Happy Birthday, Chesty Morgan

Not be confused with Lieutenant General Chesty Puller, the most decorated U.S. Marine in American History. Although Chesty Morgan (Ilana Wajc, b. 1937) was pretty well decorated herself.

It feels kind of unholy posting about this woman on a Sunday morning, and, well maybe that’s just how it should be. To add to the moral confusion, we’ve learned that Morgan’s Jewish parents were killed in Poland by the Nazis during World War Two; she spent the latter part of her childhood in Israeli orphanages. War is happening in that country as I type this, and there’s certainly nothing funny about that. Fortunately, this post is going to head immediately into a much lighter direction.

As a young woman Morgan came to the US and got married. After her husband died in 1965, she put her record-breaking 73 inch bust to work and became a burlesque dancer. Initially named Zsa Zsa, someone clearly got across to her that her principal asset was not her European accent. Sensibly, she made her act about the slow peel, making the audience wait for the main attraction rather than tumbling to it at the starting gate.

Given her unique physiognomy it would be natural to assume that Chesty was among Russ Myers’ stable of beauties, but instead, she is known for starring in two Doris Wishman movies, both made in 1974: Deadly Weapons (in which she kills the hit men who rubbed out her husband by smothering them with her breasts) and Double Agent 73 (in which she plays a spy with a camera in her breasts). In 1976 Federico Fellini shot a scene with her for his film Casanova, but ended up cutting it. In the early ’80s, John Waters wrote a part for her in Flamingos Forever, his projected sequel to Pink Flamingos, but it was never made (Divine passed…and then she passed). But he did put scenes from the Wishman features in Serial Mom (1994).

Chesty Morgan retired from stripping in 1991 at the age of 54; she has resided in Tampa Bay, Florida for many years. Don’t ask how she snuffs out the candles on her birthday cake!

For more on show business history,please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous; and keep an eye out for my upcomingElectric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety.