Former stripper ‘Tanqueray’ steals spotlight on ‘Humans of New York’ blog

November 20, 2019


A crass elder, whose stripper name was Tanqueray, has Hollywood taking notice after a popular photoblog, Humans of New York, shared a series of her stories this week.

Her tales of “making costumes for strippers and porn stars in Times Square” while at FIT has celebs Hilary Swank, Jennifer Garner and Busy Philipps taking notice, as well as artist Kehinde Wiley and playwright Jeremy O. Harris.

According to the woman in the posts: “My stripper name was Tanqueray. Back in the ’70s, I was the only black girl making white-girl money. I danced in so many Mob clubs that I learned Italian.” She adds, “All my friends were gay people … All I did was gay bars: drag queen contests, Crisco Disco … My friend Paris used to sit at the bar and sell stolen clothes from Bergdorf and Lord & Taylor … So I had the best wardrobe … I looked like a drag queen, honey. One night a Hasidic rabbi tried to pick me up because he thought I was [transgender]. I had to tell him: ‘Baby, this is real fish!’”

In another wild tale, she describes one, “Madame Blanche, who controlled all the high-collar prostitutes back then. She was like the Internet, could get anything you wanted and all the powerful men came to her because she never talked … Madame Blanche set my best friend Vicki up with the president every time he came to New York. And don’t you dare write his name ’cause I can’t afford the lawyers.”

Garner commented, “Why is this not a [Netflix] series?”

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