Pole Positions:
Stripper Detectives
Okay, okay, most of these characters ARE NOT private eyes. But they do take their clothes off.
I admit it -- I have a definite weakness for stripper/detectives, ever since I read "Angel Face" by Cornell Woolrich, which featured Jerry Wheeler as a stripper who turns gumshoe to save her kid brother from a frame-up in "Face Work," a short story that apeared in the October 1937 issue of Black Mask. It was later filmed as Convicted, starring Rita Hayworth.
And of course, the most famous stripper detective of all has
to be Gypsy Rose Lee. Yep, Gypsy Rose Lee, "America's most
famous take-it-off artist," wrote a few mystery novels in
which she played detective. Or, at least, she claimed to have
written them. It's pretty widely suspected that Craig
Rice, the creator of sleuthin', drinkin' attorney John J. Malone, actually wrote the
books.
.
List respectfully compiled by Kevin Burton Smith.
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