Name ____________________________________________________ Date _________
Earl and Blaze
One of 11 children, Blaze Starr was born Fannie Belle Fleming and grew up in little Newground Hollow in the hills of West
Virginia, 50 miles from the nearest high school.
I began working at the Sho-Bar in New Orleans in 1959. That's where I met Gov. Earl Long. He wandered in one night
with his entourage. After watching my burning couch routine, he came back to the dressing room and introduced himself.
As I headed onstage for the finale, I could hear him hollering, "Will you go to dinner with me?"
During the next few weeks Earl came in every night. Finally I did go out with him, and he really started to get to me. He
was so kind. We dated for two months before he made a move. Then one night he took my hand and said, "I'd rather roll
in the hay with you than anything I've ever done in my whole life."
Afterward Earl said he wished he was “married to me. But I sloughed it off because he was in politics”. A governor just
doesn't divorce his wife for a stripper. Several months later Earl passed out in the Sho-Bar and had to be taken to the
hospital. He was sure someone was trying to poison him, and he was always complaining of pains in his stomach.
In May 1959, Earl got into a shouting match with some legislators during a debate in the State House, and he had a wild
argument with his wife at the mansion. Then he went to bed, and the next thing he knew they were carting him off to a
mental institution. When he finally got to a telephone a few days later, Earl called and said he had told another inmate he
was Governor of the great state of Louisiana and the guy replied, "Yeah, I used to think I was President Eisenhower." Of
course, Earl really was the Governor. He got out of the hospital by firing the doctors, replacing them with new ones who
would vouch for his sanity.
By law, Earl was not eligible to seek reelection when his term ended later that year. He was miserable not being
Governor. He'd say, "I'm nobody. I'm nobody." He had filed for a legal separation [as had his wife], and he promised to
marry me after the divorce. In the meantime his friends convinced him to run for Congress.
In August, Earl won the Democratic primary. When he called to tell me, he said he wasn't feeling well but would be up to
see me as soon as he could. He didn't tell me he was in the hospital. Ten days later I was shocked to hear on the radio
that he had died from heart disease. While his body lay in state at the Capitol, I walked right up and put a rose on his
casket with my head high and walked out.
I felt lost without Earl and for a while had little desire to take up with another man. Then five years ago I finally stopped
stripping because it got to be so raunchy. There was no more burlesque. Anybody could get up and wiggle and get totally
nude. During one final series of shows in New York City I wore a beautiful see-through negligee and dropped my panties
for a finale. I got $5,000 a week. But after that I hung up my G-string.
Fascinating Factoid: Fannie began her long career as a stripper at the age of 15 in Washington DC. She quit the
business over five years ago and now makes and sells jewelry in a local mall in Carroll County, Md.
WORD PLAY
Make words to fit in the spaces below from the letter in the word at the bottom. You
can use a letter only once unless it is used twice in the word below.
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BLAZE STARR
Activity
Create and color a monument for Blaze
Starr to be erected in New Orleans. Do
a drawing of the monument on the back
of this sheet.
Name__________________________________________________ Date __________________
Blaze Starr
Directions: Create and color a monument for Blaze Starr to be erected in New Orleans.