Doing Our Part for the ‘Ball of Fire’

Betty Rowland, aka “The Ball of Fire” is a 93-year-old retired burlesque queen. We first met in 1997 during research for my documentary film on the last generation of burlesque, Pretty Things (2005). Betty also wrote the forward to my book on the same subject, Pretty Things: The Last Generation of American Burlesque Queens (Harper Collins, 2006)

The first time we met in person she told me that she had sued my grandfather, Samuel Goldwyn, as part of a publicity stunt surrounding his film Ball of Fire (1941). In my research I found that notorious Hollywood copycat costume designer Edith Head had modified one of Betty’s burlesque costumes for Barbara Stanwyck’s nightclub singer character. My grandfather and grandmother, along with Head and director Howard Hawks, had all been named in a deposition as having gone down to the Follies Theater in Los Angeles to catch her act. For me, this was just another (albeit quite personal) example of how much burlesque had influenced “legitimate” entertainment.

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