Date of Printing: c. 1960 • Medium: Photograph (B&W) Silver Platinum Print• Subject Category: Bizarre & Oddities • Signed: Upper Right Period • Created: Post-Modern (1950 - 1999) • Plate Size HxWxD cm: 22.3 x 17.3 • Leaf Paper Size HxW cm: 25.5 x 20.3 • Style: Original Vintage • Print on Verso: Blank on verso • Condition: Pristine - new or as new • Edition Type: Limited Edition • Paper Type: Resin Coated Photographic Paper • Framed: Unframed
Autographed photog of infamous burlesque dancer BLAZE STARR, by J. J. Kriegsmann."Love and Kisses Blaze Star" signed in marker.This is NOT a digital reproduction.From the estate of Dixie Evans, the famous burlesque dancer.
Blaze Starr was the notorious dancer who was entangled in the careers of polticians such as Governor Earl Long, Senator Huey P. Long, and others, which was made into the 1989 film "Blaze" about her life starring Paul Newman and Lolita Davidovich.
This collectible is part our LEGENDS OF BURLESQUE series on Antinous. From the estate of burlesque dancer DIXIE EVANS.
James J. Kriegsmann (1 January 1909 – 29 April 1994) was a celebrity and theatrical photographer who worked from 1929 to the early 1960s. Kriegsmann photographed many Motown notables, as well as Bill “Mr. Bojangles” Robinson, Florence Ballard, Cab Calloway, Frank Sinatra (also with daughter Nancy on his knee), Ray Conniff, Bill Haley, Sid Caesar, Benny Goodman, Ray Charles, Martha Raye, Doris Day, Milton Berle, Duke Ellington, Smokey Robinson, “Little” Stevie Wonder, Tom & Jerry (later Simon and Garfunkel), and hundreds more.
In addition to his work as a photographer to the stars, Kriegsmann wrote hundreds of songs for top recording artists of the day, including the hit “The Happy Organ” for Dave "Baby" Cortez, which was the first instrumental song to reach number one on the Top 100 Billboard charts, in 1959, and has been featured in many films.His studio occupied a former Hungarian restaurant in the first floor of the Actors’ Equity Building at 165 West 46th Street, New York City, and operated for over 60 years in partnership with his two sons, noted photographers James J. Kriegsmann Jr. and Thomas O. Kriegsmann. In its time the studio was the largest headshot photography studio in the world.
Kriegsmann became the official in-house photographer for Harlem’s Cotton Club, and he was considered among the best photographers in America, who at that time included Tony Bruno, a Hollywood photographer who relocated to New York City and worked from his studio in Carnegie Hall; Chicago’s Maurice Seymour who eventually joined Kriegsmann in his New York studio and photographed alongside him for many years; and the legendary George Hurrell of Hollywood.