That Name, That Face, Those Boobs...
We toss around the word “Legend” probably more than we should. But there are some who truly deserve that title, and Kitten Natividad is a legend.
Kitten Natividad is probably best known for her work with director Russ Meyer in the films Up! and Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens. But before she bared it all on screen, Nativida was a dancer, stripper, and burlesque performer. Now she is inspires a new generation of burlesque performers and is the star of a new documentary League of Exotic Dancers which focuses on the golden age of burlesque.
Natividad recently sat down for an interview with the Huffington Post. If you want to check out the full interview, go here. If not, here are a couple of highlights:
On getting her start:
I started with go-go dancing. Yes. Then I went into stripping. Because go-go dancing was boring. After a while you get bored. You want to be creative. Have a theme. Have a costume. Have props. Things like that. Yeah.
The difference between burlesque and stripping:
Well let me tell you. It all depends on what venue you’re in. If you go to a titty bar you can just call it dancing and exotic dancing. If you did it in a theater it was called burlesque stripping. And some places, nightclubs, they called us strippers. It just depends on the venue.
But the bottom line is that if you end up in pasties and a g-string you’re a stripper. And for these girls who do burlesque, it’s a show that has an emcee, a singer, a dancer, a clown, a juggler, whatever...and then it’s got strippers in there. They also have dancers that don’t take it off. But some of these girls think that if you’re burlesque that you’re higher class than a stripper. But they still end up naked. You know what I mean? Who the hell are they kidding?
On Russ Meyer and being in movies about her big boobs:
Honey, my rock star was Russ Meyer. And I did movies about big tits. That was my rock.
Yeah, but you know, it’s good to reach. What I think is, and my manager Sparky Blain always told me, you gotta become a household word. Like Ivory Soap. Or Comet. Everybody from like gay, straight, whatever. They need to know your name. And these modern burlesque dancers, they just can’t like be with women, and performing for women, working for women. That’s all about women. You know what I mean?
Personally, I can’t wait for League of Exotic Dancers to hit a theater near me or hit one of the streaming services. Until then, I think I need to watch some Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixensto pass the time.
