Lottie 'The Body' Graves

Lottie "The Body" Tatum-Graves-Claiborne (October 31, 1930 - February 28, 2020) was an American burlesque dancer who performed from the late 1940s to the early 1980s. She was given the nickname "Lottie the Body" when she was a teenager working in modeling. She also became known as the "Black Gypsy Rose Lee" and the "Gypsy Rose Lee of Detroit." Born and raised in New York, her career in burlesque began in San Francisco, and later she moved to Detroit. Lottie was renowned for her support of other exotic dancers, musicians, and entertainers. During her lengthy career, she worked throughout the U.S. and in numerous other countries, performing with many of the great singers, comedians, musicians, and dancers of her era.

Overview Lottie Tatum Graves Claiborne (née Bristow) was born in Syracuse, New York, on October 31, 1930. She grew up enjoying participating in sports like baseball and basketball, and loved studying ballet as a girl. By age seventeen, she quit school to become a professional dancer. Her first professional job was performing with Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, Herbert White's popular dance troupe in the 1940s that traveled to venues around the country. Famous for the "Lindy Hop," the routines were a combination of jazz, tap, swing, and more. She was also working as a model. At that time in her life, she did not foresee a career as an exotic dancer. But, once the Lindy Hop craze died, she quickly learned that other types of professional jobs in the field of dance were few and far between for an African American woman. It was then that she honed her skills as a burlesque performer. Thus began a long career that took Lottie around the world and introduced her to a life that she'd never imagined. There she lived for many years with Robert Graves. When he died, she met and married Willie Claiborne, and they enjoyed a long marriage until her death.

Career When Lottie lived and performed in San Francisco in the late 1940s and early 1950s, she also traveled the country to work. She became a popular performer in Arthur Bragg's Idlewild Review at the Paradise Club in Idlewild, a resort town dubbed the "Black Eden of Michigan." There she was known as the "Black Gypsy Rose Lee." She eventually made Detroit, Michigan, her home base.

Throughout her career, her strip show used Afro-Cuban music and choreography, and she wore elaborate costumes. having no idea he would become a Communist revolutionary.

Early in her career, when she was married to Tatum, she often served as an unpaid MC for the Globetrotters. By the time she was in her fifties, she danced less and worked as an MC more, at Detroit night clubs. Her effervescent personality made her popular with club audiences. She retired at age 61. When she needed a walker late in her life, she laughed and said it was because she'd done the splits one too many times.

Civil Rights Movement

Lottie believed that she lived her "own sort of Civil Rights Movement", In 2006, she was a guest of honor at the 16th Annual Miss Exotic World Pageant. She is included in the Detroit Performs exhibit at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, and was honored by them in a ceremony at the Detroit Orchestra Hall in 2013. In 2015, Lottie wrote about her life in the collection of women's stories, What We Talk about When We’re Over 60, with Linda Hughes and Sherri Daley. The Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas named her their Living Legend of 2017, and their museum has a display that includes one of her show gowns. The book Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Jazz Era, updated in 2020, by Elizabeth Pepin Silva and Lewis Watts, includes an interview with Lottie.

Words of wisdom

In her chapter for What We Talk about When We're Over 60, Lottie chronicled highlights of her personal and professional experiences, including overcoming racial barriers in order to pursue her passion for dancing. Her goal was always "sharing whatever gifts I have to make people happy." She wrote, "If I were to give advice to a young woman today, it would be to live your dreams, just like I did. If I could make it in a time when there was everything going against me - a teenaged African-American female in a highly competitive profession during racist times - you can do whatever it is you desire to do, too. Just remember me, Lottie the Body. If I could do it, you can, too."

Death

Lottie Graves-Claiborne died in Detroit on February 28, 2020, at the age of 89. Not long before her death, she reminisced about having lived a full life with no regrets. "To all you women... I pray that you may have the same kind of love and happiness that I enjoy. I send my love and God's blessings to you all."