all over the world. We had Czechoslovakian dancers. We had Australian dancers, English dancers, German dancers, American dancers, I mean, Parisians, were all members of these kinds of big shows. So I think it was more about making our relationships work, understanding who was in charge, because there were many head of this and head of that, and knowing who to you know. But I also think that our passion for what we were doing was being fulfilled. Our passion for dance, our passion for performing was the was the the icing on the cake all the time, that was the thing that meant something to us. Got to do something dazzling when Mick and Bianca Jagger came to the show.

Unknown Speaker  17:28  
Yes, and I think that is what

Unknown Speaker  17:33  
is, what really matters.

Unknown Speaker  17:35  
So, Diane, you've had a lot of careers.

Speaker 1  17:39  
I read in the book that you were a Playboy bunny. You ended up being an acting coach. What else did you do? And how did you come to write the book?

Speaker 2  17:50  
Well, to answer your first question, I became, I became an actress. I moved to LA to be an actor at 30, and

Speaker 1  18:01  
I'd done that earlier, right? You had, you had done that when you were young, in acting school and stuff, lots. So you had always, like, leaned that way, right?

Speaker 2  18:12  
I had done that since I was five, and that was my true love. I had an acting scholarship, and as a senior, and I chose to dance first because I knew that was my ticket out of town. But also, dancers have to work while they're young, so by the time I was fully ready to move into my acting life, I was 30, and I didn't want to be an old showgirl.

Speaker 1  18:38  
30 is still young, but I guess it's not so young for a show girl.

Speaker 2  18:42  
No, I think dancers careers last into average mid 30s, mid 30s to 40, and they usually retire in those years. It's really rare to have someone wants to not do something else. If that makes sense.

Speaker 1  18:57  
Again, there's the there's the athlete analogy, right? They don't last much past 40. That's a lot of work. It's a lot of it's hard on your body.

Speaker 2  19:05  
It is hard on your body, and it does take a toll. So my 30 I was ready to move into my my next incarnation, my next trimester, and I did move to LA with a job on the young and the restless. And 10 years after that, I started a theater company with my ex husband, and that's when I opened my acting studio as well. I had a dance studio.

Speaker 1  19:36  
Thank you Diane for such a great interview. I just loved hearing about her career, all the different things she did, but also just sort of setting the record straight about how much fun it really was to be a show girl, and her book is available on Amazon, and also MacFarlane, you can learn more at the last real showgirl.

Unknown Speaker  20:00  
McFarlane. It's the full title. Is the last real showgirl,

Unknown Speaker  20:06  
sequined 70s on stage.

Speaker 1  20:12  
She had just an amazing career. It's so exciting to hear about it, where she got to go, who she got to be with, but also how she remade herself. That's what I love about people's stories, how she ended up doing a lot of things after she's you know, you sort of retire when you're in your early 30s from being a show girl. So thank you again. Diane, it was really great talking to you. And as always, thanks for listening to the storied human I super appreciate it if you could read, leave a review that always helps very much with our ratings, and I might read yours online, on you know, one of the episodes. Thank you very much. You

Transcribed by https://otter.ai