An effusive but revealing look at a fashion pioneer.
A fashion show manager describes her kaleidoscopic career.
Former model Smaltz begins her memoir in grand style. “To my dearest and truly fabulous friends,” she writes, adding that readers “are about to travel through the intimate halls of my life—those spicy, profound secrets I have kept close to my heart.” She describes how “a Black woman from the vibrant heart of Harlem” became “enmeshed in the luxurious folds of haute couture and high fashion.” Born in 1937, she grew up modestly well off in Harlem before beginning her modeling career, which started with a gig as part of Willie Mays’ Say Hey Kid campaign. She then had various stints: model and sales coordinator for Lane Bryant, Ebony fashion editor, columnist for Vogue, and ultimately founder of Ground Crew (TGC), a management company that ran fashion shows for such designers as Donna Karan, Oscar de la Renta, and more. Smaltz also chronicles her love life, from a one-night stand with Isaac Hayes to her longtime relationship with Lionel Hampton and her marriage to former basketball star Gail Marquis. Much of the prose in this adjective-heavy memoir is breathless (but often amusing); she notes, for instance, that paramour Walt Bellamy of the New York Knicks was “225 pounds of pure chocolate sexiness,” adding, “He had stamina!” Amid all the fabulousness, however, is a sober portrait of her era’s racism, from the difficulty Black women had in finding pantyhose that matched their skin to the Bloomingdale’s executive who almost didn’t hire her as a second Black staff member because “the presence of a single token Black employee seemed to be her threshold for diversity.” And she dispenses useful advice applicable to any discipline, as when she encourages readers to find “that sweet spot where passion and duty merge, turning every task into a labor of love, a joy rather than a chore.”
An effusive but revealing look at a fashion pioneer.Pub Date: today
ISBN: 9780063452695
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2026
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.
According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy, which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063226562
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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