Ann Corio, the auburn-haired, green-eyed queen of burlesque whose long-running show, This Was Burlesque, kept alive the art of strippers and the comedy of baggy-pants clowns in the age of the X-rated film, died on March 1 at Englewood Hospital in Englewood, N.J. Ms. Corio, a resident of Cliffside Park, N.J., kept her age a closely guarded secret, but was thought to be in her 80s.
A survivor of a shapely sisterhood that included Gypsy Rose Lee, Maggie Hart and Georgia Sothern, Ms. Corio lasted long enough to reach the iconic status that enabled her to present the striptease as a put-on.
“We emphasize comedy,” she said one day in 1976 as she discussed her show, which began Off Broadway in 1962 and continued for at least two decades in various productions, tours and revivals with Ms. Corio as author, director, star and interlocutor. “There is no total nudity. The girls are lovely and artistic, and they’re terribly, terribly pretty.
“What is called burlesque today isn’t that at all. Those girls aren’t artists. They just take clothes off, and they don’t even do that very well. Burlesque is exactly what it says it is. It’s from the Italian word burlare, to satirize, to laugh. That’s what we do, and we are not offensive.”
Those old enough to remember when strippers in burlesque houses were regarded as hot stuff could recall Ms. Corio as a reigning beauty of the East Coast wheel of burlesque houses that extended from Boston to Washington, with many a whistle-stop in between.
Her fame won her roles in jungle films like Swamp Woman (1941) and touring stage productions like White Cargo. Of her movies, Ms. Corio said, “Those pictures always made money. I asked for $10,000 a week and a percentage and got it, but I didn’t know they were going to shoot the movie in six days. They didn’t want the movie good. They wanted it Tuesday.”
As burlesque faded away, Ms. Corio toured in shows like Rain, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and “Once More With Feeling” until she conceived the idea of This Was Burlesque.
Ms. Corio was one of 12 children of Italian immigrants from Naples who settled in Hartford, Conn. Her father died when she was young, and, at 16, after working as a dancer, she discovered she could earn more on the burlesque circuit.
In addition to her husband, Michael P. Iannucci, she is survived by two sisters, Helen LaRue, of West Hartford, Conn., and Lillian Denote, of Bristol, Conn.
This Was Burlesque, billed as a musical satire based on Ms. Corio’s recollections, opened at the Casino East Theater on Second Avenue and 12th Street in Manhattan and ran for 1,509 performances before it moved to the Hudson Theater on Broadway and ran for 124 more. Over the ensuing years, numerous productions played across the country from Miami to Las Vegas to San Juan. The last performance was in St. Petersburg in 1991.
